cHApTEr 13. TH friDAy (3 of 3)

Mioray had a room in the storage facility as well. It was the same one he had woken up in last year after the attack on the university. Compared to Erinel’s meadow or Kevin’s carefully arranged office full of books and a wide redwood desk set on a carpet, his space was plain. The walls, floor, and ceiling were bare cement. A worn sofa stood against one wall, and a small wooden table occupied the center. That was about it.

Since he still lived with his parents, he used the room mostly for its original purpose: storage. Tools were stacked neatly in one corner. His bicycle leaned against the wall. A few rare history books he had managed to collect were stored in plastic crates. There were small electronics too, an air pump, a projector and a screen, spare cables. Most importantly, it was where he kept everything related to John Doe.

After entering, Mioray changed into a black hoodie with wide, short sleeves and knee-length gray shorts. He took the wooden tree-face mask from the wall and held it in front of him. The green lenses reflected his face back at him in a distorted way.

He still hadn’t fully shaken off the discussion with Erinel. Even though they hadn’t argued openly today, the tension lingered. It bothered him that she believed he was wasting his time challenging death. There had to be a flaw in her reasoning. Mioray couldn’t accept that everything was predetermined. Even if someone wasn’t meant to die yet, that didn’t mean they should be left alone in danger. If someone needed help, someone had to step in.

He put the mask into his backpack along with the radio receiver he used to monitor emergency channels. As he swung the backpack over his shoulders, his thoughts drifted to Juju. Did his former friend suspect that he was John Doe? It hadn’t taken long for people to realize the mysterious hero had been present at the charity event hosted by Lady Anetta’s Foundation at the Mausolo Museum. The abilities were too distinctive. Someone even pointed out him being seen the night terrorists rampaged through the streets, and the old rumors about a human-shaped vehicle being spotted had resurfaced. Those rumors had faded before, but this time they were trending for longer. The idea of superpowered individuals no longer seemed impossible.

Across social networks, theories multiplied. People debated how John Doe detached his limbs and launched them like grappling hooks. Some claimed advanced prosthetics, others suggested hidden mechanical devices. No one came close to the truth. But Juju had seen it. He had watched Mioray detach his arm during the university attack. If Juju connected the dots, he could easily expose Mioray.

Yet he didn’t. Why? Mioray couldn’t figure that out. Juju wasn’t known for keeping secrets out of loyalty. If anything, he would have blurted it out immediately. Unless he was saving the information as leverage for later.

Mioray shook his head, pushing the thought away. Sooner or later, he needed to confront Juju and clear the air about what happened last year. Angelika was right about that. Just as she was right about the motorcycle helmet.

He sighed.

Leaving his room, he walked down the corridor toward the exit. On the way, he passed Mia’s room and decided to stop by. A small doorbell was mounted beside her roll-up door. Pressing it triggered a flashing light inside. He rang once, and a few seconds later, the door rolled upward.

Hello, Mioray, Mia signed, her expression slightly tense. He returned the greeting with a salute. How have you been?

She looked exactly as she always had. It was almost unsettling how complete the regeneration had been. At the abandoned factory, Mia had blown herself apart into fragments. Now she stood before Mioray whole, without a trace of damage. Well, almost.

There was one change that couldn’t be ignored. Mia usually got along well with everyone and saw the best in them. But after returning and learning about Terry’s death, she couldn’t forgive Erinel for what she’d done to him. She still helped guide souls to the afterlife, but she refused to acknowledge Erinel directly and never remained alone with her. Mia was harsher than Farah, who, surprisingly, tolerated Erinel.

And she had also lost her amber flower pin that had always decorated her hair.

Mia stepped aside and let Mioray enter. Her room resembled a compact studio. The design was functional. There was no bed or kitchenette, which made sense given their condition. The main feature was a height-adjustable desk supporting a powerful desktop computer connected to a wide curved monitor. A drawing tablet rested beneath it.

