II – The Voice in my Head tells me to do things. Is this normal?!

Previously on ‘Glitch’:

The infamous Glitcher known as Thief Queen steals the Heart in a Vat, a relic that supposedly makes dreams come true. However, she ends up betrayed by her partners from the Glitching Gang ‘Skulls’! Luckily, they fail to catch her: in the last moment, a mysterious power awakens to save her and the relic!

Yet Thief Queen’s mind now co-inhabits the mind of the gentle teenager Edward Williams, a passionate fan of Glitchers and all things anime! Now the relic, described as the command console of reality, is in possession of a clueless boy from Chicago!

What’s he gonna do?!

-| Glitch - |

“G’morning, Chicago!” buzzed a radio alarm-clock at Edward’s apartment. The broadcaster’s loud voice filled every chamber with sound. “Here’s J.J Strayan with your daily fix so you can start your day”—airhorns and car horns furiously burst off the sound boxes—“STRONGLY!” shouted the broadcaster at the top of his lungs.

“Argh!” bewailed Edward. He pressed his hands against his ears, envying the deaf. He had slept with his forehead rubbing against the window, and his backs hurt as if they had been ironed. J.J Strayan’s uproar only added misery to his strife. “Why did mom buy that radio?” grumbled the boy, squeezing his eyes shut as if he meant to trap the sleep.

Yet a hand pulled his shirt. “What?” faltered Edward, raising his head.

“Wake up, bro!” said his little sister, hoping to awaken him with her strident voice. “Bro!”

“I-I’m sleeping, Hermione!”

The girl was named after her mother’s favorite Harry Potter character.

“Don’t care,” she replied. A tiara stood on top of her head. “Breakfast!” squealed Hermione in a tone that made two grinding metals sound like Bach. Yet the sight of the Heart in a Vat pumping in her brother’s hand bothered her. “What is that in your hand?” she asked him, leaning forward. Her curiosity was hungrier than her stomach. “It is drugs, isn’t it? Mom suspects you’re eating drugs. Dad gives them to you.”

Edward recoiled. “She what”—he rose his head and felt the odd cold metal object throbbing between his fingers—“what the hell?” shouted the boy as he fell back in his chair. The Heart in a Vat sprung out of his hand and fell off the window.

“Ha! Bro said a bad word!” teased Hermione as she pointed at him and laughed.

The boy jumped off the ground and stuck his head in the window to see if he could find where the heart had fallen. “Where did it go, where did it go—”

A passerby screamed at him, “Look at where you throw your trash, idiot!”

“I’m sorry!” Edward yelled back. “Please throw it in a bin, mister! I’m gonna get it back n—”

“No!” intervened Hermione. “Aren’t you forgetting something very important?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Breakfast,” she said as she grasped at his shirt like ticks. “Go grab your drugs later.”

Edward rolled his eyes. He heaved a loud sigh and walked to the apartment’s tiny kitchen.

The boy quickly saw himself facing an oven with two golden eggs boiling in a frying pan.

Hermione sat on a table with a fork in one hand, and a knife in the other. “I’m waiting,” she warned him as she touched the table with the cutlery.

“I gotta go fast,” grumbled Edward as he laid out the eggs with his spatula. His stomach moaned beneath his apron, yet he felt no hunger. Thoughts cooked in his head as he saw his reflection in the oven’s metal surface. “So that yesterday wasn’t a nightmare?” he asked himself. He recalled the purple glow in his eyes and the eerie voice speaking in his head. “For a moment I felt like I wasn’t myself as if I had just become a spectator. It was almost like someone else had taken over—”

The radio alarm-clock buzzed, “If you were awake yesterday at around 2 AM, you must have witnessed what some smartasses at NASA have described as somewhat of a rain of space trash followed by Northern Lights. They did not use those exact words, but here at Downtown Radio, J.J Strayan speaks in a way that you understand—”

Edward shrunk away, aghast. “So there was indeed a rain of stars?” he asked with both eyes widened like pearls. “So it was not a dream at all?”

“—some specialists, are describing the event as a magnetic anomaly that pulled some metal into Earth’s atmosphere. Complex, no? Anyways, a US and Canadian joint effort is already surrounding the areas where the trash has supposedly fallen in order to keep you, the listener, safe.

And speaking about safety, it’s time for our public utility message sponsored by the US Department of Homeland Security,” he began, “Snitch the Glitch! If you spot an illegal Glitcher, report them to the nearest public office! These reality-bending individuals could be anywhere, even inside your own home—”

Edward sighed and turned off the radio. Fearmongering about Glitchers had become as familiar as the birds singing in the morning. The boy looked away and poured salt into the egg yolks. Yet his arms trembled. He heard Thief Queen’s voice in his head:

“Mercenaries who parade as journalists. Bloody vermins! The heist was the month’s news and it doesn’t make it into the morning headlines? The newsboys seem conscious that had it not been for Washington, they’d all be flipping burgers.”

