Harris Institute for Gifted Students Episode 17: Together

Harris Institute for Gifted Students by Pineapple | Content warnings

---

When they’d found Sahar, Marjani carried him back the way they came. Sumire piggy backed Mickey as they all trudged down the halls again.

Samuel and Greyson were still in the same room they’d been left in. There was no sign of Alaric, but the two were fighting each other—wrestling, really—over a little bottle that could fit in one hand. Samuel was smaller and weaker, but he had control over Greyson to an extent thanks to their newly formed connection. Samuel clawed at Greyson’s face to gain some leverage.

“Ow—you bitch!” Greyson yelled. “Stop! You don’t want to do this!”

“No,” Samuel said back, stern but calm. He threw the glass hard on the ground before Greyson could snatch it back. It clinked on the ground, unbroken. “You don’t want to. I’ll do it if nobody else will.”

“Our connection goes both ways, Sam,” Greyson said, desperate, “I know you’re afraid. Don’t kill him.”

Sofia had felt panic rise in her like bile.

Before she could do anything, before Samuel could bring his foot down to smash the bottle, a thick, perfumed air permeated the room. The smell was familiar. Herby.

Ms. Fatima had entered with a smoking sachet. “Calm yourself, Samuel,” she said.

“Someone has to do it,” he gritted out.

“Elliott alerted me that Alaric of the Light has been subdued,” she said, nodding her head towards him. “The Council has been called.”

“It’s about time.” Samuel wobbled, his legs shaking and his body growing weak as he breathed in the smoke. “What is that?”

“It’s just to keep you from doing anything rash,” she explained. “I’ll wake you when we get to the meeting.”

Greyson caught Samuel as his legs gave out. He lifted him up.

“Greyson needs medical help,” Samuel said to Ms. Ximenez, his voice slurring, his eyelids heavy. “He got burned.”

“I’ll make sure he gets it,” she promised.

---

Honestly, Sofia barely remembered how she got back to her room afterwards. She remembered getting checked out at the clinic. She remembered seeing Sahar resting peacefully, Mickey in the bed next to him, still not awake. She remembered Ms. Hera coming to check on them, Coach Zhang stopping by. She remembered that Ben fell asleep in the clinic and Marjani had reached up and put his head on her shoulder, but Sofia couldn’t remember that she went back to her room and fell asleep. But she must have, because the next day she woke up, startled, and nearly ran back to the clinic to wait for any changes with everyone else.

Classes were canceled for the week while the dust settled, anyway. The instructors and the headmaster were all busy with The Council of Classical Wizardry. All there was to do was sit and wait and recover now.

Melissa looked exhausted. Even if things felt like an anticlimatic end for Sofia, Melissa’s work had just begun. It looked like she’d been up all night. Her desk was littered with empty cups and protein bar wrappers. She was currently sucking down a pink smoothie and there was a half-full cup of coffee on the end table by Sahar’s bed.

“Mickey should wake up soon,” she reported, rubbing her eyes as she looked over everyone. “She’s just… I mean, like all of you, her body needs rest. Her energy needs to replenish itself.”

“I’m feeling a ‘but’ coming on,” Ben said.

Melissa managed a small smile. “Yes,” she agreed. “Ms. Clara and I think that… well, I can only kind of feel it, but I can feel that it’s getting better. There’s nothing my healing abilities can do.”

“About what?” Sumire pressed.

“Mickey and Sahar had contact, correct?”

A few voices murmured in assent. Vanessa nodded.

“She and Sahar are in similar states,” Melissa explained gently. “Whatever happened scrambled their minds. They’re putting things back together on their own but it takes time.”

Sugi scratched his head. He and Sofia shared a quick, worried glance.

“Obviously, Sahar will take longer,” Melissa continued, having missed the little exchange between Sugi and Sofia. “He was… let’s say he was under much longer than Mickey was, it seems.”

Sugi raised a timid hand. “Um…”

“Is something the matter?”

“Sofie and I also went into Sahar’s head,” Sugi said.

