CHAPTER 2
Ms. Keane watched the children as they walked along the rows of the art exhibit… though they were too young to be serious art critics, a lot of them were still interested at all the beautiful images that were painted, most of them submitted to the exhibit by local artists. A number of the pieces would probably show up in Townsville’s museum, she figured. She was glad that the students had time to see them up-close like this, and hoped that they would learn a thing or two about artistic style in the process.
Still, not all the children were present. Blossom hadn’t shown up at the appointed time, and Ms. Keane wondered where she might be. It wasn’t like Blossom to be late to a class gathering like this, and she had seemed so interested in the exhibit in the first place. Ms. Keane wondered briefly if she had gotten lost, but then reminded herself that Blossom was a Powerpuff Girl; she could always fly up and find the entrance that way. That only made it all the more odd, because it meant that she was staying away on her own free will… or maybe against her will somehow. But again, she thought that seemed unlikely for a Powerpuff…
I”ll
have to have a talk with her when she gets back, she thought. I hope she just lost track of time or
something…
* * *
Sitting on a bench near the middle of the fair, Blossom watched all the people walking by in increasing awe. She had obviously been given some kind of gift… with but a glance into someone’s eyes, and only a brief moment of concentration on them, she could see how that person was going to eventually die. She continued to see the visions in everyone she tried it on… one person looked badly burned, while another had been impacted heavily in the chest, probably crushing their rib cage… she also saw another person that look like they were going to choke to death as well, and someone that had bled to death from a massive gash across their side. All of them looked so healthy as they were now, naturally unaware of their ultimate end. After all, they couldn’t possibly be sure of their own future.
But Blossom knew, and as she pondered the implications of this ‘gift’, she was also terrified of it. It was horrible to see these visions of death… and yet, she was too curious not to look. It held a morbid fascination, for now at least, but how long could she tolerate it? Will this happen every time I look into someone’s eyes? she thought. Will I have to see it all the time? I wish I could shut it off…
Even worse than seeing so much death was the mystery behind it. Maybe that’s why I can’t stop looking, she thought, because I can see how they’re going to die, but not what causes it… they’re all fated for an end, but I just can’t see how exactly! It was becoming so confusing that she clamped her eyes shut for a moment, turning her head away from them. Even as she did, she couldn’t help but wonder what she was missing by doing so. It was little by little tearing her apart, whether or not to look, whether or not she really needed to know such a horrible thing about anyone…
As she opened her eyes a bit, she caught a glimpse of a clock, and was suddenly shocked to realize that she had been sitting at the bench for almost an hour. I’m late! she thought, leaping off the bench and flying towards the art exhibit. As heavily as this whole situation was weighing upon her mind, she didn’t want to upset Ms. Keane by missing class…
Arriving at the tent that was set up to contain the exhibit, she landed and went inside, breathing a sigh of relief as she spotted her classmates in the distance. She was glad that she hadn’t missed it entirely, and smiled as she started to head over to them, but froze when she heard someone clearing their voice off to her side. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Ms. Keane standing with her arms folded, who said, “Blossom, there you are… a little late, aren’t we?”
“I’m sorry,
Ms. Keane,” Blossom said, staring down at the ground meekly. “It won’t happen again.”
“It’s all right,” Ms. Keane
told her. “I saw you flying over by that
ambulance earlier, but that was over a half hour ago. What were you doing since then?”
“I was just…” Blossom said, looking up at her. When their eyes made contact, however, she was suddenly struck with an image of Ms. Keane covered with a dozen small cuts, her arms and legs twisted at odd angles and her back obviously broken, at the angle it was bent. The suddenness of it made Blossom gasp and shut her eyes… No, she thought, Ms. Keane…
Looking at her curiously, Ms. Keane said, “Are you all right?”
“I’m… fine, I’m sorry…” Blossom managed to say, and turned to head towards the other kids. When she opened hr eyes, though, she saw that a number of them had overheard her talking with Ms. Keane, and were staring at her. Her eyes flitted about from classmate to classmate, and she was hit with more images. She caught sight of Mitch, and had a vision of him with something stuck in his chest, although it was as ghostly as the background so she couldn’t see what it was. More of the kids were covered with deep wounds and blood in their images, and near the back, she saw Robin, and an image of her looking as though something was impaling her through the head.
