I felt like I had nearly collapsed a lung on Javier’s joint when I was saw it streak across the desert sky. When I had cleared my airways, I pointed into the valley where I saw it land. “Javier. I think I saw a shard.”

“A shard? Out here? How far?” Javier’s tone became more excited and insistent with each question.

“Put this out, I’ll show you.” I handed Javier the joint and watched him quickly take a small hit and stub it out, leaving it just inside the flap to his tent. I was wary of leaving our camp after dark this far into the deep desert and more worried still that the drugs had caused me to imagine the pink and green darting light that I saw flash across the starry sky.

We grabbed our flashlights and I stumbled at first, unused to the weed-altered gravity haphazardly connecting my feet the loose rocks below. I dodged a saguaro and an organ pipe cactus by inches and hoped that my friend followed after. I thought that this would be a foolish quest at night, and was as much spurred on by the boredom of camping as by the curiosity of finding an actual shard.

The shards had begun falling more than a year ago. They brought havoc and wonder to a world already full to the brim with both. As though cell phones and the internet were not enough tumult for one generation, now there was the added chaos of real magic. The shards were magic incarnate. And spending even a short time with one was both the key to powers unimaginable and, in the eyes of the government, an offense of roughly the same consequence as treason.

“Teddy, I think you’re just high dude. Maybe we should just get back to camp.” Javier exclaimed from some 15 or 30 feet behind me.

“No, it’s… I know I saw it.” I shouted back as I stood still for a moment to try and figure my way around a particularly dense mound of brush and cactus. I took the long way around to be safe and came to face a tall ocotillo. On the opposite side of the plant, I spotted a faint glow. Like a matchstick about to lose its last ember, I reached down among the fallen spiny limbs of the desert vegetation and plucked from it a stone, hot to the touch and roughly in the shape of an egg.

I picked it up pinched between the fabric of my shirt sleeve and held it aloft hoping that Javier would see the faint glow. “I found it! Oh my god, I found it… Javi, what should I do?”

His shadow made its way around the same dense clump of foliage that I had and I shone my flashlight on his red and dilated eyes. “Bring it back, we can’t leave it out here.” He stated and I nodded my agreement.

I followed him back to camp. The thrill of the hunt had worn off and the weight of what we had done was bearing down on me. Now that the quarry had been found, I found myself pensive and cautious. I felt even then that I had crossed the line of demarcation that bisected my life between the time before and after finding the shard.

Our fire was still going and the skewers tipped with the greasy remains of our earlier hot dogs glistened in the light when we came back to the campsite. “Okay, let me see it.” Javier asked of me and I was more than eager to relinquish the stone. I handed the still warm rock to him.

“Do you think it really is one? Maybe it’s just some quartz. Maybe I was imagining this, Javi?” I half-plead.

“Dude, we have to see this through. We could be mages, bro!” Javi said, his eyes wide and awestruck.

“We’d be dead! Being a mage is like a million times illegal! I could murder both my moms and defile a police station and not be in half as much shit as that thing will get us in!” I tried not to yell.

Javier was enamored with the small rose-colored stone. He rolled it between both hands experimentally. “Yeah, but fuck those guys. The government doesn’t care about either of us and so what if we pick up kickass new abilities. If we don’t tell, noone’ll know. All you have to do is sleep with one these by your side for a night or two and then you’re a mage or like a wizard or whatever.”

He was obviously making an argument, maybe hoping that I would offer a good reason to throw the thing back into the brush. I was sold though. It was a horrible idea, and would almost certainly get us both killed but I knew that if I didn’t follow through, I would always wonder what magic I might have gotten from the shard. The question now wasn’t a matter of ‘should we’, but ‘how do we?’.

“Teddy, you found it; you should take it tonight.” Javier offered with all the politeness I’d come to expect from him.

“No, I still need to think about this. You can use it tonight.” I told him and I hoped he didn’t question my generosity. He was my best friend and I was treating him like a lab rat. I wanted to see if it worked before I got my hopes up. Internet wisdom declared that a shard could usually empower at least 3 people, so I wasn’t exactly hedging my bets.