Melissa stared at them blankly. Sofia could almost see the cogs turning in her head.

From behind her desk in the corner, Ms. Clara spoke up. “It’s likely due to the way your powers interact,” she said, humming. Her voice was stable and monotonous; it was the kind of voice you could easily fall asleep to. “Sofia already has a strong mental constitution and from what I’ve heard from Hera, Sugi simply couldn’t have imagined something like that could happen, so it didn’t.”

“Ah,” Sugi said, nodding. A blush colored his cheeks. His hands fidgeted at the edge of his shirt. “So her natural fortitude protected her?”

“Or it’s possible it was the physical proximity,” Ms. Clara said, shrugging. She looked back down at her paperwork. “I imagine you’re all feeling fatigue after the battle you had. If your brain fog doesn’t clear up in the coming days, then please come back for a check up.”

Natural fortitude. Sofia scoffed. And what about Ray? He was already sensitive to mental attacks. Sofia wondered if it was worth mentioning that he might be hurt. He wouldn’t appreciate it, but his presence had kind of disappeared since their encounter in Sahar’s mindscape.

“They say Mickey’s brain is scrambled,” she shot out. He was so close since they’d met, always in the back of her head whether she liked it or not. It shouldn’t have been hard to contact him telepathically. “I guess that’s what approaching godliness will do to a gal, huh?”

Radio silence.

“Ray?”

Sofia imagined herself twisting the dial, wiggling the antenna. Searching for a sign.

“I couldn’t have done it without you, you know,” she said, maybe to nobody. “Thank you for… reaching out. It was the right thing to do. He’s still alive.”

Ben was asleep again, this time taking up the whole sofa. The twins and Vanessa went to go get something to eat. Marjani said she needed to talk to Ms. Hera. Sofia put in her headphones and turned on some music and continued to wait.

---

That night Greyson came back. Melissa was up, out of her seat next to Sahar, and in his arms in a second.

“Hey,” he said, hugging her. “We just got out. Sam’s fine. He wanted to go to bed.”

“I’ll call him,” she said. “How are your arms?”

Greyson held them out for her. “Ms. Ximenez changed them while we were with The Council,” he explained. The bandages were fresh and clean. He looked around at everyone. “How’s it going here?”

Melissa plopped down in her stool again, her head tilted towards her patients. “Sahar is still asleep. I think Mickey will wake up soon…”

Greyson nodded his head like he understood.

“What happened at the meeting?” Vanessa asked, unabashed, unafraid. “You said Samuel’s fine, but…”

Greyson sighed, raking a hand over his face. “Yeah,” he said. He settled into a chair between Sahar and Mickey’s beds, his hand trailing over the sheets of Sahar’s bed. “He’s okay.”

“Who is this council, anyway?” Sumire asked petulantly.

“They’re a coalition of classical wizards and sorcerers, like Sam and Alaric,” he explained. “They’re kind of like… the authority on the best magicians? I’m kind of fuzzy on it myself… From what I understand, you aren’t really a Great Sorcerer unless they say you are. You won’t go down in history unless you’re recognized by them. They’re deciding what to do with Alaric.”

“They have that kind of power?” Ben asked.

Greyson shrugged. “Apparently. Not every practice has something like this, but wizardry has been around so long, I guess they do. I don’t know what all encompasses it. Ms. Ximenez is a member, so I guess it includes her kind of magic.”

“Ms. Fatima is?” Sofia wondered out loud. That explained her involvement a bit, she guessed. Maybe Elliott was, as well. Maybe that’s why they helped the way they did, why they couldn’t have done more earlier.

“And they just let Samuel go?” Melissa asked.

Greyson turned his head to look at her. “They want to give him recognition for his great deed somehow,” he said listlessly. He looked sad. “A title, maybe. A medal at least.”

“Everything he doesn’t want, huh.”

He smiled, but it was mocking. “Exactly. It was that or he killed Alaric and was executed by The Council. He knew that.”

