On a cold winter's evening, Jimmy, Stevie and Sunset were sitting in the living room, Stevie was playing his guitar and singing Christmas songs, occasionally Jimmy would chime in and repeat a line.
The room was decorated with all sorts of decorations, in the corner stood a beautiful tree, the tree was decorated with Christmas ornaments and an angel at the top.
“How about that Jimmy,” Stevie began as the strum of his guitar stopped. “We’re gonna be living with two new people soon.”
“Oh yeah, Rainbow’s gonna meet them at the train station tomorrow morning,” Sunset added in a weary voice.
“Everyone will be happy to have you here Jimmy!” Jimmy said excitedly.
“You said it,” Stevie gave a short laugh as he sank back into the couch. Sunset rose, yawning and stretching as the curtain of night fell upon them.
“I’m going to bed,” Sunset gave a few parting words. “You fellas oughta do the same, got a big day ahead of us.”
“You fellas oughta do the same!” Jimmy said getting up and running to the door.
“Jimmy, don't run!” Stevie warned him, turning in the direction of the door.
But Jimmy was already gone, Stevie sat in the living room as the fire in the fireplace crackled softly. Stevie heard his footsteps grow faded as the room slipped back into silence. Quiet, rather. He still heard the faint crackle of the fireplace and felt the heat upon his face. Fire, he thought. The melodic strum of the guitar filled the room once again, an outpouring of his soul.
"Let's walk out the fire."
With his guitar in hand, Stevie got up and went silent as he thought “I wish Paul were still here with us, may he rest in peace and God bless him”.
And with that he walked out the door and to his room, when he passed Ringo's room, Stevie stopped at his friend’s door and listened, inside Ringo was sitting on his bed, his blue eyes filled with tears as he cried and his head in his hands.
Stevie opened the door and walked in the room, Ringo looked up to see Stevie.
“Hey Ringo, what's going on tonight?” Stevie asked, forgetting that Ringo can't hear him without his hearing aids.
Stevie sat down on the bed next to Ringo, Stevie tried to find a way to communicate with his friend.
Ringo took his blind friend's hands and started to sign.
Stevie just sat there not understanding what was happening, Ringo saw the confused look in his friend's eyes.
"I will teach you my language." Ringo said, his voice very slurred.
Stevie opened his mouth but didn't say anything.
"I am sad!" Ringo said with tears in his eyes.
"I know, why?" Stevie asked.
"Paul!" Ringo said and signed.
Stevie felt his heart sink as waves of memories resurfaced at the mention of that name. “Yeah Ringo, I know,” he spoke, standing from the bed, before beginning in a more chipper tone. “Let me know if you need anything, alright?”
Ringo nodded as Stevie walked out of the room, painful thoughts stewing in his mind. Three years, he repeated internally. It didn’t feel that long to him.
The train station was quiet that morning when Rainbow got there, with few other people milling about on the platform. Her breaths came out in white mist as she waited there patiently, standing in the chilling winter air.
After a few minutes, the train pulled into the station with a loud metallic screeching as it came to a standstill.
The train doors slid open and Rainbow watched as the passengers, clad in their coats and various other warm apparel, slowly spilled out onto the platform. Her eyes carefully darted between the windows of dark glass, watching the blurry shapes of people as they made their exit.
As the last of the passengers trickled out, Rainbow headed to greet the two figures that seemed to have left just as the train doors closed behind them. One of them was sitting in a wheelchair, he had white skin and blue eyes, he was wearing a black T-shirt and blue jeans.
The girl who was standing behind the man in the wheelchair also had white skin and she had black hair and green eyes.
“Hey guys, I’m Rainbow and I'm here to pick you up and take you to your new home.” Rainbow introduced herself to them.
“Hi my name is Charles.” the man in the wheelchair said.
“H..hi m..my n...name is Jane, I h..have trouble sp..speaking.” The girl said struggling with her pronunciation of the words.
“It’s ok, just take your time, Jane.” Rainbow said, smiling at Jane.
“Jane remember what we talked about on the train, no powers.” Charles thought while looking at Jane, who nodded.
Rainbow noticed but shrugged it off.
“I understand, but what if she knows about our powers, Charles” Jane thought looking at her friend.
“She will not find out, but we can tell her and the others when we get to know them a little better.” Charles replied to her in his mind.
Back at the group home, Rainbow showed Jane and Charles each to their rooms.
"Welcome to your new home guys, I hope you will like it here!" Rainbow said to them. "Yes I'm sure we will, right Jane?" Charles said.
"Ya I g-guess b-but I t-thought y-you s-said t-that t-this w-was o-only for old people!" Jane said.
“Um, I don't remember saying that!” Rainbow stammered. Jane looked at Charles but he just kept quiet.
"Ok, y-you w-win b-but we are n-not done h-here!" Jane yelled running out the door.
"What was that about?" Rainbow asked.
"Jane has some um, issues with places she has never been." Charles said with a sigh. Jimmy came up behind Charles.
"You know, you shouldn't sneak up on people like that!" Charles said without turning around.
"That's right, Jimmy, if you want to talk to people, you can just do it!" Rainbow said.
"Just do it!" Jimmy said, getting very excited. Charles winced when Jimmy started to jump.
"Please let go, I can't handle this!" Charles begged Jimmy.
"I can't handle this!" Jimmy said, getting even more excited.
"Stop!" Charles yelled.
