Oddly, Jeffrey awoke feeling rested and refreshed.

He almost didn’t notice zipping through the house, to the bus, and then homeroom without even thinking of filling the time with videos.

The morning went as most Friday mornings: regular, with a little more calm levity than other days.

His heart sank at lunch when Gel was nowhere to be seen. And he certainly looked, spending the entire break knifing his gaze all across the courtyard and back, barely nibbling at his Friday pizza.

Later, as his afternoon classes hummed along, he wondered things like: Is it me? Did I do something? Does she hate me? Am I useless? Was it all just an illusion . . . or a joke . . . and I never really saw anything special (she just convinced me I did)? Could it have been some kind of magic trick? Maybe she knows psychology or something, and could say all the right stuff to make me think I had this power, but really I never did. Wait, what if she’s not even real? What if she’s me? What if I made her up this whole time? I hadn’t seen her before Tuesday, right? And how unlikely is that?! This isn’t that big a school. Am I crazy?

When the final bell of the day dinosaur-shrieked its way out through the ancient system, and Jeffrey drifted like debris into the sunlight, firmly ready to spend his weekend making up for lost time in terms of mindless content consumption, the sudden sight of Gel in his path knocked him back and almost to the ground. “Where were you?” he pleaded, regretting right away the whiny neediness that so obviously colored his tone.

“The Mad Doctor,” she grimaced, her voice cut by unnatural flutters.

“What?”

“He had me in before lunch. And he kept me on purpose, I think, so I wouldn’t see you.”

“What did he say?”

“Yes, he mentioned you,” she uttered in answer to Jeffrey’s unspoken concern. “He gave me this bunch of lies about admiring our gift, and told me just to keep in mind he already knows and sees it all. I played along, like every other time. And he knows I always do. There’s no getting around it. We’re enemies. He is our enemy.”

Jeffrey nodded, not sure why he remembered then how out of place Finnel had looked when lit by daylight days before. “So, what do we do?”

“The way he looked when you saw him outside . . . that was no accident. There’s a reason for it.”

The ease with which she showed she could read his thoughts made Jeffrey see himself as a newly paralyzed patient in a hospital bed, all bodily functions now carried out automatically via attached machines and tubes. It was a good thing he trusted her . . . though some part of him did take on the impossible task of trying not to think (while also trying not to try).

He was glad when she continued talking, wrenching his focus nicely away from inward garbage dumps.

“You were seeing his weakness,” she went on. “I believe we have to work to draw him outside again, away from his lair, and away from the source of his power.”

“What is his power?”

“I don’t know.” Her tone kept as even as an arrow, even as her eyes fell.

Jeffrey felt the urge to look away so as not to peer through windows which had opened to reveal the most fragile, maybe wounded heart behind that fixed eternal stare

Still, she gazed back up at him, unwavering, and declared, “If we could just get him out…”

“Yeah?”

“I wasn’t planning on telling you any of this. Not so soon. But the Mad Doctor has all the power here. I see that now. Whatever he has hidden . . . however he’s put this school together, and brought us all here so we can . . . so he can….”

Each time her voice trailed off, it opened her up a little more to Jeffrey’s inner eyes should he choose to look.

But he didn’t.

Instead, he saw what began as a rainbow, though with all the colors everywhere instead of divided into neat little lines. And there were so many more colors than he’d ever seen before, more than he’d ever been able to see. Astounded, he watched as the colors exploded outward and got sucked in at the same time, each canceling out another until all were no more.

Next, he saw instruments used for precise calculations: compasses, protractors, rulers, written formulas spanning blackboards and notebooks, diagrams like black-and-white blueprints of future structures…

He saw text, dark, on a light screen.

He also never stopped seeing Gel, at least her outline, and how her sleek hair and clothes appeared so black they made her brown skin seem almost creamy by comparison.

Then bringing his two fields of vision together, he watched all those tools and implements come to focus in Gel’s eyes . . . eyes that surely knew all facets of every truth at once, and saw to the base of every idea, concept, and thing. Hers were eyes that knew to subtract and divide even in the face of countless foolish scholar-teachers who would only go on adding and multiplying forever. They were eyes attuned to behold the ultimate and real regardless of whether whole populations might insist on delighting themselves forever in useless fantasies and frivolity.