Sleep was still a little way out after that, so we finished the joint Javi had left in his tent while we took turns examining the shard in our hands. We were sat next to one another around the fire, each cocooned in a pile of blankets. When my eyes began to flutter with the weight of sleep, I handed the stone back to Javi and wished him a good night. I dragged a train of ratty sheets and quilts into the tent behind me. One would think that the prospect of magic and illegal escapades would keep my minding bubbling long into the night, but snuggled up in the cold desert night; dreams came on me fast.

-I know this one. This girl. My moms hate this lady. It’s weird because I figure she’s my girlfriend because why else is she in my room. But I can control her arms and legs. My waking self has often worried that this is some inner condemnation about how I try to control others. But it doesn’t feel like that. I control her as much and as easily as I control myself. I dress her in a cute outfit and I make my way down the stairs and mama Liz is so mad. I tell her not to hurt her but my voice sounds like a muted trumpet. Her voice though, it throws me against the wall and it hurts and the only word I hear is ‘shame’.-

I woke with a start and a curious sense of unease. I didn’t take much time to sit with that before I decide to wake Javier. I unzipped my tent flap and took in the cool morning air. There  was a moment of confusion as I pondered how to knock on a tent flap and instead just called Javi’s name from outside his tent.

“Mom, I don’t even have school today” He yelled back at me, and I couldn’t be sure if he was joking or still only half-awake.

“Wake-up young Sparrowhawk. Let’s see if you can name the all the winds.” I shouted back

“I don’t need your obscure fantasy nonsense, and I didn’t need to wake up at the crack of fucking dawn, Teddy. Oh… right, the shard.” I heard him fumble about in his tent. He unzipped the opening and the dawn sun shone on his grinning white teeth.

“So am I an elf, did I turn blue or mauve over night?” He asked me, obviously believing no such thing. But I still checked him over anyway.

“Look the same to me. You slept with it next to you all night?” I asked.

“Yeah, right under the pillow. Should I try to cast something?” He pantomimed a hadouken but nothing happened.

“Maybe you need to spend more time with it.” I offered.

“I hope not, we have to get back home today. I don’t want to discover my cool new magic abilities inadvertently while I’m in public. I’d be arrested for sure.” He said while touching various items around camp and making the motions of silly casting animations from characters in video games.

“Well, we can at least wait to head home until after breakfast.” I fumbled around in the remains of our fire looking for a few embers to spark to life. Once a small flame took hold, I threw some sausages on the little travel skillet and turned on the battery powered kettle to boil water for coffee.

“I think I did something, Teddy. Something feels weird.” Javier had his hands out in front of him as though he was searching for keys in a darkened room. He stepped in front of the little campfire where I was busy working on breakfast. “What is up with that kettle, dude?” He asked.

“Nothing. It’s just boil...” and I was cut off as an arc of electricity connected between Javier’s outstretched fingers and the kettle. I scuttled back as fast as I could, and after no more than a couple of seconds, there was a pop and the arcing charge dissipated, leaving behind a smoking kettle. “Well, I guess we’re not getting coffee this morning.” I said dryly, trying to underplay the reality of what I had just witnessed.

“I did that, how did I do that?!” Javier’s eyes were wild with curiosity. He poked at the kettle with a tentative finger, and after determining that it was no longer a hazard, he turned it over in his hands. “Look, Teddy.. shit’s fried.” And he held up the bottom of the appliance facing me. The battery pack was blackened and melted; it was a fair bet that the kettle was unsalvageable.

“I feel like I still have some in me. It feels fuzzy, but not bad.” Javier said while holding a hand in front of his face. His brown eyes grew wide when a smaller arc than we had just seen rolled between the length of his index and middle fingers. “Give me something to electrocute.”

