Accidents Made Right 1: Pistanthrophobia

“So… what happened?” Rowan asked, once my tears had mostly disappeared.

…

“You father appeared… somehow… through my swords… and he told me what specifically happened to my parents.”

“W-What… happened?”

I wiped the snot from my nose, and stood up, before walking to the swords on the table, focusing on them as I replied “Doesn't matter. It’s… just your father being him. He called them pathetic…”

“O-Oh…”

“Don’t worry though. I have a plan to get him back for that.”

After I said that, more green and red electricity shot out from the swords, forming a 3D hologram in between me and Rowan, of a military base halfway underwater in a lake.

“W-What’s the plan?”

I could see an army placed all around the lake, except for the part of the lake behind the base; in the northeast.

Instead of showing an army, the hologram was showing a bunch of tiny dots across the ground… mines. Then, I looked around the lake for any signs of fire tracks, only to not see anything.

I turned off the hologram, put my swords in their scabbards, and we left the attic to start our long hike.

5 days later

Rowan and I were hiding in a ditch about 200 meters from the southern side of the lake, with a clear view of the minefield. I had a sniper rifle equipped, with a scope for spotting electronics, which I was using to formulate a path through the field.

“H-hey… S-Steve?”

“Yeah?”

“I-I was thinking… a-and I thought of an I-Idea.”

“Yeah?”

“W-What if you made it s-so you could shoot the mines and s-somehow deactivate them?”

…

”N-Never mind. Should’ve k-known it was dumb.”

”Damn. Can’t believe I didn’t think of that.”

“W-wait, you don’t think that was dumb?” he asked, starting to smile.

“Yeah, of course.” I replied, transforming my rifle back into a sword and sheathing it.

Rowan squealed.

He’s so adorable…

We got up from the ditch, and walked towards the minefield, since I had already figured out the path through the field.

Left, forward, right, circle around a mine, right, forward, left, and then forward.

“S-So… you come up w-with any more theories to tell me a-about?” Rowan asked, trailing very close behind me, to the point where I thought he would hug me in terror and never let go.

“I don’t come up with theories to entertain you… but yeah, I got some.”

You only come up with theories to entertain both you and him. Hope joked.

I scoffed.

When we were halfway through the field, I started to say “So, I’ve found there are four different types of electricity in the world, all with their own properties, including color. There could be more, but these are the only ones I’ve seen. Yellow, green, blue, and red electricity. While I can’t be sure yet what green or red electricity is, I’m sure of yellow and blue, which I can confirm to be organic electricity, like in our brains, and technological electricity, like with phones and computers.”

“You… h-have any guesses on what the other two are?”

“Well, none for red, at least not anything that conflicts with established science, but… for green, I believe it might be cosmic or… mystical.”

“Y-You mean spirits and stuff?”

“Yeah.”

Right when we almost left the minefield, I was gonna take another step forward, but stopped.

“W-What’s wrong?”

“This is… too easy. Something’s off.”

Then I picked up a scent. Gunpowder.

I grabbed Rowan’s hand, pulled him behind me, and quickly unsheathed my sword and assumed a defensive stance.

Then, smoke lit up the field, blocking whatever was nearby from sight. After a second, the smoke lit up in flames, and two shadows became visible.

I jerked my left arm forward, causing the gauntlet on said arm to click, and blue electricity sparked around the small hole in the front part of the gauntlet.

“Uhh… Steve?” Rowan said, confused.

Immediately after, a voice coming from the fading smoke mimicked Rowan, saying what he said but sounding… familiar.

“Who’s there?!”

…

“We’re disappointed in you… son.”

Before I even knew what was happening, my breathing became ten times as fast and my knees became too weak to function.

I thought I was about to fall flat on my face, but Rowan was quick, grabbing my arming and holding me up before I did.

“What’s wrong?” He asked, his eyes sparkling full of love.

“I… I saw my parents, I think… they, they told me they were… disappointed…”

I could barely keep the strength to not drop my sword.

…

“What if they are? What if they’re looking down at me from the afterlife or as ghosts or… whatever, and I’m following a path they don’t want me to?”

“I-I don’t think so. I-I could be wrong, b-but… I believe they’d j-just want you to be happy.” Rowan’s empathetic smile was enough to melt my heart instantly.

I love you Rowan… I’m sorry I'm a mess.

My heart and breath started to slow again.

“S-So… you wanna get started?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I do.”

I sheathed my sword and we stepped into the water, walking further and further until it was deep enough for us to swim. Once we reached the partially submerged base, I unsheathed one of my swords, focused on activating it, then cut a hole in the wall, just below the lake level.

Once I was done, water flooded into what appeared to be a ventilation shaft. I looked at Rowan, then, after sheathing my sword, I crawled inside first, with Rowan following soon after.

For a few minutes, none of us were making sounds except for the quiet bumping of us crawling inside the shaft. Until I held my hand out as I stopped, signifying for Rowan to stop.

I was on top of a vent grate which let me see what was under the vent, and I spotted a group of 20 soldiers walk past us.

“That’s a lot of soldiers for just a patrol. Rowan, you know anything about this base I should know?” I looked back at Rowan, waiting for a response.

“I-I don’t know.”

I looked back through the grate, and shrugged. I waited a minute, then pulled an orange disk out of my belt, and placed it on the top right corner of the vent grate. When I pressed the button on the disk, it split into four separate smaller disks which each went to the different corners of the grate, before connecting a laser between them that caused them to cut through the grate’s outline.

Right when the grate was cut enough that it started to fall, I quickly grabbed one of the bars, and silently dropped out of the vent with the grate in hand. Once I was on the ground, I gently set it down, and looked back up at Rowan to wait for him to drop down.

…

Eventually.

“Alright, do you want me to catch you?”

Rowan nodded sheepishly.

I held my arms up, and, slowly, Rowan shuffled closer to the edge of the hole until, after a while, he fell down, into my…

Before I could finish my thought, Rowan pointed out “H-Hey. It looks like we’re next t-to the reactor.”

I let Rowan stand, then turned around to see a red wooden door with a birch oak sign above it that was labeled REACTOR. ONLY QUALIFIED PROFESSIONALS WILL GRANTED ACCESS INSIDE.

“Welp… that helps. Cmon, we got work to do.”