When You’re A Mystery Kid - Chapter 17: Sparks
Summary: It all starts with a single spark.
Word Count: 2.221
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IMPORTANT NOTE: This is a repost.
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters featured here.
Mabel skipped down the hallway of the Shack while humming a cheerful little tune for herself. She didn’t quite remember where the tune was from - probably the opening theme to a sitcom or something - and while she can devote some time and thought to really remembering where it was from, that is not a thing that is on her mind at the moment. Maybe later, but not now. Now, the thing that is on her mind is where the heck exactly is that ghost-seeing sweetheart most commonly known as Norman, a.k.a. Normie, a.k.a. Norm, a.k.a. Hairspike McGhostface.
She’d already searched everywhere in the Shack, and by everywhere, she meant the three most likely places where you can usually find a Norman, which is in front of the television, the roof, or in the backyard near the woods, and she did not find a single Norman at all in any of those places. So, that left her heading off towards the fourth and last place where you can find yourself a Norman, which is the bedroom he shares with Neil while they’re here for the summer.
As her target comes into view and she got closer to said target, her skipping comes to a stop, because skipping makes a lot of loud noise, and loud noises are easier to hear, obviously. Instead, she switched on her sneaking mode, which produces the opposite of loud noises, and is therefore good for what she’s about to do. Reaching the door to his room, she paused for a bit, feeling the bundle tucked under her sweater - which is still there, safe and unharmed, thank goodness - before opening the door just an itty bitty teeny tiny little bit, and took a peek inside.
Inside, she can confirm that the room does contain a Norman, who is sitting in the middle of the room, cross-legged, hands joined together on his lap, and eyes closed in a relaxed manner. The room also seems to be filled with the sounds of hooting owls, cricketing crickets, and the soft crinkling of leaves as a breeze passed through them, and before she can come to the conclusion that there is a pocket dimension somewhere in Norman’s room, she spotted Norman’s phone placed beside Norman, which seems to be the source of all the sounds.
Taking a moment to mentally give herself a high five for getting it right after only four tries - high five! - she then did two quick knocks on the door.
“Hey, Norm.” Mabel whispered out.
Norman opened a single eye, and then opened another one when he realized who greeted him.
“Oh. Mabel.”
He reached down to grab his phone, stopping the ambient noises it’s making, took a moment to straighten out and stretch and rub his eyes, before he smiled gently up at Mabel.
“What brings you here?” he asked.
Mabel proceeded to fully enter the room, closing the door behind her, answering, “Oh, not much.”
“Oh! Are you here for that… drink?” Norman pointed to a nearby dresser, where Mabel can see there is indeed a ghost-and-zombie-decorated mug that she gave her this morning sitting on top of it.
Norman rubbed his arm, saying somewhat bashfully, “I… haven’t actually finished it yet. It’s been… interesting, drinking that. Sorry.”
“Nah, that drink’s old news.” Mabel shrugged. She sat down in front of Norman and leaned forward. “What’s new and hip is what the heckins have you been doing here? What’s all this about?”
“Oh, uh, this is, I’ve been…” Norman glanced about his room for a moment, “…meditating.”
Mabel’s eyes went wide. “Oooh, meditating?”
“Yeah.” Norman shrugged. “Raz and Lili recommended it to me, said it might help me with my… you know, thing.”
Mabel nodded, eyes full of awe. Norman’s ‘thing’ - she almost giggled over the fact that that’s how he wants to call it - is a truly awesome sight to behold, and if meditating can help it and him, that would be all kinds of absolutely awesome.
“So, yeah, since everyone went out to town, I thought I’d meditate for a bit. I’m actually surprised you came back so early.”
“Eh. Paz cancelled our date; her parents are being complete grumbletonians, so I went back.” She’s still really bummed that her plans for the night are ruined, but she supposed that’s the risk of dating someone whose parent are total fopdoodles.
