THE NEXT DAY!
The first thing Tyrone felt was the weight. It pressed on him before his eyes even opened, heavy and suffocating, like a thick blanket draped over his chest.
His breathing came slow, strained, and when his eyelids flickered, he was greeted not by the faint glow of sunlight filtering through the blinds, but by darkness, his own darkness.
He sat up sharply, the shadows pulling back reluctantly from where they had pooled across the bed and floor. His heart slammed in his chest, disoriented as he looked around, taking deep breaths to stabilize himself.
His hands, if they could be called that, were now completely covered in pitch black darkness, like an extension of the cloak that rippled and swayed around him. His body wasn't flesh and bone, not the warm, solid thing he remembered. It was smoke, shadows, hunger given form. The Cloak.
Tyrone's stomach turned. He hadn't fallen asleep this way. He knew he hadn't. He had gone to bed as himself, or at least the closest he could manage to the boy in the photo frame.
Now, the DarkForce had claimed him while he slept. It seemed just a single night away from Tandy, and he was already experiencing the side effects, rapidly losing control of his own abilities.
More than that, he felt himself being a bit more emotionally unstable, like the call of vengeance once again echoing in his ear. The DarkForce knew of his pain, and it was weaponizing it.
"Damn it…" His voice came out strange, distorted, carrying an echo that didn't belong in his throat.
For a long moment, he just sat there, staring down at himself. At what he was becoming. The truth pressed in on him with a sharp clarity: this wasn't an accident.
Every day, every night, it was getting harder to hold on. His human form was slipping, requiring more concentration, more control, more energy. And this, this shadowed, hollow creature, was starting to feel like the default, at least when he wasn't in the presence of Tandy.
Closing his eyes, he focused. It was like dragging himself through mud, like trying to remember the sound of a voice you hadn't heard in years.
Slowly, painfully, the darkness pulled inward, wrapping itself tighter and tighter until his skin returned, warm and solid, sweat slicking his brow.
When he opened his eyes again, his reflection in the mirror across the room looked back at him. A boy with curly hair sticking up in wild tufts, dark eyes rimmed red and swollen from the night before. A boy who looked more tired than seventeen should ever look.
But at least he was still there. At least he could still see Tyrone Johnson staring back.
He dragged himself to the shower, letting the hot water burn against his skin, grounding himself in sensation. It wasn't until he was dressed, plain jeans, a hoodie, sneakers, that he started to feel remotely like someone who belonged in the daylight.
Even then, the weight lingered. Every step he took, every movement, it was there, whispering at the edges of his mind. You belong to me.
He ignored it. By the time he left the apartment, the city was already alive with the clatter of traffic and the distant murmur of voices.
National City never really slept, not even in the corners he haunted. He shoved his hands into his hoodie pocket, keeping his head low as he made his way to the bus stop.
The ride was long, every bump jostling him from the edge of drifting back into the Darkforce's pull. He stared out the window, watching the blur of buildings and people, feeling both too close and too far from all of it.
When the bus finally dropped him off near National City High, Tyrone lingered at the curb and quickly head inside, taking his seat.
Beside him, his desk partner was already out cold, her cheek resting on her folded arms. Kara. Always asleep when he came in, always asleep when he left.
He had never seen her eyes, never heard her voice in more than a few mumbled syllables or some one sentence responses from the teacher.
And still, somehow, she was untouchable at the board, rattling off equations with half-lidded ease, drawing chemical diagrams with the kind of accuracy that made teachers sigh with relief. Math, Physics, Chemistry, anything with numbers or symbols, she carved through like it was nothing.
But when asked to name the capitals of Europe, or outline the history of the Revolutionary War, she stumbled, fumbling through her notes like the concepts were written in another language.
His eyes flicked toward her briefly. She didn't stir, though she gave him a new weird vibe. She also shifted in her sleep and eye'd him for a second before turning away back to sleep.
The classes continued on in that manner, with Tyrone just taking his notes and trying to remain calm. However, the more time passed, the more he felt his control shaking.
