A Terminal Illness

As I had expected I didn't run for very long and had to walk most of the way. I passed numerous skyscrapers, one of them being the place where all my school friends lived, Hotel Richesse.

There weren't many houses in the above ground. Most families were small and lived in the little apartments because that was all they could afford. The people above ground were wealthy, but slowly they all seemed to be finding it harder and harder to afford the cost of living out of poverty. The only financially stable family left was my family.

By the time I finally made it the shining skyscraper that was my school I was already five minutes late. All things considered that wasn't that bad, but unfortunately that meant I would still have to do my least favorite thing, teleport.

The school had two sets of doors and two different stair cases, but they were only there for emergency evacuations. It was prohibited to use them for anything that wasn't an emergency which meant I had to teleport every day while I was at school.

For any normal person teleporting was completely harmless, but I was far from being normal.

Sighing at the inevitable discomfort, I stepped into the claustrophobic glass box and studied the glowing blue numbers in front on me. There was a code for each hallway and codes for some of the more important rooms. Normally a specific classroom wouldn't have an access code, but when you are the only son of the man who had created the teleportation devices? Well, needless to say, I had a few loopholes up my sleeve.

Groaning I punched in a long, complex series of numbers {none of which really matter to this story} and pressed the green enter button.

I'm not sure if anyone else feels like they're being slowly ripped apart when they teleport, but I know that's how I feel. My molecules dissolved around me and thorough I couldn't see, hear, smell, taste, or really touch anything I could still somehow think. I wish I couldn't think because the only thought I ever had while teleporting was whether or not I was going to reconnect correctly.

Most people don't have a problem with the whole reconnection part, but most people didn't have a disease that would inevitably lead to death. With a sick feeling I magically appeared in the middle of my math class. I'd made it... at least this time.

My stomach heaved and, for the school janitor, I made it to the metal can before I threw up my breakfast. My arms shook and my legs felt foreign. The last thing I needed was to fall and pour the garbage all over myself, so I pressed my back against the wall and slide down to the floor.

My head felt like it was splitting open and my molecules felt like they were on fire. No one really knew what was wrong with me because I normal avoided scenes like the one I was making at the moment.

Normally I wouldn't teleport in the middle of a classroom.

"Mr. Neville!" My teacher, Mrs. Gates, gasped at the sight of me. "What is the meaning of this?"

All my teachers called me by my last name. I wasn't sure why, but I'd never thought to question it. They were just being formal because my father was... well, the wealthiest man in the world.

Most of my teachers were ridiculously easy on me, but Mrs. Gates was the exception. I had a feeling I would find myself in the principal's office within the next hour.

"Distracting my class with your flamboyant entrances again!" She didn't really sound mad, just annoyed. "Well you know the routine."

I tried not to smile as I grabbed the metal can and stood to leave. "Yes mama." I said in a too chipper voice.

The world spun around me, but I managed to keep my footing and even made my way to the door. The sooner I could get out of there the better.

No one knew that I had Particle Disintegration and that's the way I liked it. I'm sure someone was smart enough to know that something was wrong with me, but they would never be able to guess the extent of my internal problems. Most people in the world didn't even know what Particle Disintegration was and those that did thought the disease had gone away forever. Even as far as I knew there was only ever one other case of the disease and that was recorded over thirty years ago when the teleportation devices were first made.

Harrison Newman, was the poor guy's name, I reminded myself as I left the classroom and headed to the boy's bathroom. I had looked up the only article I could find on my halophone one time and it hadn't been pretty. The boy was supposedly born with the inability to completely reconnect himself once his molecules were torn apart. I could never understand how anyone, much less everyone but myself, could rebuild themselves after being ripped apart, but apparently it wasn't that hard.

I set the garbage can down outside of the classroom. My dizziness wasn't gone, but the sour feeling in my stomach was fading.

Harrison Newman made his first trip through a teleportation booth at the age of five with his mother. The experience made him slightly sick, but at the time no one thought anything of it. Most people don't feel very stable after their first teleport.

The boy continued to teleport for years despite having the same symptoms I have. He would get sick and dizzy, even after all his friends could back from teleporting without a single problem.

The mother took the boy to multiple different doctors, but no one had a solution other than to stop teleporting. Most people still thought he would eventually get over it.

Harrison Newman was fifteen when he died. He went through a teleportation booth with his friends and while they can out fine, Harrison came back in pieces. Just the thought of it makes me sick. The boy had been like me. He hadn't been able to reconnect his molecules correctly and on his final try he hadn't been able to connect them at all.

Since Harrison Newman was the only reported case of Particle Disintegration, it's the only reference I have about what will happen to me. I had been teleporting since I was three which was earlier than Harrison, so there was only ever one thing on my mind when I saw a teleportation booth. My next teleport could likely be my last.

There was no cure on Earth for my problem and no one even knew I had a fatal disease.

Cold white walls and shining mirrors greeted me with my reflection as I pushed my way into the bathroom. Thankfully I was alone. I didn't have much time before I needed to be in the principal's office, so I just walked to one of the smooth grey sinks.

Splashing water across my face, I glanced at myself in the mirror. My normally olive skin was a shade lighter and slightly flushed. My eyes were as dull and lifeless as normal except for the glimmering sickness that shone in them. I ran a hand through my shaggy hair. I needed a haircut.

I looked like a young man who had just escaped death. I couldn't stand to look at myself any longer, but something in the space above my head caught my attention.

A shining silver light pulsed above my head. I couldn't take my eyes off of it. It was like nothing I had ever seen before and for a second I thought it was a hallucination.

A little, silver star was burning over my head. I reached my hand out to cautiously touch it. I didn't feel anything solid as my fingers brushed the star, but the skin that made contact with it began to burn. With a hiss my hand retreated and my eyes widened.

