Chapter 15

Alice rushed to her office, feeling her cheeks flush with shame. 

'I saw him with another girl, and I feel..." 

She shook her head, telling herself it wasn't true.

"I'm not jealous," she muttered out loud to what she thought was an empty room. 

"Pardon?" A voice sounded from behind. 

"Ah!" Alice cried, almost dying of shock. She spun around, hand on her heart, to find Damien had followed her. "Damn it, Damien, you nearly gave me a heart attack."

"You were talking to yourself," Damien said with a grin, ignoring the scolding.

"Yeah, I do that a lot," she admitted. It was the truth. Alice had always talked to herself, whether it was a symptom of madness or not.

"What was happening in the hallway, erm, with that girl?" Alice asked. 

"Oh, it wasn't what it looked like," Damien said and shook his head as if trying to play it down. "She was begging for mercy."

Alice frowned deeply. "That is what it looked like. What did you think I'd think it looked like?"

Damien smiled guiltily.

"Oh!" Alice cried, forming a mental image she did not want or need.

"In the hallway?" She scoffed and tutted. "Really, Damien?"

He shrugged before taking a seat and fiddling with the pens in the little flowery ceramic pot she'd brought from home to brighten the place up.

"So...did you?" Alice asked.

"Did I what?" he asked, looking up with a confused frown.

"With the girl," Alice pressed. "What did you do?"

"Oh, you want to know if I granted her request?" Damien chuckled. "Nosy."

Alice fell silent, waiting to see if he would open up. Pressuring him would achieve nothing. 

He sighed, dropping the pens back into the pot with a clunk. "Honestly, I used my ability to make her fall in love with me because she said she'd rather eat shit than be my girlfriend."

"Oh," Alice said, unsure how to respond.

"My original plan was to literally make her eat shit before I freed her but when she was fawning all over me, I didn't have the heart to do it," Damien said.

'Thank God for that,' Alice thought. She couldn't imagine Damien doing something so cruel and didn't want to think he was capable of dishing out such sadistic punishments to his peers.

"You started to see her in a different light. She wasn't just the bitchy girl who rejected you anymore," Alice inferred. 

He nodded. "I thought having the most popular girl at school would make me happy, but it wasn't that great. She wasn't as horrid as I first thought, but we had nothing in common."

Damien looked up at Alice before continuing. "I realised I wanted someone who liked me without being forced. Someone who shares my principles and morals. Someone I can laugh with and talk to for hours without it feeling weird."

Alice felt her lashes flutter as he spoke. She had to fold her hands under the table to stop them from fidgeting.

Not knowing what to say, she nodded.

'I'm ninety-nine percent sure he means me, but I can't speak up in case I'm mistaken,' Alice realised.

"Yeah," Damien continued, staring into her eyes with fierce intensity. "I met a girl called Nancy and we just clicked."

'Oh.'

Alice felt her heart drop in her chest. She took a deep breath, both giving herself time to dream up something to say and regain the ability to speak.

She managed to swallow away the lump in her throat but nothing materialised.

"I'm kidding," he said, raising his eyebrows. "Obviously I'm talking about you, you silly cow."

"Ah," Alice gasped, letting out a sigh of relief before laughing. When the reality of the situation dawned on her the laughter turned to tears.

"I... I can't... I mean, I can't have a relationship with a student. It's immoral and I'd lose my job."

"We can keep it a secret," Damien said as if the answer were obvious and simple.

"What if someone finds out?" Alice asked.

"I can literally alter reality, remember?" Damien asked. He sucked in his top lip as he stared at her like she'd lost her senses.

The more Alice thought about that, the scarier it became. What if she wanted to leave him and he had other ideas? Or if she upset him? What might he do to her if in a moment of anger?

As she stared into his eyes, she wanted to believe she could trust him not to use his powers against her.

"I'd be completely at your mercy," she said, not specifying her concerns.

Damien shook his head and scoffed. "You already are. Everyone is... whether they realise it or not."

"Heh." Alice snickered and shook her head. "Good point."

A question occurred to her. She wasn't entirely sure this was the time to broach the topic, but it was as good as any.

"You know, we can't be together if you wipe out humanity," she said in a quiet, measured voice.