With a yelp, Blossom covered her face with her arms and turned quickly for the exit to the exhibit, saying, “Ms. Keane, I have to go!” Without waiting for a reply from the perplexed teacher, she rushed outside the tent… once out, she went along the side until she found a spot by herself, and fell to her knees, doing her best to keep from crying. How can I ever look at them again? she wondered. I can’t bear to see them like that… I don’t want to see them like that!
* * *
While the kids were trying to figure out the cause of Blossom’s outburst, Buttercup flew over, having heard the commotion. “What happened?” she asked, while Bubbles arrived ight behind her, just as curious.
Ms. Keane answered, “Something’s bothering Blossom. She’s outside… Girls, may I ask you to go and talk with her, and find out what’s wrong?”
“Okay,” Bubbles nodded, and headed for the exit to the tent. She and Buttercup poked their heads outside and looked around for her. Not spotting her immediately, they flew into the air to get some height, to see if she was in the area, and spotted her around the edge of the tent. Buttercup pointed her out, and they both descended.
Blossom, in the meantime, had heard the sound of them flying closer, and bit her lip, keeping her eyes shut. Before they could say anything, she told them, “Girls, I… I need your help…”
“Are you
all right?” Buttercup asked. “Ms. Keane
thought you were acting kind of funny…”
“No, I’m not all right,”
Blossom replied. “S-something happened
to me…”
Bubbles, hearing the urgency in Blossom’s voice, said, “What is it?”
Blossom opened her eyes a bit, staring down at the ground, at a few blades of grass… she said, “I… I went to go see a fortune teller here at the fair… and… and she did something to me…”
Buttercup narrowed one of her eyes, “Aw, c’mon, none of that stuff’s real. What’d she do, predict somethin’ bad was gonna happen to you?”
“No!” Blossom said. “She… I dunno how but… she did something to me, and now I… I have some kind of… I can’t explain it….”
“Some kind of what?” Bubbles asked.
“I can… see how people are going to… die…” Blossom managed to say. “I look in their eyes, and just… sense it…”
“Oh please…” Buttercup huffed.
Blossom shut her eyes again, “No, I’m serious! I looked into some woman’s eyes, and saw her choking… and then, later on, she did, she choked to death… didn’t you hear the ambulance earlier?”
“Well,” Bubbles said, thinking about it, “yeah, I heard it… but…”
“I knew it was going to happen!” Blossom insisted. “I knew she was going to die that way! And I can see it in everyone! I saw an old man, and sensed that he’d have a heart attack… a girl that breaks her neck… a cop that gets shot… I just look in their eyes and…” She hesitated before saying, “Girls… I’m scared…”
Seeing the seriousness on Blossom’s face, Buttercup’s skepticism gave way to concern… she said, “You can… you can see how anyone’s going to die?”
“Even us?” Bubbles asked.
Blossom answered, “I don’t know… I…”
Breaking her off, Bubbles said, “Try it on me…”
Buttercup shook her head, “No, don’t, Blossom… I don’t like this, I don’t want to know…”
“Please?” Bubbles insisted.
Blossom thought about it for a moment, and then slowly opened her eyes, turning to look at Bubbles. Their eyes met… and Blossom’s heart fell when she saw the image that came to her. Part of her had always wondered if their powers would grant them immortality, if their own toughness would let them live forever. It was startling now to be faced with the truth: that as powerful as they were, they were still mortal, just like everyone else… and that eventually, they too would die…
Watching
her, Bubbles asked, “What do you see?
Tell me…”
“You’re…” Blossom said,
feeling tears coming to her eyes as she tried to speak, her words becoming
thick with emotion, “You’re s-stretched out… and you look like you’re… trying
to b-breathe... like you’re… y-you’re suffocating… or s-something… I c-can’t
tell how…”
Bubbles swallowed once, and started breathing shallowly in fear, holding a hand to her chest. “B-but I’m okay now… right?”
“Yeah…” Blossom said, then closed her eyes, “Bubbles, I’m so sorry…”
“No, it’s… okay…” Bubbles said, trying to keep her own tears at bay. Blossom guessed that being faced with her own mortality was shaking to her as well. After regaining her composure a bit, Bubbles looked over and said, “What about Buttercup?”
