Several days passed. Wilkins had not gone back into work the day after his strange encounter; he had not gone back to work at all since, in fact. So concerned was he for his own mental wellbeing — seeing things that clearly could not be true was probably, after all, a sign that something was very wrong indeed — that he’d taken himself straight to his doctor and demanded to be signed off work with stress.
As he sat in his bed, staring at the wall, he wasn’t sure that taking himself out of situations involving other human beings had been quite the right thing to do. He found himself alone with his thoughts, and his thoughts, it turned out, weren’t overly friendly. They seemingly wanted him to suffer, to recall bad things that had happened in the past — and to worry about bad things happening in the present. He knew that even as he sat there, motionless, the enquiry into the disappearance of Thompson would be doing its best to trawl up any evidence of negligence on the part of Wilkins, and Wilkins knew full well that there was plenty of it, given his general feeling of detachment and disillusionment that he’d been feeling recently.
He’d lost count of the days since he’d last been in to work; he reckoned maybe a week or more. His house had been well-stocked with food and other supplies, though, so he hadn’t needed to leave once, and so he hadn’t. Now, though, he was starting to get down to the food at the back of the cupboard — things that had been bought and forgotten about months, even years ago, but which were designed to see people through an apocalypse with at least a bare minimum of nutrition.
He got up and walked to his kitchen, boiled the kettle and prepared a cup full of noodles for himself. The smell that emanated from the mug was less than appetising, but at least it was something to eat, and Wilkins had found, ever since delving into the food at the back of the cupboard, that the artificial flavourings in these instant “meal in a pouch” things were surprisingly tasty and satisfying, at least in the short term; he felt hungry less than an hour later, in most cases, but at least they provided something to do, if nothing else.
He hadn’t had a repeat of the encounter in his bedroom since it had happened, and he struggled to understand its implications. Who was the strange, shadowy figure? What happened to his room? What did it all mean? Was it real, or was it just a manifestation of the pressure his brain was feeling at the moment?
It wouldn’t be long before he’d get an answer.
* * * * *
Magnus deftly hopped from rooftop to rooftop noiselessly, breaking his fall each time with wings of darkness. He’d been surprised and delighted at how quickly he’d come to understand the peculiar changes that had come across him, and he was starting to enjoy using them. The shadowy figure, which occasionally showed up and suggested that he maybe try doing things a little bit differently, had helped him on his path, but for the most part he had explored his capabilities for himself and come to realise that he was, in human terms, virtually indestructible and capable of numerous physics-defying feats.
The strange black tendrils that could now erupt from his hands to order proved to be his most versatile assets. In just the last few days, he’d used them to climb up a seemingly unscalable wall, to give a mugger — and, for that matter, his victim — the fright of his life, and as a somewhat self-satisfied demonstration to the shadowy figure one evening, to retrieve a coffee cup from the kitchen without leaving his seat.
One thing had bothered Magnus initially. Although his new powers were exciting — not to mention a little bit frightening — they did have one impact on his life that he wasn’t sure what to make of: they served to distance himself further from normal existence. There was no way around this, of course, and he knew this: there is no way that one can become capable of superhuman leaps between buildings, physics-defying stunts and the ability to summon dark tendrils to do one’s bidding and in any way hope that one’s life would remain in any way “normal”. But still it bothered him a little, at least to begin with: as time passed and he grew more confident with each of his strange powers, however, it started to bother him less and less; he started to realise that his “normal” existence was nothing but a dark and miserable place where very few people cared about him — Dora being the obvious exception — whereas now, now he had the ability to make a difference, both for good and for ill: his powers gave him the ability to both help and hurt, and, in an attempt to understand the situation better — and at the urging of the shadowy figure — he had done both of these things.