The boy jumped back and dropped his spatula. “W-Who is talking?” he asked, jolting his head left and right.

His sister smirked. “Bro, are you crazy?” she asked, mocking him.

“No, I…” He faltered, unsure of what had happened. “I think I just heard a voice.”

“Don’t worry”—Hermione dialed a telephone—“I’ll call mom and ask why you’re hearing voices after sleeping with the drugs.”

“No, please don’t!”

Thief Queen’s voice spoke to him once again, “Can’t you pay attention, you bloody toothpick? You’re 8 seconds away from burning the eggs.”

“A-Alright!” replied Edward as he narrowed his eyes at the frying pan. “I’ll just turn this oven off and—”

His feet slipped on the grease of the fallen spatula. “Damn it!” he screamed as he fell on his backs. His elbow hammered the pan’s handle, and the object flipped upside down. His backs hit the ground and the eggs fell upon his apron.

Hermione ran to his side. “My eggs—”

“Argh!” buffed Edward as he laid on his back. The steaming eggs burned on his apron like a pair of Suns.

“—and my bro too, I guess!” completed Hermione.

“I-I-I got this!” said the boy as he grabbed the spatula and shoved the boiling food off his chest. “Done!” he sighed in relief.

Yet his sister was indifferent to his suffering. She narrowed her eyes at the clock. “It’s almost school time. What am I gonna eat?” she asked, facing him.

Edward stood up and frowned at the wasted eggs. He breathed out heavily as if he exhaled his frustration. “Mom’s gonna talk a lot,” he remarked with a long sigh.

Hermione insisted, “Bro! My food!”

“Listen,” he crouched so that he could see her eye to eye, “I’m gonna give you some money and you buy something at school, alright?”

“Aight. Can I get a burrito?”

“I think that would be too caloric, no? And expensive—”

“I’ll tell mom...”

The boy snatched his wallet from the kitchen counter. “Four, five, six million…” Edward counted the money until there wasn’t a single atom of any monetary worth in his wallet. “Here,” he said with a scowl as he gave his last banknotes to his sister, “this money was for my lunch”—his stomach grumbled as if it cried for the money that he gave her—“but it should be enough for a cheap burrito,” he completed, nonchalantly.

“Thank you,” said Hermione as she grabbed the money and yanked her bag from a chair. “I’ll go to school with Iris and her mom now!” announced Hermione as she wore her shoes and opened the apartment’s door. “Bye!”

“Bye.”

Edward looked away. He grumbled at the eggs that had fallen off his apron and smudged the floor. “I’m not going to get that metal thing back, am I?” he snorted at the yet-another-problem between him and Heart in a Vat.

The boy sought a piece of fabric and cleaned the floor with passion. He rubbed the stains with a pallet of disinfectants, yet the mess refused to fade away. He resigned, “desperate situations require desperate measures,” said as he spilled half a gallon of cleaning product on the ground to hide the grease stains, “I’m sure mom will not notice!”

The boy sprung off the ground and left the apartment.

“I’m glad I at least wore an apron,” remarked Edward as he ran down his building’s stairs. The smell of trash and fuel from the streets guided him to the outside. “I knew this day was going to be horrible,” he remarked as he reached the sidewalk. “At least I did not taint my clothes—”

A monster truck sped down the street. The vehicle’s giant wheels scared an entire puddle off the ground. Yet the waters sought refuge in the boy’s clothes.

Edward fell on his backs, soaked. “Argh, damn it!” snorted the boy as he shoved the water off his eyelids. He felt as if he carried an entire pond in his clothes. He faced the vehicle and grumbled, “can’t they look where they drive—”

He noticed that the word “Cubs” covered the truck’s license plate under graffiti. Edward swallowed his complaints and rose from the sidewalk. “So close. I should not anger these guys,” he remarked with both hands over his mouth, “I’d better just go find the thing.”

The boy looked away and rushed to the trash bin into where the passerby had thrown the Heart in a Vat. The recipient was located in a dark alley that smelled like rotten milk. “It must be here!” said Edward as he held his breath and uncovered the bin. He gathered the courage to dive his hand into the uncollected trash and find his lost treasure. “There goes nothing—”

A foot dove against the object. The trash, including the Heart in a Vat, sprung off the bin and rolled on the ground.