“No,” Buttercup insisted, shaking her head. “I don’t wanna know. You can look if you want, Blossom, but don’t tell me, all right?”
“All right,” Blossom said, nodding. Buttercup took a deep breath and faced her, and Blossom looked into her eyes… she gasped almost as soon as she did. The picture that came to her was so terrible… It looked as though Buttercup had been torn in half across her torso, a pool of blood between her upper and lower halves, and her face was contorted with pain as she thrashed for a few seconds. Blossom went pale, thinking, Oh… god…
Turning away, Blossom clenched her eyes shut and covered her mouth, trying to keep from retching at the image she saw. Buttercup looked troubled by her reaction, and said, “It can’t be that bad, can it?!”
“It’s… it’s like…” Blossom said, “…it seems like each time, it’s getting worse… Buttercup, I-I don’t want you to die like th—… ”
“Stop it!” Buttercup shouted. “Nothing’s gonna happen to me! Whatever you saw, it’s probably a long ways from happening anyway, right?”
Sitting up, Blossom answered, “I don’t know… I don’t know, I just see you as you are now…” That suddenly seemed strange to her. It wasn’t just Buttercup, but now she realized that everyone she had seen had looked the same age in the image as they were when she saw them. Even the other kids in the class didn’t look like adults. I probably just see it as they are now, she thought, even if it doesn’t actually happen for years…
“Man, this… this really stinks…” Buttercup said, kicking the dirt on the ground. “Well, whatever happens to me, I hope I go down fighting, that’s all I gotta say…”
Bubbles, who had remained quiet for a bit, finally said, “I was… kinda hoping I’d… you know… d-die of old age… you know?”
“Me too,” Blossom nodded, “But… well, we’re in a dangerous line of work, being superheroes and all, and… we…” She trailed off, as something else didn’t seem to make sense. “Wait a minute… so far, I haven’t seen a single person who is going to die of old age. I thought I would’ve at least seen one… what’s going on here?”
“Townsville’s a rough place to be,” Buttercup suggested. “Monster attacks and all…”
Blossom waved her arms, “I know, but just one…” She looked off towards the fair and said, “I’m going to go back and find that fortune teller again, and find out what on Earth she did to me. You two wait….” But before she could complete what she was saying, she froze… all three of the girls did, because they all heard it on their ultrasonic hearing… a cry for help in the distance.
* * *
It wasn’t hard to find where the cry was coming from, since there was a gathering of people around. The girls descended towards the spot to see what the trouble was, and Blossom’s eyes widened as they did… a woman, the one calling for help, was next to a man lying on the ground, and she recognized him as the old man she had seen earlier. Even before they set down, she knew what had happened to him.
Bubbles landed and asked, “Is he all right?”
The woman shook her head and said, “He just passed out, and I don’t think he’s breathing!”
“C’mon, let’s fly him to a hospital,” Buttercup said, as both she and Bubbles went over to the side of the man in preparation to pick him up. She hesitated when she saw Blossom staring at the man, and said, “Blossom, c’mon!”
“Buttercup… it’s too late…” Blossom said softly.
“Whaddaya mean?! We can still save him!” Buttercup said firmly.
Blossom hung her head sadly and said, “Listen to him. Do you hear a heartbeat?” Buttercup paused, and finally shook her head slowly. “We can’t save him… he’s already dead…”
“But…” Bubbles said, “but… we should still try!”
“No,” Blossom said. “I… this is the guy I mentioned before… remember?”
There was a long silence after that, and Buttercup spoke up, “You mean… you really did see it? So it’s… it’s all real?”
“Yes,” Blossom nodded, “But… I don’t understand… why d—…”
A scream from nearby interrupted her… all heads snapped around to face the direction, and the scream was cut off just as suddenly as it had started. Without sparing a minute, the girls flew towards the sound, and found its source: a girl lying sprawled out across the ground. Even though she was face down, Blossom had a suspicion on who it was, and the idea made her blood run cold…
Bubbles flipped the girl over, and it confirmed what Blossom was thinking… the girl’s arms and neck look like they had been broken in the impact of whatever caused her to land there. A ride operator ran from a nearby spinning ride, stopping not far from her in horror. Bubbles looked over at him and demanded, “What happened?!”
