Funny Tragic Crazy Magic (Tragic Magic Book 1) (24 page)

Department of
the Army

Magical Division

Memorandum for: General Patricia Walden

Director of Magical Assimilation

U.N. Army

Subject: CHEBEAGUE JOURNALS

General Walden,

Please find enclosed the journals of Sam Ryan, Anastasia
Merrithew, and Juliette Riley. We have been unable to recover the journals of
the other students involved. Since the disaster at Chebeague Academy, fourteen
students are still missing, and the cause of the explosion remains unknown.

I caution that the Six should remain under my direct
supervision, for the safety of the American people.

I await further orders.

Dr. Ann Felix

U.N. Army

Sam
Freaking Ryan

I always told everyone I wanted to be
a mage when I grew up. Which was, apparently, how irony looks when it wears my
clothes. I didn’t mean it when I said it… or I guess I didn’t realize I didn’t
mean it.

I didn’t think it would hurt to get
infected with magic. I didn’t think of the consequences. All I could see were
the flashing lights, and my work in the paper. All I could see was the power. I
never saw the fear.

Mom did though. Whenever I said
anything about magic, my mom would look at me sharply and then change the
subject. For years, whenever anything came on the news about mages, or the MPB,
or even a joke on late night television, my mom would shut it down quickly. I
learned not to mention magic to my mom, or that some of the other kids and I
would play mage at recess. My bio-dad and I would talk about it all the time,
but as soon as Mom walked into our supervised visits, we would stop speaking.

Magic was a game then. It was fun,
but in a secret ‘Don’t tell Mom’ kind of way.

And then one day it stopped being
fun. In about fifth grade, some of the bigger kids started playing mage with us
at recess as Magic Protection Bureau agents. One day Spencer Teriolli pushed me
down to the ground, and spit in my face before he and his cronies locked me
away in the janitor’s closet. They called me fairy-boy -- as if mages and
fairies were all in one lump sum of make-believe creatures. It wasn’t until
almost a year later that I realized they were calling me gay.

Idiots.

I don’t know why Spencer and his
friends chose me, but no matter what I did, they wouldn’t stop tormenting me.
And I didn’t get it. I wasn’t weird, not like Phil Green, or dirty, or poor,
or… The only thing that made any sense was that I loved magic. That’s the only
thing I knew I was doing wrong. So I started to blame magic for every time they
hit me, or every time they tried to trip me in the halls, or every time a
pretty girl flirted with me and then laughed at me for believing she meant it.

They didn’t torture me because of
something I did, or because of something I was. It was just that they knew
magic was filthy, and they smelled it on me.

Then one day, Mom got a new job and a
new husband, and everything changed for the better. We moved across the
country, my step-dad adopted me, and Spencer Teriolli became just a monster
that lurked in the back of my head. All of a sudden, we had a lot more money
and a bigger house. I got a stepsister, which was kind of cool; I always wanted
a sibling. Mom was gone all the time working, but when she’d take her vacations
we’d all go on amazing trips to Bali, Italy, and Australia. I had everything I
ever wanted. I wore clothes that cost more money than some people spend on
cars.

But best of all, I met Katie. She
liked me. All the kids liked Sam Ryan. Athletic, wealthy Sam Ryan, who had a
girlfriend. Sammy Rodriguez, the nerd/magic freak was left behind in Omaha, and
I didn’t miss him.

Life was easy. Katie made all of the
decisions, and I never even had to try. I was automatically popular, and it was
all because of Katie. Katie was amazing. She was the kind of girl who walked
into a room and every head would turn. I always felt honored that she would let
me stand next to her, but I never got why she picked me. I tried to deserve
her, but no matter what romantic thing I did for her, I always felt like she
was the one rescuing me.

I couldn’t mess something like that
up. I tried to be the kind of person she could love. The kind of guy she
deserved. I knew not to mention magic, or mages, or that I cared about that
kind of thing.