“There it is!” said the boy. He yanked the heart from the ground with a wide grin on his face. He carried the object between the arms as if he held a baby. “Ha-ha-ha! Thank you, sir!” said Edward as he faced his mysterious helper. “W-Wait, Macro?” The boy swallowed dry.

“Yeah, me,” said Macro, stretching his neck. “And that wasn’t charity, dude.”

Macro was a tall punk boy with a scar on his chin. He looked as if Edward’s reflection from a parallel world. His short silvery hair hid underneath a black bandana stamped with the drawing of a wolf. Aside from the pristine headgear, all his clothes were ripped and soiled. He looked as if he had wrestled a Lion on his way to the alley.

Edward faltered.“T-Thanks for the help?” he risked an answer as he hid the Heart in a Vat in his pocket.

“Thanks?” asked Macro, glancing at the fallen trash bin. “You think I go around kicking things for fun? You must have blue balls to make fun of me like this.”

“I’m not making fun of you, I—”

“That would be quite a good idea, though. Kicking things…” Pondered Macro. “You see that”—he pointed at the deformed trash bin—“give me some support, and that @#&% won’t happen to your face.”

“Support?”

Macro rolled his eyes. He clarified, “That’s money, dude.”

“B-But I don’t have money, I—”

“You’ll tell me your dog ate it?” asked the punk as he grabbed Edward by the shirt. Their height difference was so great that he lifted the boy off his feet.

Edward bargained, “I-I gave it all to my little sister Hermione! You know her, right? She studies with your brother. They are in the same class!” explained the boy. He noticed that Macro’s scowl faltered as if he touched the bully’s weak point. He continued, “I-I tried making her breakfast but I was in a hurry. I had to retrieve a metal heart that appeared in my bedroom last night. When I was making Hermione’s breakfast, I heard a strange voice and I got scared. I ended up ruining everything and had to give my sister all my money so that she could buy some food—”

Macro swung his fist at Edward’s cheek. The thin boy rolled on the ground and banged his backs against a fence.

“Argh!” Edward moaned in pain. He opened his eyes and saw his bully snapping the fingers as he approached.

“You think you are very funny, right?” snorted Macro. He had marked the boy’s face with his fist.

Thinking well, it does sound a bit absurd, reflected Edward with a cheek touching the concrete.

A beacon of light slithered through the rooftops of the alley where the boys fought. The light revealed a golden watch around Macro’s right wrist. The accessory looked so alien on the punk that Edward wondered if he had gotten brain damage from the punch. The watch looked like a hallucination.

Macro groaned, “My face is up here, can’t you see?”

W-What’s going on with Macro, Edward thought to himself, he always beats me up, but he never steals anything. He has a job. Why is he coming after money now?”

“So what is it gonna be, huh?” asked Macro as he lifted Edward by the shirt one more time. “Will you give me your cash or serve as a punching bag?” He sounded as if he struggled to find words that made him threatening.

“I-I said I don’t have any money in me, Macro! But if you chose to believe this…” The boy clenched his fists. “We’ll have to—”

Thief Queen spoke in Edward’s head, “Don’t even try, toothpick. You should have told your sister that you were broke. It’s not like she lacks reserves.”

The boy shrunk in pain as he heard her voice. He felt as if his brain boiled. He closed his eyes in the hope that the agony would end. Yet Queen continued, nonchalantly:

“You stand no chance, toothpick. But I do,” she remarked as the boy agonized. “Give in, and I’ll teach this cunt some anatomy.”

Edward cried in pain. “G-Get away from me!” he yelled.

Macro recoiled. “What did you just say to me, dude?” he snorted.

“I’m talking to the voice in my head!” grumbled Edward as he opened his eyes to face Macro. Words blurred the boy’s vision of the bully. “C-Can you wait a moment ‘till I’m done with them?”

“No!”

“P-Please?”

“You are asking to die, aren’t you?” grunted Macro as he tightened his grasp of Edward’s shirt. Steam came out of his nose as if he were a mad bull. The punk rose the right fist and calculated a punch that would send the boy’s jaw flying.

Thief Queen, speaking from inside Edward’s head, insisted,“You must give in. He’ll break you in half like a chalk—”

“S-Shut up!” replied the boy, resisting the temptation. “Please just leave me alone!”

The woman mocked him, “Want to know what, toothpick”—she laughed—“this will be fun to watch. Enjoy your trip to the hospital. Ha-ha-ha…”

Numbers hovered over Macro’s head. They spelled Edward’s doom:

“Any last words, dude?” asked Macro.

Edward flinched and closed his eyes.

“Crap.”

Tables for the Table Gods:

Spoiler: Spoiler

Edward's Stat Cards:

??? (Coming soon)