"What is going on here?" Stevie asked, coming into the room.
"I don't know!" Rainbow answered.
"Jimmy, calm down, let's do something else, ok?" Stevie said, taking Jimmy out of the room.
When Jimmy had gone, Charles, who was slumped over in his wheelchair, opened his eyes.
"What happened?" Rainbow asked.
"I don't know, but something about Jimmy is off, but I don't know what it is yet!" Charles said with a shrug.
"Well let's go meet the others." Rainbow said, walking out of the room.
Charles followed Rainbow out of the room and down a hallway, as they walked Charles looked at the pictures that hung on the walls, there were people in wheelchairs and people who were laying in beds but one person stood out to Charles the most, the picture was of a old man who was sitting in a wheelchair and he was happy.
“Who is that?” Charles asked, pointing at the picture.
“Oh, he doesn’t live here anymore,” Rainbow spoke softly.
“What happened?” said Charles, noticing the tone in her voice shift.
“We’ll tell you and Jane about him someday,” Rainbow gestured toward another room, the door left slightly ajar. “Wait here a second.”
Charles watched as the young woman disappeared into the room. He sat in silence for a minute or so before she emerged with an older man in tow. He looked to be quite a bit older, hair white as the snow that covered the land.
“Charles, this is Ringo.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Ringo.” Charles said to Ringo who just stood there and said nothing.
Charles looked confused for a few minutes but then he realized that the man was deaf.
Charles felt a cloud of mental fatigue weighing on his mind as he was finally left to his own devices. The grand tour had stressed and drained him, but now he revelled in the comforts of solitude. Alone, he could think clearly: compose himself.
So, this is my room, he thought. The furnishing was plain and sparse, with a single bed hugging the wall next to a closet filled with coat hangers. A window of old, frosted glass overlooked the dark street, the bright headlights of cars whirring by in the twilight.
To an outsider observer, the life of a man like Charles might appear horrifically empty. They might think of him as a trapped soul, his body a prison of immoving flesh, when in reality Charles was quite the active man. Incapable as he may be physically, this merely gave rise to greater ambitions as he sought to push the limits of his mind to new heights. Eternally bound to his throne, he silently watched as man toiled, shackled by their physicality and forced to labor tirelessly under his watchful-
He blinked. I gotta stop that bad habit of mine, he self-reflected, pushing aside his grandiose thoughts. There would be time for those later. For now, he had work to do.
His head tilted forward as he closed his eyes.
Jane, are you there?
The silence was broken by the muffled sound of a car driving by, but not much else. He felt his eyebrow twitch.
Jane, don’t tell me you’re already asleep. You had, like, three coffees this morning and it’s not even eight.
Complete radio silence. He tilted his head back in frustration, the peeling white walls doing little to soothe him.
“I can’t believe you right now…” his words petered off as he felt himself drift into a deep sleep, just as the first snowflakes began to fall.
Storm clouds had moved in that evening and engulfed the area in a fierce, unforgiving blizzard. Stevie already knew this would happen: he heard the weatherman say so on the tele just this morning, yet he still couldn’t fall asleep that night.
Maybe it was the pounding of hail and snow that kept him up. While most old folk lost their hearing with age, Stevie’s had always remained sharp. He almost wanted to just take out his harmonica and start playing something, anything to drown out the endless, discordant notes of icy rock hitting brick. He briefly entertained the notion before something else caught his attention.
It was something other than the deafening symphony of hailstone, something fainter, more pleasant. Stevie strained his ears to hear it more clearly. He heard a voice. It sounded more like a whimper with the snowstorm raging, though Stevie swore he could make out singing. The stark contrast sent shivers down his spine.
“Stevie, Stevie, come to the forest!” The voice coaxed gently.
Stevie got up and started to walk out of the building after a while of walking slowly into the forest, he stopped in a clearing.
"That's good, now come closer." The voice coaxed Stevie who's eyes were closed as if he were still sleeping.
Meanwhile back at the group home, Charles was having a nightmare, in the nightmare he was sitting on top of a hill that overlooked the group home which was burning, the ground all around the building was a wasteland.
"Jane!" Charles called out into the wasteland as he got up and walked down the hill and started walking around. Businesses and homes were burning and the sky was a dark red.
"So this is the future, there is no one left." Charles thought to himself as he walked.
“Jane, please give me a sign to show me where you are?” Charles thought.
“Charles, I'm in the forest, I don't know where I am, please help me!!” Charles heard Jane's voice drift over the wasteland.
“Jane, don't be afraid.” Charles said.
Back in the real world in the forest, Stevie could not find his way back to the house.
"Where am i?" Stevie asked.
"You are in my favorite place ever, I used to come here when I was younger before my accident." The voice said.
"Paul is that you?" Stevie asked the voice.
"Yes it is, very good." Paul chuckled.
"Why did you bring me here?" Stevie asked.
"Well I saw that you were very sad after I died, so I thought that if I got you to see that it isn't too bad here, maybe you wouldn't be so sad for me." Paul said getting up and going over to Stevie and hugged him.
For Stevie it felt real, even though he knew it wasn’t.
"I miss you, Paul, we all do!" Stevie whispered into the night but Paul had already gone.
Back at the house, Charles had woken up in a cold sweat as he sat up in bed, he could sense that something wasn't right.
Charles looked out the window at the cold dark snowy night, in the distance a small light of a cabin in the forest was burning.