Melissa put her head in her hands. “Genius, my ass,” she muttered into her palms.

---

Before going to the clinic the next morning, Sofia stopped outside the training building where Ray stayed. She closed her eyes and tried again.

“I’ll stop bothering you once I know you’re alive,” Sofia thought out-loud, hoping Ray would hear her. “I promise. All you have to do is tell me you’re okay.”

When he didn’t answer, she started to babble to fill the silence.

“I’ll keep coming until you talk to me. It’s too quiet without you.”

---

Sofia was the last one to arrive. Samuel was there, sitting behind Melissa’s desk, as if everything was normal. He looked normal except for the bags under his eyes and the way his normally impeccable hair was tangled and messy, the scrapes on his cheeks and hands. It looked like he could have just had a bad day, not a life changing experience. If she hadn’t been there when it happened, she might not have suspected anything at all was different.

When she looked at him, she could almost see it, almost feel the tangible link between Samuel and Greyson. They’d never be apart anymore.

Few things were more intimate than mind reading, Ray had said. It seemed he was right, because he was gone from her mind now. Somehow he’d taken an exit when she didn’t realize without so much as a goodbye. Samuel and Greyson would never be allowed that. And now her mind was quiet and she felt vulnerable, like there could be bubbles popping up at any moment and she wouldn’t have any noise there to cushion it. Nobody there to help and guide her, to hold her mental hands as she tried to handle whatever life threw her way.

Huh?

Sofia’s attention snapped back to the physical.

A chorus of voices shouted out, inharmonious in time and emotion. “Mickey!”

“You’re awake!”

“How are you feeling?”

Where…

Mickey blinked her eyes open, speaking before she even seemed aware. “I’m okay,” she said, her voice mumbling and slurred. “How’s Sahar?”

“He’s okay,” Melissa said, rushing around to her side of the bed. She pet Mickey’s head, looking into her eyes. “How are you feeling?”

Mickey stared at her, her eyes clearing of sleep quickly as time went on. “What happened?” she asked finally, bringing her hands up to rub her eyes. “Where am I?”

“What’s the last thing you remember?” Melissa asked gently. She handed Mickey a cup of water.

“Sahar was…” Mickey jolted up in the bed, like she would have jumped if she were able. “Sahar! Is he okay?”

She smiled, urging the cup to Mickey’s mouth. Mickey drank obediently. “He’s okay,” she said. “He’s still asleep. It’s been a few days since you’ve been back.”

She finally took the time to look around, mentally taking a head count of everyone. “And Alaric…?”

“He’s being taken care of,” Samuel said. “The headmaster called The Council of Classical Wizardry and they’re handling it.”

Mickey fell back into the bed, mashing her hands into her eyes. “Thank God,” she said loudly. It didn’t cover up the quiver in her voice. “We all got out. We all left together.”

“Drink some more water, Mickey,” Melissa said softly, at her side.

She took the cup and sipped on it, wiping furiously at her cheeks in between gulps of room temperature water. “You don’t understand,” she started to say. “You don’t get it.”

When Mickey’s watery eyes caught Sofia’s and stayed there, Sofia cocked her head.

“The point was always to leave together,” she explained. “We were never going to walk away, right?”

“What gave you that idea?” Greyson said, knuckling her in the arm.

Mickey sniffed. She didn’t take her eyes off Sofia, because she knew that Sofia was there. That Sofia understood. “That’s what it’s all about, right?”

Sofia nodded. “Right.”

---

The sun was rising when Sahar reportedly woke up the first time. Greyson and Samuel were staying in the clinic overnight with Melissa, while Mickey was still under observation.

By the time Sofia got there after her routine visit to Ray’s dwellings, Ms. Clara and Melissa were in a heated discussion about it. Apparently, he’d woken up as the sunlight started to come into the room. He stared out the windows for a long time, unmoving, until he smiled and settled back into the bed and fell asleep again.

His vitals were stable, though more irregular than they’d been before he’d woken up. They were trying to decide if the new development was good or bad.