He rubbed at his chest, the shadows beneath his skin crawling just out of sight. It was subtle at first, a faint darkening in his peripheral vision, the feeling of fabric rippling when the air was still.
But he could feel it. The DarkForce pressed to the edges of his mind, whispering.
He clenched his jaw and forced himself to open his notebook, scribbling half-hearted notes as the teacher droned about Newton's laws. His pen scratched the paper, but the words swam. His focus wavered.
A shadow crept across the desk, just a flicker of movement at the corner of his page. Tyrone froze, hand tightening around the pen. He glanced sideways.
The shadow moved against the light.
His stomach twisted. He quickly slapped his palm flat against the desk, forcing the dark ripple to retreat, to snap back under his skin. His chest ached from the effort, but no one seemed to notice. The class buzzed on, oblivious.
He hated this. The constant fight against himself, he felt his breath quickening as he remembered Tandy, the urge for light like a force that rammed against his chest.
"Mr. Johnson, Mr. JOHNSON, " the teacher's voice cut in suddenly, snapping him out of his haze, "Can you explain the third law for us?"
Tyrone blinked, throat dry. Words formed sluggishly in his mind, "To every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction," he said sluggishly and the teacher nodded.
The day dragged on. Each period bled into the next, the hours stretching like taut string ready to snap. Tyrone moved through the motions: open notebook, scratch pen, hide shadows.
His hands trembled sometimes, making his writing jagged. At least 4 times, he thought he saw smoke rising faintly from his fingertips. Once, the lights above flickered when his anger spiked at some classmate's laughter in the hall.
One time while he was using the bathroom in between classes, he directly absorbed an bar of soap into his DarkForce Dimension, and then absorbed the water faucet before he pulled his hands away and calmed down once more.
At lunch, he sat alone, pushing food around his tray he didn't need, his appetite a hollow thing. His stomach didn't growl like theirs. Instead, his chest burned with that gnawing emptiness, the ache that said he needed Light, not bread. Tandy's Light.
But she wasn't here. And he wasn't going to admit how much that affected him now.
By the last bell, he was unraveling. His body buzzed with restless energy, volatile and dangerous. The halls were too crowded, too loud, and every bump against his shoulder felt like a threat. His vision tunneled, flashes of darkness edging in. He clenched his jaw so hard it ached, forcing himself not to lash out.
He needed out.
The second he cleared the doors, Tyrone broke into a near-run, hoodie drawn tight, weaving through the throng of students spilling into the streets. His breaths came shallow, ragged. He ignored all the laughter, the rhythm of sneakers on pavement. He just ran.
He didn't stop until the school was blocks behind him, the noise dulled by distance. Only then did he slow, chest heaving, shadows licking at his heels.
He wanted to scream. To punch something until it shattered. To let the Cloak consume every whisper of this city.
Instead, he forced himself down familiar streets, heading toward the apartment. The closer he got, the heavier the air felt, like the shadows sensed home soil.
And then he froze.
Two figures stood near the corner of his block, uniforms crisp, hands resting on their belts as they chatted beside a patrol car. Their faces were burned into Tyrone's memory, etched with merciless detail.
The cops.
The same two who had knocked on his door that night. The same ones who had told him his father and brother were gone, the ones who punched him in the gut and mocked him ruthlessly.
The ones who were obviously corrupt on the payroll of the gangs, and abused that power on innocent citizens.
Tyrone's fists clenched so tight his nails bit into his palms. Heat flared in his chest, shadows surging eagerly at the scent of rage. His hood slipped lower over his eyes as he stood rooted to the sidewalk, heart pounding.
The DarkForce whispered in his ear, like a fallen angel on his shoulder, telling him to come to the dark-side, 'They were part of it. They let it happen. They're guilty. Make them pay.'
Tyrone's breath came ragged, and his eyes quickly turned into pits of darkness as he found his next targets, allowing the negative thoughts to take him over maybe just this once.