"Aww," Damien cooed. "You've been desperate to ask about that since I said it, haven't you?"

"If I'm the only one who knows of the danger, I feel it would be remiss of me to ignore it," Alice said.

Damien leaned back in his chair and began to fiddle with the front stands of his dark hair. 

"You see me as dangerous?" he asked without looking at her.

"No," Alice said too quickly and shook her head. "Just, please tell me you were joking."

He continued to play with his hair as she stared at him with huge, pleading eyes, waiting for him to respond.

"You honestly think they deserve to live?" he asked at last.

"There have been times where I've lost hope in humanity. Do you know what restores my faith?" she asked.

Damien looked up, waiting for her to go on.

"Young people. I genuinely feel that we are improving as a race with each new generation. The boomers might call us snowflakes because we reject fascism, but when they are dead and gone, we will be the ones to raise a new generation and instead of putting them down and holding them back, we will know to learn from them."

"Yes!" Damien let out a short ring of laugher. "Sometimes I look at old people and in my head I'm singing, 'When you are dead I will be still alive.'"

He chuckled to himself.

"I realise all the shitty people will go the way of the dinosaurs eventually, but why wait?" Damien asked, eyes flashing with enthusiasm.

Alice tried to relax her face when she felt a frown creasing her forehead. He seemed to have missed the point of what she was saying, taking it and running off on a murderous tangent.

"The way I see it, there are over seven billion people in the world. The chances I will agree with or get along with all of them is zero. I can only control what I do and what I put out into the universe. What they do is on them," Alice explained.

"That's where we differ. I can control them, to some extent," Damien said.

"Then why not use your power to make them better people instead of killing them? And who gets to decide what makes a person worthy of being alive?" Alice posed two important but difficult questions.

"I do," Damien said, looking at her as if to say the answer was obvious. "And it's easier to kill them then change them. Knowing this will probably only terrify you, but my power appears to come from a place of rage, not love."

"Sometimes I feel full of hatred and rage," Alice told him. "It's normal to feel that way. But I can't honestly believe you would be happier in a world devoid of life."

"Well I'm not going to kill the animals," Damien cried, looking shocked and hurt at the insinuation. "I'd never harm an animal."

"People are animals," Alice argued. It was a weak and pointless argument. She had to ask herself why she was even bothering. So far, all she knew was that he could alter reality on a small, personal scale. This didn't mean he could click his fingers and bring on Armageddon.

A better argument occurred to her.

"What about people who share your values? There are good people in the world as well as bad. Would you just kill them all?"

Damien sat with his head resting on his hand for a moment, deep in thought.

"I know what you're doing," he said finally. "If I say I'd spare the ones I approve of I'm no better than Hitler."

"Well, you have all these leftist principles, but genocide is about as right right-wing as you can get," Alice pointed out.

She looked out of the window, distracted by the flurry of bodies that passed, talking, and shoving each other as they filled the courtyard. Was it really break time already?

Getting up from the desk, she pulled the window shut to keep out their chatter and shrill cries. 

"Come here," Damien said, pointing at the floor by his feet.

Alice shuffled around her desk, almost knocking off the paperwork that hung over the edge. Despite her age and position, she felt oddly small, as though she were at a job interview and he was the boss. 

"Kneel," he demanded.

The order shocked her, yet something about his face told her his intentions were pure.

It didn't feel weird as she lowered herself to her knees. Something about the situation felt oddly familiar; a sensation akin to Deja vu.

Looking up at him from the floor she waited for further instructions. He gently pinched her chin between his thumb and forefinger.

"Beg me to spare them," he said in a soft voice.

"Erm." Alice swallowed. Though he'd said the words quietly their impact felt so loud. To beg was humiliating and demeaning, and though she felt these emotions colouring her cheeks, she also felt an overwhelming closeness to him.

"Please spare them," Alice whispered. She sucked in her breath as tears rolled down her cheeks. Tears she hadn't sensed or expected.

'Why am I crying?' she asked herself as he used his thumb to wipe them away.

He leaned in close, the slightest hint of a sad smile playing about his lips.

"You know you had to get that out of the way, right?" he asked. "It would be… remiss… of you to not at least try."