Anyhow, she doesn’t want to linger on that anymore, so she leaned forward again. “So, did it work? Does meditating actually help you?”
“Umm…” Norman wondered for a moment before, and Mabel noticed, he deliberately forced his shoulder to slump and his face to fall. “I… don’t know. The reason Raz and Lili recommended it to me is because it helped them with their powers. They’re psychic, and I’m… me.”
“Even they’re not sure if it’ll help, but, I mean,” Norman shrugged, in a manner that Mabel guessed is meant to look helpless, “it’s better than nothing, I guess.”
Mabel briefly considered blurting out what a terrible liar Norman is right then and there, but she decided to hold her tongue for just a tiny bit. She wanted to see how this would go.
“Can you show me?”
Norman blinked, stammering, “Sh-show you…?”
“Yeah, show me what you can do.” Mabel said with a firm nod.
“Uh…” Norman hesitated, but surprisingly she didn’t have to pull out the puppy eyes before he said, “…sure. Okay.”
Mabel grinned, scooting back a few inches to give Norman some space. Norman took a few deep breaths, putting both of his hands in front of him.
He shot a nervous glance at Mabel. “I’m just telling you now, it’s not much, so don’t get too excited.”
“Oh, sure.” Mabel smiled knowingly.
Norman didn’t seem to notice as he is already too focused on preparing himself. He closed his eyes, taking in one more deep breath, two more deep breaths, three more, before his eyes opened, and they are glaring at his hands, the most intense look Mabel has ever seen him with. Moments passed in breathless silence with nothing happening, until Mabel noticed, almost impossible to see, a streak of yellow jumping from the tip of his right ring finger to the tip of his left middle finger. Another streak, bigger this time, from his left pinky to his right thumb, zipping by incredibly fast with a sound that almost sounds like a chitter of an angry hummingbird. After that, another streak jumped, then another, and another, and another, until the streaks stopped being streaks and became lines, ever-shifting lines of yellow that connected one finger tip to another. The lines grew in size and number, doubling, tripling, becoming a sparking, shifting, chittering network of, what Mabel now realized, electricity, right there between Norman’s fingers. The sight of it is… amazing.
The network continued to grow, fully enveloping Norman’s fingers, sometimes arcing down to his palm, or even further down to his wrist. However, Mabel also saw Norman’s breath quickening, his hands starting to shake, beads of sweat starting to roll down his forehead. As the network of electricity grew, Mabel even saw on Norman’s features, for the briefest moment, a look of fear.
Norman closed his eyes tight and clenched his hands into fists, and the electric network disappeared, as if nothing has ever happened. He slammed his fists into the wooden floor, slumping down where he sat, taking in long, deep breaths for a good thirty seconds. Eventually, he looked up, wearing a smile that is not convincing at all.
“And that was, uh… pretty much all that I can do. Told you it was not much.”
Mabel shook her head, amused, but her eyes still showed concern.
“You’re a terrible liar, Norman.”
Norman sighed, shoulders slumping, averting his gaze.
Mabel cocked her head to the side. “Wanna talk about it?”
Norman didn’t respond.
Mabel sighed, intentionally as dramatic as humanly possible. “Guess not. Too bad, I had something super cool I wanted to give to you.
Norman still said nothing, but, to Mabel’s joy, he did chance a glance at Mabel. She chose that time to pull out the bundle wrapped in newspaper from under her sweater.
“It’s pretty much the coolest thing ever, but you don’t want it, I guess.” Mabel made a show of inspecting the bundle in her hands.
This, to Mabel’s delight, brought a teeny tiny smile to Norman’s face.
“Alright. Alright.”
Mabel put the bundle in her lap and listened intently.
“I can do more.” Norman admitted. “I just don’t want to.”
Mabel was careful to keep her voice gentle. “Why not?”
“Because it hurts.” A grimace flashed across his face. A pained memory. “I know how much it can hurt. I don’t want anyone to feel that, especially not… people like you guys.”