But I still did. I followed the
destruction of Austin, and the Mexico City Mage Incident online without Mom or
Katie knowing about my preoccupation with magic. I wanted to hate it. Hate the
mages the way I’d been taught. But I couldn’t stop looking, no… needing to know
everything I could about magic. I know people feared them, and I’d try to
remind myself to hate them, but the power of it just filled me with a sense of
wonder. Those Prophecy gurus at the international markets, who shifted the
world’s economy with a grunt, those men and women in the military who used
their magic to defend our country in amazing and terrifying ways, or those
techno mages who invented gadgets and apps that made everyone’s lives easier...
How could I hate them? It seemed to me that a mage under control was an awesome
thing, no matter what my mom warned.

The rogue ones though, those
afflicted with the first sign of the infection -- the insanity… yeah, they
terrified me. I wasn’t the only one they scared. But the asset of a mage on a
leash was enough to allow the risk, so Congress rightfully granted an amnesty
to mages within the first 24 hours of the infection. The rest of us just prayed
to stay out of their way.

Madness was the trade off, and we
were all told it passed quickly and didn’t return. But the internet was filled
with people who thought the madness was an ever-present threat. Everyone I knew
worried that any of those well-revered mages could level a city block at any
moment.

Maybe that’s why I never suspected
Mom was a mage. She never seemed cool enough to be one of them.

To be fair, Mom saved my life when
she infected me. We were on our way home from the store, and I was texting
Katie about when I’d pick her up for a movie. Mom was on one of her “Sam
Weekend” kicks she often had before going back into work, and I couldn’t wait
to be released so I could see Katie again.

The BMW smelled like groceries --
cold milk, and plastic bags. My feet were perched on the edge of the leather
seats, my forearms against my knees as I typed on my phone. My mom looked down
to change the radio station, glanced back up, and then the car swerved sharply
to the left. I barely had time to look up before the semi truck crashed into
us. The driver’s white knuckles squeezed against his steering wheel as the
truck careened toward us. There was an awful screeching sound, my mom’s hand
swung against my chest, and we started spinning.

Glass shattered and flew all around
me, stinging my skin. Outside the car the world flipped and spun over and over.
Through it all, the radio played a Beyond Breathing song. We stopped with a
devastating thud, and I couldn’t feel my legs.

I blacked out from the pain, or the
shock of it, I don’t know. I woke for like a second, as mom banged on the
ceiling and screamed for help. We were both upside down, and I hung with the
seatbelt holding me to the seat. I couldn’t feel the seatbelt as it pinned my
legs. Pain ran everywhere in the top half of my body, but about halfway down
the pain was missing, leaving only a cold numbness below. I blacked out again,
and then woke when this acid feeling soaked into my chest from under my mom’s
hands.

“Mi amor, lo siento. I’m so sorry,”
my mom whispered, as tears ran down her face, leaving lines of makeup down her
cheek. It hurt so bad, like fire, and lightning, and salt on a wound. I could
feel the Healing burn up every inch of my body, down to my toes.

“I can feel them,” I said. “I can
feel my toes.”

My mom Healing me gave me the MTD.
For a few moments, I was scared, and grateful to be alive, but then the madness
took me and turned me rogue. I couldn’t control what I was doing. I watched as
someone else moved my body, said my words, used my magic. It felt as if I were
drowning inside someone else’s life.

Whole patches of time just skipped
like I was flipping channels. There was fire everywhere, echoes of pain, and
inhuman screaming.  It was jarring, the sudden change between the chaos of real
life, and the numb hollow emptiness of time lost to my memories. I felt as if I
sucked my head underwater, and kept coming up for air with smoke and fire
scarring the edges of my vision.

In the middle of the street, the semi
truck was cut in half, right down the middle. Smoke and embers licked the
scorched edges. All that was left of the front seat was this blackened lumped
shape that I prayed to God wasn’t the driver. The air was filled with the smell
of burnt hair. Fire blazed up my arms, and it didn’t hurt.

I tried to catch my breath as I
looked around, but I couldn’t fill my lungs. It was like I was breathing
through a straw. Police lights ricocheted across the street. Three black SUVs
came to a stop behind the police cars, and MPB agents flooded out. My mom put
her hands up, but they shoved her to the asphalt, and then circled me with
their guns aimed at my head. A wave of madness trickled in, and every one of
the MPB agents had Spencer Teriolli’s face.

I didn’t want him to hurt me again.
And I wasn’t going to let him.