“It’s a good thing,” Sumire said, fiddling with her hair. “You don’t think they were… like, too normal before? Like too perfect?”

“What do you mean?” Melissa asked.

“Like, his pulse was the same every time you checked it,” Sumire explained. She tossed her hair over her shoulder in the end. “It didn’t even change by one bpm. You don’t think that’s weird? His respirations were too regular, too. It’s more natural now. He looks more comfortable.”

Melissa sighed, taking a glance at her boyfriend. “He always did prefer sleeping on his side.”

“He looked like a vampire before.” Sumire laughed, short and to herself. “No offense.”

It got a laugh out of Melissa. “None taken.”

Vanessa walked into the room, dropping her sports bag on her usual chair. “Whoa, hey,” she said, her voice light. “Look at you, laughing. I love that.”

Melissa greeted her, offered to pour her a cup of coffee from the pot, and started to explain what she’d missed. Then there was a low grumble from the beds and it felt like everything stopped to witness what would happen next.

“Are you making fun of me, Mel?”

Melissa sobbed. “Sahar!”

“What’s going on?” Sahar’s voice was gravelly, his throat dry. He peeled his eyes open and tried to push himself up.

“Hey, hold on—” Greyson was at his side faster than Melissa could get across the room, helping Sahar sit up in the bed.

Melissa crashed into his lap, barely able to catch her breath. Sahar could barely keep his eyes open, but he managed to put an arm over Melissa. “Don’t cry,” he said. “I’m okay now.”

Melissa stayed and held his hand while Ms. Clara handled his examination. She asked that everybody else kindly step into the hall and allow him his privacy.

“The Council will want to speak with him,” Samuel said, crossing his arms. He bit his lip, thinking. “He won’t be able to avoid it forever, but I’ll ask them to put it off.”

“You think they’ll listen to you?” Ben asked, raising a brow.

“Unfortunately,” he answered flatly. “I’ll agree to a title or something if they do.”

“Sammy the Black Hole,” Greyson offered.

Samuel elbowed him in the ribs.

“Samuel the Genius,” he amended.

“I was going to let you stay here and talk to your friend when his exam was over, but never mind,” Samuel said, frowning. “Now you have to come with me to talk to them.”

Greyson laughed. “Okay, okay.”

Samuel beckoned with his finger as he walked away, and Greyson dutifully followed. “Tell my sister where we went,” he called behind him. “We’ll be back shortly.”

“Bye,” Sugi said cheerfully, waving after them.

---

When they were allowed back into the clinic, Mickey and Sahar were both awake. Mickey was sitting up, her legs slung over the side, but Sahar was laid down in bed. Melissa was in her regular spot, the stool next to Sahar’s bed, their hands linked. He was rubbing her hand with his thumb in slow circles.

“Your brother and Grey went to talk to The Council,” Ben relayed, plopping down next to Mickey.

Marjani sat down on Ben’s other side. “How are you, Sahar?”

He managed a smile. “Ms. Clara says I’ll likely need physical therapy and lots of rest. Becoming a god is apparently not easy on a human body.”

Ms. Clara scoffed from her desk.

“Mr. Brady was correct in his assumption?” Marjani tried to clarify.

Sofia still felt a bit lost.

Sahar shifted in his bed. “Partly,” he said. He sounded a bit winded, like just talking was too much for him right now. Melissa squeezed his hand. “He was right that the act of creation was the philosopher’s stone. In creating it,Ibecame the stone. But…”

“But it wasn’t just for a moment,” Mickey guessed dully. “It was forever.”

He nodded, and something in his smile changed so he didn’t look like he was joking. He just looked sad and worn down. Ashy and pale, his hair tangled and oily. “Right.”

“I don’t understand,” Sugi said. “So you… had to always be creating it for the stone to exist?”

“Got it in one.” He raised his hand to point and finger gun at Sugi, but his hand fell with a dull thud to the mattress almost instantly. “It’s like an artist creating a masterpiece. I had to go a little insane to do it, but instead of insane, I just… lost my humanity.”