The world began to spin again until everything went black.

When my sight came back to me I was floating in a black vortex.

Clouds of shadows spun around me, but I couldn't feel the wind that moved them. In front of me was a spot of black as dark as pure evil. It was threatening to consume me whole and I felt myself lose my breath. Short bursts of air escaped my lungs, but nothing came in to replace it. I was drowning in a sea of darkness. It was inescapable and all consuming. I was sixteen years old and I was going to die!

I tried to move, but I was frozen in place and forced to watch as the black hole came closer. I was stuck and being sucked into an endless pit of evil. What would happen if it consumed me whole? Would I just seest to exist? Or would I find myself somewhere else? Was there another side to the black hole that floated above the Earth?

Surely that's where I was though I had no idea how I had gotten here. I'd been in the school's bathroom just a second ago.

Just when I was sure that I would pass out from the absence of oxygen in the air, the little burning star shot out of the black hole. It was the only light in an endless darkness. As pure as a flower in a minefield.

But not as nice as a flower as it slammed into my chest. The little star burned against my chest and I screamed with the last of my oxygen. A fire was lit inside of my heart as the star burned into my center.

Suddenly I could breath, but my suffocation had been replaced by a pain much worse. It felt like a hot knife was slowly being pressed into my heart. But soon that was gone. Once the burning had reached my heart it had turned cold and the burnt skin from where the star had entered on the left side of my chest healed itself until all that was left was a little black scar. It looked like a tattoo in the shape of star no bigger than a thumbnail.

I wasn't sure what had happened, but I felt okay. I was still suspended in a black hole, but at least I could breath. Thunder seemed to rumble around me. Could it storm in a black hole?

I rubbed my finger over the small black star. The skin warmed at my touch, but it wasn't an unpleasant feeling. I wasn't sure what it was, but I was sure there was something inside of me. The star had went inside of me, but it hadn't come back out.

Was it even possible that a star could be inside of me?

There was no way. I had to be hallucinating. Maybe my Particle Distagretation had finally killed me. Was this death?

The thunder grew louder until the black hole seemed to shake. But it wasn't thunder... it was a voice! A voice so loud and low I couldn't understand what it was saying. It sounded like a warning with the bits and pieces I could put together.

"As the darkness grows..."

"One star in the black of night..."

"The souls of a great fight..."

By themselves the phrases didn't make much sense, but I had a feeling they would be important. I closed my eyes and repeated the words over and over in an attempt to memorize what I was hearing. Right before I woke from the black hole I heard a new phrase. Words that sent a cold shiver through me.

"They will come through a black hole..."

I opened my eyes to a pure white sky. Actually it was the bathroom ceiling that greeted me. My forehead hurt and with a tentative hand I felt the damage. Sticky red warmth dripped as I pulled my blood stained hand away and to where I could see it. Rubbing the crimson liquid between my fingers I slowly pushed myself off the floor.

I must have hit my head on the sink when I had passed out because the reflection that looked back at me looked worse for wear. I'd looked sick before, but now a corpse was studying me on the other side of the mirror.

Blood slowly dropped down my face and into my hair from a cut on my forehead. Head wounds typically bleed a lot, but this was more than a normal cut. I would probably need stitches and soon, but there was one last thing I had to check before going to principal's office.

Pulling my shirt over my head I looked at my chest and groaned. I wasn't sure if I should be happy or scared or maybe both. The little black star glowed dimly on my chest pulsating to my heart beat.

There was no way the star could have been there. It couldn't be really. I must have just hit my head too hard?

Shaking a little I put my shirt back on and looked at the blood smeared on it. The shirt was green and one of my favorites. I couldn't help, but feel dismayed at the blood that now stained it. Sure I had better things to worry about, but still. It was my favorite shirt.

Not daring to shake my head at myself I grabbed a paper towel and pressed it to my head with a wince. It wouldn't do much good, but it was still better than nothing.

The hallways were empty in a disturbing way. Sure most people were in class, but normally I would see at least one other person. Students constantly tried to find reasons to get out of class. Yet there I was walking to the principal's office in a seemingly abandoned skyscraper school.

To one side of me were all the lockers and to the other was the large windows that were there in replacement of an actual wall. This morning had looked like it was going to rain with grey clouds and a wet smell, but now the sky was worse. For a second I thought the black hole had consumed Earth. The sky was completely covered in clouds as dark as the shadows that still clouded my mind.

I took a second to stop and look at the sky past the dark clouds. Nothing could be seen other than a slightly darker black that was the black hole. I looked down to see the grey slate floor reflecting the shade of the sky and making the ground look like an endless pit. If I went outside maybe I would fall out of the world forever.

A streak of lightning split the sky and made me jump back. Soon after thunder rumbled so loud the school shook. Feeling less than safe as the lights flickered I decided to skip the principal's office and go straight to the school nurse. I was still bleeding steadily and it wouldn't do me any good to pass out from blood loss in the middle of an empty hallway.

The wind began to pick up as I increased my speed. It was so dark and the sound of my footsteps made me jumpy. I felt like someone was following me, but I couldn't bring myself I turn around and check. I just needed to to get the nurse's office. I just needed to get to another person and I would be okay.

Thunder cracked and I walked faster. This time I looked over my shoulder, but no one was there. That didn't decrease my dis-ease. If anything it only made me more paranoid.

The lights flickered and I felt my heart skip a beat. I couldn't remember the last time I was this scared, but I also couldn't remember the last time a storm was so strong to make the school sway.

I wanted more than anything to go home, but we would never be allowed to leave. Rain and hail hit the windows and I had a terrible thought that the windows would break and I would be sucked outside to my death.

Suddenly the lights went out and that's when it happened {that's when the last events of my life began}.