I had to admit I was just as curious to see if he could do that and looked around the camp. Not my phone, and definitely not the portable propane tank. Maybe my little Swiss army knife? “Would this work?” I asked and tossed him the folded knife. But before it had gotten within 5 feet of him, another arc of electricity issued from his hand to the little pocket knife.

“Fuck, it worked!” he exclaimed and I retrieved my knife which was warm to the touch and a little blackened.

“You melted the little plastic toothpick thingy.” I lamented, though I had never used it.

“Oh shit, the sausages.” I moved back to the fire and took the now crispy on one side sausages off the flame.

“Bro, who cares about sausages? I have electric powers. Here, take this back. Looks like it has done its job.” And he pulled the shard out of his pocket and handed it over to me. I took it cautiously and stuffed it into my jacket.

“Sucks though that you can’t ever use them.” I said before stuffing the tasty, if somewhat charred, breakfast meat into my mouth. He sat down next to me and helped himself to some sausages.

“Yeah, I guess. I wonder what I can do with it though, like maybe something small like charging my phone or like making Vera’s hair stand on end in the middle of class.” He laughed. The image of our mutual friend suddenly having all her hair sticking straight out at her desk was amusing.

“No, if someone so much as gets the faintest whiff of magic in school, the cops will be there that day putting everyone to the test.” The test was a method the authorities had to determine whether someone had magical capabilities. It took forever and was super costly. I didn’t know of anyone who had been given it, but any sort of unexplained shenanigans would most likely be met with every witness being tested.

We began packing up and clearing the campsite. We were uncommonly quiet as we both considered the weight of just what we were getting ourselves into. When the shards began falling, it seemed that almost instantaneously, the government and “concerned citizens” banded together to rush through legislation that criminalized not just the practice of magic, but the very ability to use it. Now Javier and soon, myself would be outlaws for the rest of our lives because of one rash decision.

I could still toss the shard out into the desert; I hadn’t been around it long enough. I could save myself from a future that would likely be short and painful. But it didn’t take much consideration to conclude that even without the shard, my future would be much the same. I saw no hope in this world. It was lonely, mean, and every day seemed bleaker than the last.

My dark reverie was broken when Javi asked “Do you think we could make it to Annares?” The domed city of Annares had risen from the hilly farmland of Kentucky last year. It was believed to be home to hundreds of mages and the government had a blockade that periodically pounded the translucent pink dome enveloping the city on all sides.

“I don’t think so, Javi. I mean, even if we could make it across the country without getting caught, and then make it through the blockade; how would we get through the dome itself?” I didn’t want to shoot him down, because honestly, Annares was the only hopeful prospect that I could conceive of either. He nodded; a frown etched deeply into his face.

We tossed the packed tents into the back of my old pickup and started it up to head back into town. We’d taken this trip to get away from the concerns of our day-to-day, to be free of parents and school if only for a weekend, but we were returning home with our concerns multiplied.

Driving along I-10 at a good clip, Javi turned down the already subdued music and said “You know, it’s so weird. I think I can feel it all around us, the electricity. I can feel the battery in your truck. I can feel the battery in that car too.” He said, gesturing at a small sedan in the next lane.

“Don’t blow up my truck!” I tried not to shout, but the image of our deceased electric kettle played through my mind.

“Oh my god, chill. I’m not gonna blow up your crappy truck. I’m just saying that it’s like there’s this whole other sense I have now.” I was worried that Javier’s magic could be so showy. I didn’t know if he’d be able to contain it enough to keep himself, and by association, me out of trouble.

It was just short of noon when we rolled into my driveway. Both of my moms’ cars were parked in the garage, so I expected that they would want a full report of my trip. When we got out of the truck, Javier collected his gear from the bed and headed across the street to his house. “Good luck” he shouted to me as he walked away.

I didn’t know if he was referring to the magic lottery currently happening in my pocket or just in dealing with my overprotective moms. When I came into the house, Mama Cathy was on the couch reading. She’d never held an interest in the fantasy genre before, but a couple weeks ago, she up and bought the full Harry Potter series. I offered to lend her something a little more grownup, but she seemed more focused on “supporting creators who believed in something worthwhile” whatever that was supposed to mean.