Mia worked as a graphic designer. That was clear from the minimalist prints displayed on the walls. One was a triptych of tree leaves layered over oval backgrounds in varying shades of green. Another featured a bold black circular brushstroke on white canvas, reminiscent of a golden ratio diagram. A darker print showed what looked like a cavern opening, a lone figure in a yellow raincoat standing at its edge as if preparing to step inside.

“Same old, same old” Mioray said slowly, attempting to accompany his words with signs. He was still far from fluent and had to think about each movement. “What are you guys up to?”

He spotted Farah and Matt sitting in the cane-line armchairs near the wall. A stopwatch was running on Farah’s phone. Matt was shaking violently, gripping the armrests so tightly his knuckles were pale. His face had taken on a bluish tint.

“Matt’s experimenting with holding his breath,” Farah said without looking up. “He’s passed out twice so far. We had to wait for him to recover. His best time holding his breath is about three minutes. Right now he’s at two twenty.”

A second later, Matt gasped loudly, sucking in air as if he’d been underwater. He bent forward, breathing hard. Mia rushed to him and knelt at his side, patting him on the back with motherly gentleness.

“Hey, buddy, you alright?” Mioray asked.

Matt didn’t answer, but gave a weak thumbs-up instead. Mioray returned the gesture, though he wasn’t entirely reassured. It looked like Matt might collapse again at any moment.

He needs a minute, Mia signed, tapping two fingers against her wrist where a watch would normally sit.

“And what’s the point of this?” Mioray asked, unsure whether to be concerned or annoyed.

“He started it after we wondered whether the Restored actually need oxygen to stay conscious,” Farah replied.

Mioray frowned at the word. Restored.

That was what the pale woman from the Order of Mercy had called them, the undead. Strangely, the time when Mioray and the rest went to save Mia was the only time they had crossed paths directly with members of the Order. Since then, there had been no new developments, though Mioray didn’t doubt for a second that the Order would appear again and ruin the day.

At first glance, it was impossible to distinguish a Restored from a regular person. You’d need to inflict wounds on them, preferably ones that bleed. The Restored had the ability to control their bloodflow, so they wouldn’t bleed much, if at all. And even if it came to bleeding out, sooner or later they would revive.

With spiritual sight, the difference was easier to notice. Mioray glanced around at his friends. Above each of his friends hovered a faint green glow, like small flames suspended in the air. Matt’s aura flickered weakly as he struggled for breath. The glow represented their souls tethered to their bodies, the force that allowed them to function.

“It seems obvious we still need oxygen,” Mioray said. “So why do you keep pushing it?”

“Beats me,” Farah shrugged, scrolling lazily on her phone. “Matt thinks there’s something more to it, I’m just keeping time. I took a day off work anyway. Got tired of people asking why I’m wearing a puffer coat in summer. Like, mind your own business, let me be weird.”

It did look weird, but only if you didn’t know the reason. Farah’s body constantly absorbed heat, leaving cold behind. The coat helped her retain warmth so the chill didn’t become too noticeable. She even had heating pads sewn into the lining of her coat.

Mioray turned to Mia, silently asking whether it was really necessary to repeat the experiment three times. She smiled faintly and drew her head slightly into her shoulders. With her free hand, she made a fist and drew a circle over her chest.

I’m just looking out for the little guy, she signed.

Mioray wasn’t convinced. There was curiosity in her eyes. She seemed interested in seeing how far Matt would take it.

“Well, I guess I’ll leave you to it,” Mioray said with a sigh.

“What, too cool for us now that you’ve started that superhero bullshit?” Farah scoffed, shifting so she lay sideways across the chair, her head resting on one armrest and her legs hanging over the other. “I swear, everything these days is John Doe this, John Doe that. It’s getting boring.”

“It has nothing to do with that,” Mioray replied, irritation creeping into his voice. It felt like nobody really understood him or what he was trying to achieve. “I have to look for three souls today, so I’m kind of short on time.”

“Ah, I see. Then I understand,” Farah said lightly. “You don’t want to make your mommy girlfriend upset.”

“She’s not my girlfriend!” Mioray snapped.