“That’s why Mr. Brady understood it, huh.” Ben leaned back on his arms.

“Of course he would,” Sahar agreed. “The act of creation is something godly. Ms. Hera would understand. So would Mr. Elliott. Maybe Coach Zhang…”

“What does that have to do with losing your humanity?” Vanessa asked.

“Ah.” Sahar pulled his hand from Melissa’s to gesture vaguely. “It’s… that’s how immortality is achieved. If I’d… If you all hadn’t come to stop me, I would have continued like that forever.”

“You would have been immortal,” Samuel said from the doorway. “You would have gone down in history.”

Sahar turned to look at him. His tired eyes flitted over Samuel as he filed in with Greyson and Ms. Fatima behind him. “Yes,” he said, his eyes and his smile falling.

“Everything Alaric wanted.”

“An artist, a lover, a person who recreates themselves… they only touch the divine. I was becoming it because I was becoming nothing but a creator,” Sahar explained.

Ms. Fatima eased into the room, next to Sofia, and sat down like she’d been there the whole time. “The Council will want to hear all about it.”

“I don’t intent to recreate it,” he said. “Or to tell anybody how to achieve it.”

She nodded. “They’ll want to know why you’d give it up.”

“The Magnum Opus may be to create the stone, but it is not mine,” Sahar said. “Why would I want to give up my life for that?”

He slinked his hand back into Melissa’s hand. The sparkle had come back into his eyes as he looked out over everyone. “Why would I miss out on seeing my friends? My beautiful girlfriend?” He smiled, and Sofia was sure he was going to pay for the enthusiasm he was starting to show, the way he couldn’t help but sit up. “How could I give all this up? When all this is the point?”

Melissa was starting to cry again.

“I’d never get to hold her hand again. I’d never get to hear her laugh. I’d never get Vanessa to teach me baseball or play video games with Greyson. I’d miss my chance to be a big brother to Sam. I’d never have met Sofia. I’d never even know that Ray existed!”

Sofia stared at him. She’d never met him before, but she felt an ache in her chest. She was afraid if she looked away, she might lose him. Just like how she felt in his memories. But he was here, he was physical. He was real and he was safe.

Sahar looked at her. “Thank you all so much,” he said. “Thank you for not walking away. I’m so glad we left together.”

Sofia wiped at her eyes.

She felt Ms. Fatima’s hand on her shoulder.

“If I must tell The Council something, I’ll tell them I’m glad to be human,” he said.

Sofia waited for fish hooks. She waited for bubbles. But nothing came. The truth was, blissfully, quiet and painless.

---

It was the last day before classes started again. Sahar was the only one still under observation, the only one still stuck in the clinic while the rest of them tried to remember what normal had been like before all of this started. They found themselves all together visiting more often than not.

Sahar had a bit more energy; he could stay awake for more than thirty minutes or an hour at a time and he could sit up on his own. Because of this, The Council decided it was time for them all to talk.

They kicked everyone else out of the room and made their way to the clinic with a heavy, impressive presence. Sofia pressed herself against the opposite wall as they passed.

Headmaster Harris was in the ranks, looking ancient and series. There was a tall Black woman in robes Sofia couldn’t identify the origin of. A small person, about Sofia’s height, with their head and face covered by a purple hood and a veil. A very tall Southeast Asian with long hair, in jeans and a long tunic shirt. Sofia suspected that this wasn’t the entire Council of Classical Wizardry, just a few representatives.

Ms. Fatima was there as well, trailing behind them. She gave Sofia a small, mysterious smile as they passed.

Sofia tried to tune her powers to them, listening in on the conversations that must be floating around between all of them. Ms. Fatima stifled a laugh behind her delicate fingers as she closed the door behind her.

Finally, a lone bubble floated into her mind. Loud and familiar music started to play.

“They seem on the up-and-up,” Ray said. “Don’t you think?”

Something settled in Sofia.

“Yeah,” she said back, “I think so.”