A whole patch of time was gone, and
all I could remember are these flashes of reality through this wall of black.
The fire and smoke followed behind me. Every time I woke up, I was running
somewhere different, with smoke seeping from my skin. I didn’t understand where
I was in most of the places that appeared in the flashes of cognizance, but I
knew Katie’s house when I saw it. She came out to greet me. For a second, as
she put her phone into her purse, it was like before I had been infected. Her
body was perfection in a bright yellow summer dress. Her skin was a warm
caramel from being outside so much, and her long dark blonde hair was pulled
back into a ponytail.

“I was starting to get worried,” she
said as she rummaged through her purse for her keys to lock up. “You never
texted me back.”

She locked the door and turned to me.
Horror flashed over her perfect face, and she dropped her keys.

“Sam,” her voice was empty, “your
arms.”

Flames danced across my forearms.

“No,” she took a step back. Tears
pooled in her eyes, and in that second, I saw the death of our relationship.
Years of my life ended in that second.

I put my hand out to her, “I’m
running.” I said stupidly, “run with me.”

I really thought she would. I thought
we were enough, that our love was enough to start a life on.

“Sam,” she said my name like she was
saying goodbye. “No. I can’t.” Her long dark blonde ponytail tossed as she
shook her head, as she whispered no over and over and over. The darkness seeped
into my vision as my heart broke.

“It’s the magic,” I said. “You don’t
love me enough.”

“That’s not true.”

“If you love me, you’ll run with me.”

“Sam…” she pleaded.

“Maybe you never did.”

Katie closed her eyes, and I knew. “I
could kill you, you know.” My words shook us both. I wanted to deny them. I
wanted to protect Katie, but my madness was coming back and destroying my
ability to control my actions. I could feel it leaking through my fingertips,
and that cold blackness that took patches of my life clouded into the corners
of my vision. It was that second that I realized that Crazy Sam was a very bad
person, and I couldn’t live his life for another second.

I dropped the magic, but the flames
on my arms threatened to come back. I fought against myself, against my
insanity, against the darkness that threatened to swallow me. If I didn’t win,
Crazy Sam would kill her. I knew it. Katie didn’t walk away. She could have run
inside her house, but she didn’t. I think she saw what I was trying to do, and
she wanted to help. She wanted to rescue me, the way she always did.

I stood still as my body fought
against me, as every insecurity stabbed at me, trying to make her pay for me
not being good enough to deserve her. I screamed a red hot rage at the loss of
everything. The blackness filled my vision, until all I could see was Katie’s
bright blue eyes. I held onto all that blue, and Katie saved me. I wouldn’t
move my body, I wouldn’t let Crazy Sam win.

Katie stepped closer to me, and
kissed me. She tasted like her tears, or maybe they were mine. I’m not sure.

The MPB agents pulled their black
SUVs into Katie’s cul-de-sac. “Run, Sam,” Katie said, pulling my arm.

“Without you I have nowhere to run,”
I said, fighting to control my mouth, and knowing those words were my goodbye.

“Step away from the mage,” an MPB
agent yelled from her car. Guns were raised and pointed at us. I could feel
them on me, the lasers shaking as they lit my shirt red.

“Go, Katie,” I said. Katie shook her
head and clung to my arm. I flexed my hands and the fire burst from my
fingertips. Katie took a step back. “They’ll kill you, Katie.”

Katie took three steps backwards, and
then turned and ran into her house. The MPB agents caught up with me then, and
they shoved me onto the grass on Katie’s yard. Katie’s parents looked on,
holding Katie back from the window. It was the same window we had stood in
front of to take our prom pictures. I tried to watch her, to see her for the
last time, though at the same time, I didn’t want her to see me like this. I
didn’t want her to smell the magic on me.

I felt a needle prick at the back of
my neck and I blacked out, knowing Katie was safe.

I woke up, locked in a hospital room
with yellow green walls, leather straps, and needles in my arm. It smelled like
formaldehyde, and bleach. There were armed MPB agents stationed at my door, and
nurses and doctors that kept me under constant watch. Crazy Sam kept making
appearances, and when I’d wake up I’d notice more scorch marks on the ceiling.