Jeffrey almost let himself begin to believe that he alone might come to understand and appreciate the sheer magnitude held in Gel’s eyes . . . eyes he hoped to stare into for as long as he could stand the force of utter, simple, inarguable truth (and then keep staring longer than he could stand).

She glanced down again, then back up, her intensity trailed by a softer stream he decided he needed never mention.

“Ask me what you’re thinking of asking,” she breathed.

“How, or why, would Finnel bring people like us together in his school? And does that mean there are more than just us two?” The notion that he and Gel might not, in fact, be unique felt somewhat glum, though he tried not to wonder why.

“None quite like us,” she corrected, thinking. “There are other abilities. And I know you’ve already seen some of them.”

“Like what?” He immediately considered Dom, but failed to think of anything potentially supernatural about honed martial arts skills or living fully at one with one’s environment. 

She didn’t elaborate, but rather responded, “The Mad Doctor brought us together to keep us contained. To imprison us, basically. It’s so he could hold all the power for himself.”

“Seems risky,” Jeffrey offered, feeling stupid for arguing about something he knew he was just barely scratching the surface of.

“It could be risky for him, yes. But that’s up to us.” She straightened, causing all manner of tenderness and timidity to flee from her face and posture. She was again the wise teacher and warrior sage. “Only we can reach and expose his source of power. I’m sure, if we do, it will unite the others . . . the other special ones. But remember, it’s not up to us to reach those others. Not directly. That’s not how our ability works. That’s not what it’s for. We only see. What gets revealed, and what comes from that revelation, is never up to us.”

He continued to glimpse a faint hint of the extended rainbow spectrum exploding and imploding out from and into itself at once.

But now, as everything resolved to particulars and opposites, he also saw the sun touching down in the distance.

He felt himself being carried in a familiar way.

Without looking, he knew Gel was moving with him, floating over everything between where they’d been and the lines of light and shadow grazing every surface, high and low, far and near.

The light shimmered, but only as much as the darkness remained still. And it was that dance between lit movement and unlit rest which became every galaxy, star, planet, element, lifeform, atom . . . even every idea . . . each taking form, existing for a time, and then fading away to dissipation and reflection like an infinite movie sequence showing all possible degrees of action occurring across the internal screen Gel and Jeffrey shared.

The moment might have stretched on forever, though also proven to have been the briefest of measurable instants.

Jeffrey saw again all the drawings he‘d sketched in class and later regretted. Doodled faces and shapes spun into and apart from one another in turn. He heard once more every cringe-laden word he’d ever uttered thoughtlessly, watching all those painful memories be played back in a loop.

No, they entered no endless hallway. But confusing diagrams and lines of foreign text and figures did get woven as before through everything else.

All slowed and merged, settling into the same vast singularity Jeffrey knew to be everything that could ever have been.

Although there was no time, he was sure there would be again, and that at any moment (as soon as there were moments) things would change. So he looked once more in his mind to Gel . . . not an easy feat, since she too had merged along with him into the great singularity.

Nothing meant more to him, he discovered, than having her there (yes, everywhere) to experience this with him.

Even before time recommenced, he saw silly human things like emotions and imaginings start to skitter about as chemicals drained through fleshy pipes to follow tiny sparked electric connections. And as he watched such reactions buzz to flash haphazard conceptions, the whole enterprise just seemed so small, and flawed, and somewhat beautiful in a sad, over-eager kind of way.

But to be taken above and outside of it with someone else who was the same…

Blackness.

There was no gradual re-whirring of space and events. Only sudden, infinite dark. 

Jeffrey and Gel stood side by side in what he believed to be some sort of representation of Finnel’s room. He could hear Gel breathing, but sensed nothing else as seconds built steam and revved up into maybe a minute or more.

He considered inching toward her so their arms or shoulders might touch, just as an unspoken sign of connection around their joined readiness to face whatever would come. He didn’t, though, unsure what she might make of being bumped into on purpose. He knew she’d see his motives, anyway.

“Wait,” she whispered.

“How can we find anything here?” he asked.

She didn’t answer, though he suspected she’d wondered what to say and found nothing worthwhile.

Was he reading her intentions the same way she could so clearly read his?

White appeared, but not so suddenly as to be shocking or scary. Two symmetrical white mountain ranges simply sprouted and began to fill themselves in somewhere in the abject black. 

Before long, they were obviously teeth.