“She’s not?” Farah raised an eyebrow in mock surprise. “Then what about all those dates you’re having with her? You know, I’m kind of tired of choosing outfits for her, and now you’re saying it’s all for nothing?”

“It’s not for nothing!” Mioray’s face turned red. “It’s… I mean… What I’m trying to say…”

He couldn’t find the words, and he wasn’t even sure what point he wanted to make. Were his outings with Erinel dates or not? Mioray liked her. It seemed like she was interested in him too. But beyond that, everything was complicated. She wasn’t human, for starters. And she was very old, maybe even as old as the world itself. Yes, she looked like a woman in her early thirties, but that appearance came from magic or science or whatever it truly was. Her real form was different, and Mioray hadn’t even seen it yet.

And what of himself? Mioray was hardly human anymore either. He was just a living corpse with strange powers.

He looked at Mia for support, but she had deliberately turned her gaze away and turned her attention back to Matt. Well, figures. Anything that concerned Erinel, she didn’t want to hear about.

“Holy Mirabelle, it’s so easy to fluster you,” Farah put a palm to her face and shook her head. “When are you going to man up, oh hero of the city?”

“Come on, Farah, it’s been eight months,” Mioray said, looking at her from under his brows. “Don’t you think that’s enough time to forget past grudges? Besides, after what happened last Friday the Thirteenth, I’m pretty sure we should be even.”

“What, you mean when that axe got stuck in your back?” Farah clarified, as if she had nothing to do with it.

“What else?”

“Relax,” Farah drawled, stretching the word out. “It was an accident.” Then she fixed him with a cold stare. “And accidents happen, right?”

Mioray clicked his tongue and looked away helplessly. She was never going to let it go, was she? Last year, when he first moved into the storage facility, he had entered Farah’s room without knocking and briefly saw her naked in the bathtub. It had been a short, unfortunate moment, but apparently unforgettable. The tension from that introduction had never quite faded.

There was no point in arguing further, so Mioray decided to move on. On his way toward the door, he noticed a red and white guitar with four strings standing upright against the wall. The body had two sharp, uneven points near the neck, one longer than the other.

“Is that yours, Mia?” he asked.

She made a fist and moved it back and forth twice, then stepped closer to him. Matt joined her, and the three of them stood side by side in front of the guitar. The boy looked much better already.

“Mia said she had fun playing the tambourine at the karaoke bar,” Matt explained, now breathing normally, his earlier experiment apparently forgotten. “She wants to learn bass guitar.”

“Cool,” Mioray said, genuinely impressed.

Mia picked up the bass and played a few low notes, the sound vibrating softly through the room.

“When I get back, can you play something for me?” he asked.

Mia touched her index finger to her temple, then her chin, then pointed forward.

Definitely.

After that, Mioray said goodbye and stepped back into the corridor, soon emerging onto the street.

He had no idea where he would find a soul in need of guidance, so he simply walked. He checked back alleys, lingered near intersections, occasionally glanced through windows to see whether a faint green translucent figure lingered inside. Souls looked exactly as they had in life, even wearing the same clothes. The only difference was their transparency, as if they were made of tinted glass that dulled the colors behind them.

It would have been convenient if souls gathered in cemeteries, but they rarely did. Mioray understood why. Who would want to remain near their own grave, knowing their body rotted beneath the soil? Most souls lingered near the place where they died or somewhere meaningful to them. Sometimes they followed the people they loved.

The first soul Mioray encountered that evening was an elderly woman standing near a kindergarten fence. She watched her daughter pick up her grandson, her expression calm. She seemed at peace with her death and did not resist when Mioray approached her.

The door to the afterlife normally had to be opened by greanrips, but the temporary power Erinel granted allowed Mioray to do it as well. The portal usually appeared as an ellipse in the air, its edges flickering with green tongues of flame. It led somewhere beyond his understanding, a place only souls could enter. Erinel described it as a realm between realms, suspended between the world of the living and the dead.

