Meanwhile, speeding down the road on her scooter, Alyson made her way towards the college’s residence. Usually, she followed the traffic laws, but tonight was an exception. It was one of the rare times she broke the speed limit. Alyson wasn't even certain why she was so anxious, though. There were a million other reasons why Vicky and Brendan didn’t answer their phones, and Dwayne said he’d check on them for her. So, why the hurry? Everything’s okay… Alyson nervously repeated to herself before slowing down to turn a corner but, to her shock, she had to abruptly swerve to avoid an oncoming pedestrian. She slammed on her hand brakes as fast as she could before her diverted path sent her into the ditch across the street. Alyson came to a screeching halt several meters behind the pedestrian, leaving skid marks on the pavement.
“Jesus Christ!” She exclaimed, her tone somewhere between anger and concern. Alyson looked behind herself with haste to see who she had avoided, but found that he had fallen over to a sitting position on the ground. A sketchbook lay next to him as well. She quickly kicked down her scooter’s kickstand and ran towards the man, removing her helmet in the process. However, as she approached and saw his face, she recognised him. “Connor?”
He was sweating and shaking as though he had just seen something terrible, and upon seeing Alyson he became even more unsettled.
“Hey, what’s wrong? Did I clip you? Are you hurt anywhere?” Alyson asked and went to touch his arm, but Connor viciously pushed himself away.
“Don’t touch me!” He yelled then grabbed the sketchbook that was on the ground. He hugged it so tightly that creases began to form. “Don’t come near me!” His voice was loud, louder than Alyson had ever heard him, or anyone she knew had ever heard him. But it instantly returned to its usual, subdued tone. “Please…”
“Connor, what happened? Did I do something wrong?”
He rapidly shook his head.
“Then why—“
“I don’t know! You just shouldn’t touch me! What if I can do something else? What if you get hurt?” He yelled again, but this time tears started streaming down his face and his breathing became erratic.
Alyson wanted; needed to get closer to him but she knew that’d only make things worse. Thus, her only option was to try and calm him down from afar. What should I do? What can I do?
“I, uh, I don’t understand what’s going on, but please let me help you. I’ll stay over here if you really want, but tell me what’s wrong; what I can do.”
Connor looked over at Alyson, still crying and breathing heavily. “I… I can’t explain it… It d-doesn’t make any sense… Y-You won’t b-believe me…”
“Hey, that’s okay. I’m here. Connor, I’m right here. I’ll listen.”
Connor kept panicking for a little while longer; his head and eyes looking around as he searched for, and gathered, his thoughts. Finally, after a few minutes, he began to calm down; not by much, but by enough.
“Can… Can I come closer?” Alyson softly asked, seeing his slightly calmer demeanour.
Connor weakly nodded, and she slowly approached him.
“Connor, please, tell me what’s wrong?”
He stayed silent for a while, opening and closing his mouth as if to say something but retreating at the last minute. Alyson was patient with him, though. Finally, he spoke anew, but in whimpers.
“I was… I was at home sketching when that earthquake hit and then…” His grip tightened around the sketchbook and he started shaking again.
“Go on.”
“…Everything had shaken so much. Everything was on the ground… I was on the ground… M-My hand happened to land on my sketchbook when I fell and when… When I… When I moved my hand, what I had drawn wasn’t on the paper anymore…”
“What do you mean?” Alyson said, confused. “Are you saying that it was erased or something?”
“No no!” Connor briskly shook his head. “It was lying on top of the paper, exactly what I had drawn. It was a physical thing that I could pick up…”
Alyson’s eyes thinned as she tried to understand what Connor was saying, but for the life of her, she couldn’t. It made no logical sense.
“Connor… During the earthquake, how did you fall?” She asked.
Connor stared at Alyson, his eyes expressing hurt yet they were also unsurprised. He then turned away and loosened his grip around his sketchbook. He opened it to an empty page and pulled out the pen that was tucked between the spiral binding.
Is he going to draw out what he meant? Alyson thought.
Connor took in a deep breath. “Tell me an object…”
Alyson couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow, but didn’t protest. “Uhh… A hairpin?”
Connor didn’t respond, but bit his bottom lip and began to draw a hairpin. Alyson, on the other hand, was very confused but stayed quiet until he was done, which didn’t take long at all. The hairpin he had drawn was of a simple design, but it looked life-like. The shading was just right and it was to scale, but the significance of it was still unknown.
“Connor, why did you draw that?” Alyson started to become skeptical, but she got no response again.
Connor placed his pen back between the spiral binding then rested his fingers on top of the drawing of the hairpin. As he lifted his fingers from off the page, the particles of ink from the pen followed. The page itself lifted as well, but it was like watching someone remove a stamp from its wax backing. The particles of ink swirled underneath his fingertips and formed the image of the hairpin he had drawn. Gravity then took over and it fell on to the page, in all its three-dimensional glory.
Alyson was stunned. Not shocked, not scared, not even surprised, just paralysed in wide-eyed awe by whatever it was she had just witnessed. Coherent sentences could barely form in her mind, only individual words. She shifted her eyes over to Connor, making eye contact, and saw that he was desperately waiting for a response from her, but little did he know that she was doing the same thing for herself. It was the most incredible thing she had ever seen, but for some reason she had trouble saying it because ‘incredible’ didn’t quite grasp how she truly felt. However, her window of response was quickly closing as Connor’s face started to tense up and his eyes glossed over as he tried his best to hold back tears. Alyson rummaged as quickly as she could through every word she knew, but none were appropriate until one suddenly stood out above the others…
“Prodigious,” she muttered.
“W-What?” Connor stuttered as he didn’t know the definition of that word.
Alyson reached out and, although she hesitated for a moment, she picked up the black hairpin. “It means that something or someone is remarkably or impressively great,” she smiled.
Connor was dumbfounded. He didn’t expect that. He opened his mouth to say something when Alyson’s ringtone interrupted him.
Alyson took her phone out of her coat pocket and saw that it was Dwayne. She apologised to Connor before answering.
“Hey Dwayne—“
“Alyson! The rez building… It’s—” Dwayne shouted in a panicked breath before static interrupted him.
“What? Dwayne, what’s wrong with rez?” Alyson asked, her stomach regaining the tightening feeling from before.
“—It’s—falling apart!”
Alyson felt her heart drop as those words echoed in her thoughts and, in that same instance, the hairpin between her fingers suddenly disintegrated into gray dust.
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