Roger
“Dude, you’re so wrong. So completely wrong.”
Ian’s smile on his face was an uncomfortable shade of smug, the sort that attracts contempt and sneers in equal measure, and were he a character in fiction it would have identified him as the unlikable antagonist within seconds of appearing.
Roger looked at that smile and had to breathe hard to not lose his temper.
“How can you be so stupid. It’s insane, really. You would have thought that at some point you might have realised how incredibly idiotic that opinion is and you would have…”
And there Ian could no longer finish his sentence, because he was drowning in his own blood. Roger’s fist clenched in mid air as an invisible pressure strangled Ian’s throat and crushed his bones. The young man gasped and wheezed for air, each painful exhalation becoming more and more panicked. It was only approximately five seconds, but in his sheltered suburban life he had never experienced pain anywhere near that level, and each moment was more nightmarish than the previous one. The world became black and soft, and then, as suddenly as it had arrived, the pain ceased, the blood disappeared, and Ian found himself standing, clutching an intact neck with nothing but the memory of the most excruciating instants of his existence.
“What was that?” he managed to stammer.
“I crushed your windpipe because you were being a real bellend,” Roger replied, nonchalantly. He seemed to have gotten over his previous irritation.
“How… what… how?”
“I possess powers beyond your comprehension. I can manipulate matter, conjure fire and darkness, and other things. It’s all very impressive.” Roger sounded almost bored.
By now, words had deserted Ian, and only incomplete syllables reached his lips. Roger ignored him, and he kept going.
“I come from another world, a very different universe. My name isn’t Roger, I’m not human, I don’t look like this.”
“What are you, then?” Ian asked. Were it not for the searing pain still in his memory, more precise than anything else he could recall, he would have questioned his sanity. But it all seemed oddly true.
“It’s too complicated. But what you need to know is that I’m a wanted man.”
“A wanted man?”
“Yes, for my crimes.”
“What crimes?”
“Ah, don’t worry about it. The subtleties would be lost on you.”
Ian didn’t know what to say.
Roger helpfully provided. “I may seem powerful to you, but those who seek me are more powerful still. I have to constantly run and hide, slipping between dimensions and changing worlds, trying to evade them at every turn. And that means never using too much of my powers, lest they figure out where I am. ”
“And what happens if they do?”
“They’ll imprison me, torture me, strip me of my powers. Very unpleasant, I can assure you. So I just need to lay low, and that means not using these reality-altering powers of mine.”
“But you just…”
“Killed you and returned you to life. Yes, I found the limits of my predicament. Apparently just about three minutes is the most I can reveal my powers for without getting detected, provided I leave no trace of them. Speaking of…”
Roger snapped his fingers.
Ian blinked, dazed for a few seconds, and then put on that face, that face that he always put on when Roger wiped his memory.
“Dude, you’re so wrong. So completely wrong.”
Roger sighed sharply, then smiled back. “You’re such a tosser. I wanna kill you when you act like this way.”
Ian laughed. “I’d like to see you try, you twat.”
Thank you for reading. If you enjoyed this story, you can subscribe for free here to receive new ones when they are published. You may find the full archive of Storie Brevi here.