And once a mouth had finished forming, two little lines arced up and in from near the teeth’s top edges. These had to be eyes, though they never got any pupils. In fact, if the two lines had appeared without the mouth already there, no one would have guessed them to be eyes. It was only their relation to the smiling crescent of zigzag triangles that revealed a funny mix of frowny-clown sadness tinged with melancholy joy.

This was undoubtedly the same face Jeffrey had fought not to see in a flash that day in Finnel’s office.

Despite its razor-sharp chompers, the face came across as nice, friendly, caring, touched…

Yet how was Jeffrey so very sure Gel saw it altogether differently . . . that to her the face looked mischievous at best (and mostly evil no matter what)?

“Helloooooo,” spoke the discarnate face, it’s voice jolly and jovial, yet creaky with a broken echo like a rusty old folding chair being assembled in a big empty cave. “Welcome baaaaaaaaack. How may I help yoouuuuuuu?”

Gel and Jeffrey would have shared a look if they’d been visible.

He decided to let her speak first, which meant neither actually answered the smiling face for what felt like far too long.

“I know what you are!” hissed Gel at last, her serpentine voice perfectly clear here in the vacuum void.

“And do yoouuuuuuu?” the face motioned to Jeffrey.

“No…?” He assumed the face to be Finnel’s, or something akin to Finnel’s nature or spirit.

“It’s his hunch,” Gel sighed flatly.

“What?” He turned to her to no avail, not intending to cut the face (or . . . hunch) out of the conversation, but definitely needing more to go on.

“His hunch,” she repeated as if it would help.

“What do you mean?”

“I woooooooon’t bore you with my long taaaaaaaaale,” grumbled Hunch without losing its grin. “But I’ve beeeeeeeeeeen with the good doctor now for many, many years. We’ve paaaaartnered together, you seeeeeee. He and I . . . we do eeeeeeverything together.”

“I . . . I’m still not getting it,” Jeffrey admitted, wishing Gel would just implant the answer in his mind or something. Anything to make things easier than . . . whatever this was.

“Okay, you know how the Mad Doctor’s back is all bent, right?” She spoke slowly as if explaining the simplest of matters to someone equally slow or slower. “And at the top of his back, where it’s bent the worst, is an enormous hunch? Well, this is it. It’s his hunch. His hunch is . . . a thing. It’s talking to us.”

“Why?” Jeffrey asked, confusion eclipsing any desire he might have felt to be polite.

“Oh, Iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii can field thaaaaaaat one,” Hunch responded, its kind features beaming with unmistakable pride. “But I would haaaaaaaave to delve into legend somewhat. You ok with thaaaaaaaaaaat?”

“No,” answered Gel. “Jeffrey, we have to find the doorway, ok? Just try to ignore the hunch.”

Try to ignore the hunch. Of all the suggestions or commands he might have anticipated receiving back when he and his fellow seer companion had been transcending space and time, this probably would have been close to dead last on his list.

How should one even go about ignoring a disembodied upper back that had appeared from blackness, smile-first, and now spoke with such whimsy and poise?

“Alriiiiiiiiiiiiight, the really shooooooort version,” Hunch assured, “It all began baaaaaaack when backs were regular, and . . . and not things that could mooooooooove about on their oooooooown. It was a tiiiiiiiiiiiiiime when tree seeds, bodies of water, and proto-hunches were just staaaaaaaarting to get a haaaaaaaaaandle on how to get moved arooooooooound.”

“We’re not listening,” Gel announced. “Come on, Jeffrey.”

“I won’t take loooooooong,” promised Hunch. “Essentially, weeeeeeeee hunch-folk began to possess the elderly. They didn’t miiiiiiiiind. It’s reciprocal, you seeeeeeee? We heeeeeeelp each other.”

All wacky hunch-lore notwithstanding, Jeffrey purposed not to pay the strange being any extra mind.

Together, without saying anything, he and Gel focused their ability in every direction, bypassing and dodging Hunch as they brought their attention all around. But they found nothing. Edgeless and empty, the space left nowhere to even start to really explore.

“It is niiiiiiiiice having someone to talk toooooooo,” Hunch rumbled, bellowing with glee.

Gel seemed to want to speak, but stayed silent.