Both the “helping” and the “hurting” had come in the aforementioned case of the mugger. Magnus had been out practising his ability to leap and float between rooftops when he had spotted the unfolding situation in a darkened alley he was familiar with from a few years back: although unlit and rather frightening to walk through late at night, it was a popular thoroughfare for student revellers returning from an evening’s debauchery at a local nightclub: it was a quick, direct route between the street which housed both the nightclub and a fine selection of questionable kebab shops, and the main student residential area in the city. Because of its popularity and usual level of activity, it remained surprisingly free of crime; certainly during Magnus’ time as a student, he’d never known of anyone getting attacked there. The girl had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
She’d been walking home slightly unsteadily; she was tipsy, but not falling-down drunk. She was, however, alone; a disagreement with her friends earlier in the evening had seen her storm off in anger, desiring nothing more than to get back home to her nice warm bed and forget about the silly things alcohol makes people do. A lone, vulnerable girl had proven too tempting a target to resist for her assailant, who had been casually walking back and forth around the area, up and down the alleyway, for the past hour or two. So unremarkable a figure he cut that no-one had paid him any mind; most people passing through the area were on their way somewhere, so had no way of knowing that he had been loitering with intent. But he had.
He’d followed the girl in the alleyway and struck quickly, grabbing her from behind and covering her mouth, threatening her not to scream. Then he shoved her violently against a wall and drew a pocket knife. She couldn’t have screamed even if she did think it was a good idea; she was too terrified to even move, let alone make a sound.
Magnus saw all of this, as did the shadowy figure, who had been accompanying him. She urged him on to intervene, to test out his powers and the way in which he should respond to a situation. She encouraged him not to think, just to feel, and to do what felt most natural, to do what his instincts told him to.
Magnus had leapt down into the alleyway, floating noiselessly to the ground a short distance from the confrontation. The lack of lighting in the alleyway meant that his entrance had gone unnoticed; the pair were still far too preoccupied with their own situation.
Before he could let himself think about what was the “right” thing to do, Magnus caused the black tendrils to erupt from his hands, and they charged through the night air until they ensnared the girl’s assailant. They wrapped around his legs and around his body, binding him like a constrictor snake traps its prey, and slowly started to squeeze the life out of the mugger. Gasping for breath, his face going pale, the mugger attempted in vain to remove the tendrils from around his body, but they were far too tight, and touching them gave him an indescribable sensation of terror that he had no desire to repeat ever again.
He knew that he was going to die; he resigned himself to it. Magnus felt it, and he knew he had to make a choice, quickly. Without hesitation, he retracted the tendrils, which reversed their course and coiled back into his hands — rather like a vacuum cleaner cord retracting, Magnus thought with detached amusement — to leave the breathless mugger collapsing to his knees, gasping for sweet, sweet air.
The girl, meanwhile, who had been frozen to the spot during this otherworldly display, came to her senses enough to realise that this would be a good opportunity to run far, far away and, perhaps, to never, ever come out from under the covers again.
Tonight, Magnus had come across no such incidents that required his intervention, but he knew now that if he did, he would not hesitate to step in. He had, in his lifetime, read enough superhero comics to know that he needed to use his power responsibly, but he figured that no-one would really object to a few more muggers being taken out of commission.
He wasn’t on the hunt for crime tonight, though; he had a greater purpose in mind. The shadowy figure had earlier explained to him the situation of Officer Wilkins, who appeared to be teetering on the cusp of the Darkness. It was Magnus’ job to keep him safe and ensure the Light didn’t get to him first; it was Magnus’ job to ensure that Wilkins didn’t end up as another Stacey Barman.
When he thought of the Light, he couldn’t help but think of Dora. He hadn’t seen her for several days; hadn’t even heard from her. Simple, normal things like text messages and phone calls seemed to mundane in the context of his new existence, but he still found himself missing her and worrying about the plans the golden figure had for her; he found himself worrying that they’d end up in a confrontation with one another, and that one would end up having to hurt the other — something that he knew neither of them wanted to do, despite the opposing sides on which they’d found themselves in this otherworldly conflict.
He couldn’t get hung up on that now, though; he had more important things to do. He was approaching Wilkins’ home — the shadowy figure had known right away where to send Magnus, much to his surprise — and he had a job to do. He hoped that it would be a boring and uneventful job, but he had the sneaking suspicion that, going by the pattern of recent happenings, things were probably not going to be that simple at all.
And he would, it transpired, be right about that.
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Great stuff.