“How was your trip, dear?” She asked with her nose half-buried in Azkaban. Mama Cathy had short dark hair, pale skin, and the beginnings of the lines that shaped a face more accustomed to frowns and dour looks than laughter.

I was well versed in not stoking suspicion in either her or Mama Liz, so I gave her a quick run-down less the details wherein Javier and I were committing a capital crime. I made an excuse about a paper I had to finish for History class and made my way to my room upstairs. I couldn’t believe my luck that she was so engaged with that stupid book that she hardly gave me the slightest scrutiny.

When I got to my room, I put away the backpack I carried and after double checking the lock on the door, pulled out the shard. Getting a good look at the little pinkish white egg, it seemed at first glance unremarkable. I could probably stick it on my bookshelf and no one would be the wiser, but I was definitely not about to do that. Looking closely though, the faint striations through the crystalline structure seemed arranged in wholly unexpected little hexagons. I went to my closet door and placed it on the shelf under some long unused knee pads from my short-lived baseball career.

I quickly undressed and made my way to the shower. I turned it up blazing hot, and tried to let out a little of the stress that had been building up. Looking down at my pale, slightly chubby body through the thickening steam, I tried to imagine what magic I might get. Sure, there was the basic stuff sort of like Javier had got: people who threw fireballs or ice lances. But there was stranger stuff than that too, also milder stuff. How shitty would it be to risk life and limb for the power to transmute pineapples into top hats or something equally inane?

I didn’t even have to use the shard. I could keep it in my closet until I left for college next year. There was no good reason to use it now right under the noses of my prying moms. As much as I wanted to exercise caution, there was a part of me drawn to the shard. I briefly considered a theory I’d seen bouncing around Reddit that suggested that the shards chose their recipients.

Something that one couldn’t help but notice, at least in the beginning when these events were getting regular airtime before the government issued a media blackout on the subject, was that the people who seemed to find the shards were never people within the government. All of the people who tended to find them were kids or junkies or homeless people. Which I guess stands to reason, those kinds of people were out in the world more to notice something like a shard crashing to Earth. Even so, I wondered if there were not something out there that chose me and Javier for this. Or maybe I was just trying to justify what I already knew I was going to do.

For the rest of the day, I found it difficult to muster enough focus to finish homework or to go downstairs and help with dinner. I mostly browsed the internet to learn more about the shards. I was paranoid enough about the subject to make sure my VPN was on and that I wasn’t looking anywhere with a signed in account. Most of what I found was hearsay and not much of that. All of it had to be inferred from oblique euphemisms, since everyone was afraid to have anything with the shards connected to themselves.

When night fell, I went downstairs to get an allergy pill because I knew that there was no way that I was getting to sleep by traditional means. I was buzzing with fear and anticipation. I swallowed the pill and wished Mama Liz a good night. She made grabby arms at me, and I walked over to her to get wrapped up into one of her bear hugs. “Good night, my sweet baby boy.” she said while squeezing me close.

I shuddered as I made my way upstairs. I didn’t mind the hug; it was kind of nice. But she didn’t have to be so… I don’t know, weird.

When I got to my room and locked the door, I returned to the closet and pulled out the shard. I gave myself a moment’s pause to once again consider the weight of what I was about to do, and placed the shard under my pillow as Javier had the night before. I spent nearly an hour scrolling on my phone before sleep finally took me.

-I think when you play too many video games, this thing happens in your dreams sometimes where you flicker between a first person and third person view. So, this girl I’m always seeing, usually it’s a third person sort of thing where I control her like someone playing The Sims, and it feels like that at first. But then I’m sucked into her POV and I’m walking into English class and I’m so scared that the teacher will call roll and in so doing, utterly disintegrate me. His eyes turn on me and flash red and blue, the words “Sweet Baby Boy” destroy me and I feel my body collapse. –