Jeffrey felt a warm tingle of surprise, having never imagined finding her at a loss for how to proceed. He caught himself almost wishing he could reassure her . . . but then forced his mind away from anything even remotely close to pity, instantly sure that such would be the last thing she’d ever want.

“I woooooooonder why you caaaaaaaame?” pondered Hunch, still performing its soliloquy before the completely non-rapt crowd of two.

“You know why!” Gel seethed. “Either show us the doorway or leave us alone!”

“Dooooooorway?” Hunch sounded offended. “Theeeeeeere is no doorway heeeeeeeere.”

“Liar!” she retorted, the upspike in emotion coloring her tone as alarming to Jeffrey as he supposed she’d want it to be to Hunch.

“I’ve never toooooooold a lie,” assured Hunch, sounding proud again. “Neeeeeeeever.”

“How did you get here?” Jeffrey asked, hoping the question wasn’t dumb.

“I aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaam here.”

Something about the added emphasis placed on that extra-elongated aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaam made obvious to Jeffrey right away Hunch wasn’t talking about placement or proximity, but something closer to identity. And not pausing to consider the particular harms a hunch suffering an identity crisis might cause, he immediately brought his mind to scale the surrounding blackness once more, now desperate for any way out . . . any path back to normalcy, and sanity, and videos, and everyone else (he thought of Mangelo Peck for some reason).

“Don’t worry,” Gel whispered. “We’re not trapped. It’s lying. I know the doorway is here, somewhere. I’ve seen it before, I think. I might have even seen it today, when I had to come see the Mad Doctor at lunch. We’re close.”

“I neeeeeeeeever lie,” repeated hunch with a growl, it’s cheshire grin flatlining and threatening to convert to what would surely prove a horrifying frown. “I know whyyyyyyyy you’re heeeeeeeere. But I waaaaaaaaarn you. There is oooooooooonly one who can defeeeeeeeeat me. Only one of whooooooom I feeeeeeeeear. And there is noooooooooo way out. Not for youuuuuuuuuu. Youuuuuuuuuuuu are trapped. I NEVER LIIIIIIIIIIIIIE!”

Jeffrey raked and ruffled his mind to remember how he’d exited this place the other time and returned to the sweet afternoon air and silly sight of the daylit Finnel. But he knew he hadn’t done anything then . . . that he’d left without having to try.

“I’ve seen the door!” Gel yelled at Hunch. “Where is it?!”

“I’ve seen youuuuuuuuuu,” chortled Hunch. “But not here. Here is ooooooooonly me.”

“This isn’t Finnel’s office, is it?” Jeffrey asked, suddenly hoping he wasn’t putting two and two together.

“Nooooooooo,” Hunch confirmed. “It’s noooooooot.”

Instantly, Gel and Jeffrey stood outside before purple twilight stretching down and away toward a golden splendor spanning the rim of the world.

He sensed the school behind them, now practically empty.

In that moment, he knew the next stage of his journey with Gel would take them down the long hallway within the school to Finnel’s actual room, and hopefully to the real hidden doorway she was so sure they’d find.

But not today. Not tonight.

He glanced sideways, and saw an unusual defeated looseness to her posture. Her arms dangled freely and purposelessly at her sides. Her chin appeared tucked in slightly. There was no fire left in her eyes. Gel, his leader and mystical guide through worlds unknown, was gone (for now). He saw only Gel, the girl . . . the person . . . the lonely, bothered soul who, having stumbled but for an instant, had watched an entire globe crash down from her shoulders.

In his eyes, she stood unhinged, unable to look up.

“It’s not your fault,” he heard himself say in a voice nothing at all like the one he’d gotten used to using all his life. “You’re right. We’ll find it. We’ll find it soon. I know we will.”

She glared back, a cornered beast ready to rise up and strike him down. But her glare gave way to waves of softness. “Thank you,” she said, perhaps sifting through and discarding for different reasons any further words to follow as a light breeze rose and gently whirred about the two where they stood.

Jeffrey, for the first time, realized he also had no thoughts to either turn into words or hold as secrets (to quickly give him away). He found himself happy just to be where they were after what they’d gone through together.

Ever so gently, he pulled his attention back from attempts at understanding what he saw of her agitated, overwhelmed, restless state . . . doing exactly as she’d trained him to do. 

Their ability was not to be used for the sake of whomever it might be used upon.

For however long, they were just two kids at their school, both more than ready to call it a day and week.