Creating the portal was no longer difficult. Mioray simply traced its outline in the air, making it large enough for the soul to step through. Doing it felt almost natural, but he still remembered how impossible it had seemed the first time he tried. No one had explained how to do it. Farah once said it was like breathing, which had not been helpful at all. It only made sense in hindsight.

After guiding the elderly woman through, he continued his search. The second soul belonged to a man who had died in his sleep from an undetected illness. Mioray found him standing in front of the house, looking through the lit windows. The man was not ready to leave his family behind. When Mioray explained where the portal would lead, the man tried bargaining, asking whether there was any way to return to his body.

It took time to convince him that it did not work that way. Eventually, the man accepted it, though reluctantly, trusting that his family would find a way to move forward without him.

Finally, the third soul belonged to a young woman who had fallen from her bicycle while riding down a steep hill. She had been going too fast, and when she hit the brakes, she flipped over the handlebars and slammed headfirst into a wall. She was wearing a helmet, but it hadn’t saved her. Her neck had broken on impact.

“What will happen if I decline?” she asked after Mioray explained the afterlife to her.

“Right now, nothing,” he said. “But you know those stories about poltergeists harming people? That’s what eventually happens.”

He left out certain details. He had learned the hard way that telling souls about the Soul Collective – a spiritual entity that absorbed wandering souls and posed a threat to the living – only made things worse. The more he explained, the more confused and suspicious they became, and whatever trust he had managed to build would quickly fall apart. Poltergeists, on the other hand, were familiar. Most people already had some idea of what they were from stories and movies. Their behavior wasn’t that different from what the Soul Collective did, so even if Mioray wasn’t telling the whole truth, the souls still understood the consequences of refusing to move on.

“Okay,” the girl said quietly, drifting into thought. “If I agree, could you pass a message to my family?”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Mioray replied. “Think about how that would look. A complete stranger shows up at your parents’ door and claims he spoke to their dead daughter?”

She winced slightly. “You’re right. My father wouldn’t handle that well. He’d probably yell at you, maybe even punch you.”

“Yeah,” Mioray said with a small laugh. “I’d rather avoid that.”

She walked slowly around the portal he had conjured, leaning to glance inside. Souls perceived it differently than he did. To him, it looked like an ellipse of darkness suspended in the air, its edges flickering green. If he stuck his arm into it, it simply passed through to the other side of this world, as though the space beyond didn’t exist. Souls, however, always described a warm light within it.

“You’ve heard about John Doe?” she asked suddenly.

“Yeah. What about him?”

“I’m just… sad he didn’t save me.”

The words settled heavily in his chest. He hadn’t saved her because he had been at home, studying. And even if he hadn’t been, would it have changed anything? According to Erinel, death was predetermined. If this girl’s time had come, then no one could have stopped it. Not even John Doe.

After she stepped through the portal and disappeared, Mioray climbed the hill where she had fallen. He stood there for a while, watching the sun sink behind the rooftops, the light slowly fading from the streets below. He hadn’t considered that people might expect him to show up. That they might believe John Doe would arrive whenever things went wrong. And he was just one person. He could save some, but many more would still die, and maybe they would die wondering why he hadn’t been there for them.

It was an unsettling thought. If Erinel was right and death couldn’t be changed, then what was he doing? Was he only giving people hope he couldn’t fulfill? Instead of simply dying, would they die disappointed, believing they hadn’t been worthy of rescue?

I can’t think like that, Mioray clapped his cheeks lightly to clear his head. I’m not a god. I’m just a guy. I can’t save everyone, but it doesn’t mean I shouldn’t try saving anyone. If he had these abilities, then they had to serve a purpose. Otherwise, what was the point of having them?

He pulled the radio receiver from his backpack and tuned it to the police frequency. That was how he kept track of events around the city. For about half an hour, he listened to routine chatter. Then a familiar voice came through the static.

“All units, we have a residential complex on Calm Street on fire,” Detective Natalie Lance reported.

Mioray didn’t hesitate. This was something he had to get involved in.

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