Mabel couldn’t help but smile. That is just the most Norman way to answer that question. “Norman, you could never hurt us.”
“You don’t know that!” Norman suddenly snapped. “Letting it out is easy, but controlling it is… I can barely do it! And that was just for little sparks! What if it gets stronger?! Aggie, she-!”
Norman paused. Deep breaths to calm down. “I’m starting to think it’s the other way around. She didn’t get so powerful because she was filled with so much anger and hate; she was so powerful, that it… she lost control. A-and it even makes sense! Deep down, she didn’t really want to hurt people, but she still felt angry, and with how powerful she was… it felt good. It felt right.”
Norman’s clear blue eyes met Mabel’s hazel, and she sucked in a breath, taken aback by how scared he looked.
“I’m- I don’t want-”
Mabel quickly reached forward, taking Norman’s trembling hand in her own. Norman flinched back, his hands squirming trying to break free from Mabel’s grasp, but Mabel’s grip held firm.
“Norman, Norman, listen.” Mabel offered him a small, gentle smile. “No offense to Aggie, but even if, deep down, she doesn’t actually want to hurt people, on the outside she still wanted to, right?”
Norman slowly nodded.
“Do you want to hurt people?”
Norman’s eye widened, horrified.
“N-no!”
Mabel let go of Norman’s hand, leaning back, relaxing. “Then you got nothing to worry about.”
“See, how I see it, if feeling angry plus powers equals feeling angrier for Aggie, then for you, no anger plus your powers equals… just your powers.”
Norman was quiet for a while, considering the thought, but he eventually conceded with, “I guess…”
Mabel said nothing in reply; she simply sat quietly with a gentle smile still on her face. Norman eventually settled into a neutral expression after a little while. A silence washed over the two, but it’s a comfortable kind of silence, the kind of silence that says a lot more than words could express, which Mabel always thought was ironic.
Eventually, Mabel gauged enough time has passed for her to say, “Well, time for your reward.”
With practiced flourish, Mabel unwrapped the bundle in her lap. Norman took one look at the object underneath the wrapping, and laughed. “Wow.” was all he could say.
The object in question was a very peculiar doll of a zombified bunny rabbit, complete with a bloodied missing eye and bits of its skeleton sticking out, which, despite its horribly mangled form, still managed to look pretty gosh darn adorable. Props to the designers of the doll, really, for managing to do that.
“Where’d you find something like that?” Norman asked.
“I found him in some leftover stuff from Summerween. The store was practically giving them away, so I snatched Mr. Zombunny out of there.” Mabel rose to her feet and took a step closer to Norman. “And…” she plopped the doll right on top of Norman’s spiky hair, “boop.”
Mabel took a step back to admire the sight of Norman with a zombie bunny doll on top of his hair. It’s a great sight. Almost matches the sight of Norman’s powers, honestly.
“He loves it up there.” Mabel said.
Norman looked up. “Does he, now?”
“Yep.” Mabel grinned. “Oh, wait, oh no. He loves it too much. He’s never getting off. You’re stuck with him forever.”
“I think I can get used to him.” Norman said with a smile, but nonetheless he reached up to grab the bunny from his hair, and placed the doll on his lap.
“Look at him. Don’t you just wanna cherish and protect him forever?”
Norman stroked the bunny doll, chuckling. “Sure, yeah.”
Mabel placed a hand on Norman’s shoulder, and when he looked up, he was greeted with her kind, warm smile.
“Then that’s all that matters.”
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This one’s a little more lighthearted compared to the last chapter, but still important nonetheless.
I always wanted to delve deeper into Norman’s powers and all the things he could do, so this was pretty fun to write for me. So, this has been the first chapter of another mini-arc, this one focusing on Norman and what he can do.
Next chapter, we should be checking back on Lili and see how she’s doing. Hope y’all are looking forward to that.
Thanks for reading, and hope y’all have a good day.
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