“It wasn’t my fault!” the operator said. “Somethin’… somethin’ happened to her safety brace on th’ ride… it came loose, and she was tossed right outta it…”
Buttercup knelt down by the girl, and looked up at Blossom, asking, “Blossom, is this…?” Blossom nodded slowly, and Buttercup gritted her teeth, “What the heck is going on?”
The paramedics were starting to show up, but Blossom didn’t notice… she was focused on something else. “The security guard!” she said. “Find the security guard, quick!”
“Wh-what did he look like?” Bubbles asked.
“He was a cop,” Blossom told them. “Not too thin, with sandy blond hair and glasses… hurry!” She took off into the air, and the girls split off in different directions. Quickly scanning the crowd, her eyes jumped from guard to guard that she could spot, until they finally landed on someone that looked like the one she had seen earlier. The guard was walking along off somewhere by himself, whistling and twirling his gun around on his finger. Upon seeing that, Blossom darted in his direction, shouting, “No!!”
Before she could reach him, though, the gun suddenly went off in his hand, and the guard staggered back, clutching the bullet wound it made on his chest. Blossom flew behind the man to catch him as he began to fall off of his feet. The guard was tense for a few moments, before he fell limp; the bullet, having gone straight through his heart and into his spine, had fatally wounded him.
Blossom practically dropped the man in shock. This… this can’t be a coincidence, she thought… Four deaths, together at the same fair… everyone else is okay, but these four die, and they were the first four people I… The pieces began to fall together, as she felt absolutely chilled as she thought, I’m not just seeing how they die, am I? That’s why nobody looks any older in the visions… this is some kind of curse! Maybe… maybe I’m actually causing them to die… maybe if I hadn’t looked at them, they would be just fine, and would live however long they were supposed to…
An even more horrible thought occurred to her at that moment. Ms. Keane… the rest of the class… oh god… Bubbles! Buttercup!! Leaving the security guard behind, she took off into the air to find them… her heart was pounding fearfully as she realized that, with just a glance, she had quite possibly doomed them all…
* * *
The distant gunshot had alerted both Bubbles and Buttercup that something had happened, and both of them flew back in the direction of it, scanning around to try and find where it came from. Buttercup narrowed her eyes in frustration and said, “Bubbles, do you see anything?”
“No, I don’t,” she called back, before flying over to where Buttercup was. “Where’s Blossom?”
“She’s got to be around,” Buttercup shrugged. “Let’s just wait up here for her so she can see us…”
“Girls!!” came a shout in one direction. By the time both of them had turned to face it, Blossom flew up to them quickly, grabbing them in a hug with each arm. Her eyes were filled with tears as she stammered, “Oh, th-thank goodness… listen, y-you’ve got to g-get out of here! Before it’s t-too late!”
“What are you talking about?” Buttercup asked.
Blossom released both of them and said urgently, “I think I’m c-causing these people to die… I think that wh-when I thought I was s-seeing what was going to happen to them… I was c-causing it somehow… and I used it on you b-both… b-but I don’t want anything to happen to you!”
They started to understand what she was saying, and Bubbles whispered, “W-we’re gonna… d-die?”
“No…” Buttercup said, shaking her head in disbelief. “No, can’t be, we’re not gonna die. That’s crazy…”
Blossom
looked back down at the fair below them and said, “I need to find that fortune
teller… I need to find out what happened, and see if I can undo it
before…” Her thoughts turned to the
class, “No, what am I saying?! I’ve got
to protect the class! And you two! Nothing can happen to them if I’m watching them!”
“Nothing’s going to happen to them!”
Buttercup insisted. “There’s no
curse! I won’t believe it!”
“Buttercup, please!” Blossom shouted desperately.
“If anything happened to you two, I’d never forgive myself! You and Bubbles go and get the class out of
the fair, maybe this curse only works if they’re on the fairgrounds or
something… and watch out for each other, all right? I’m going to go check on the fortune teller, and I’ll be back as
soon as possible.” She saw that
Buttercup was hesitant, and said, “I mean it!
Be careful, all right? Please?”
Bubbles was staring off into the
distance, and whispered again, “We’re… we’re gonna… die…?”
“C’mon, Bubbles, snap out of it,”
Buttercup said, grabbing hold of her arm.
“We’ll be fine. Let’s do what
Blossom said, all right?”
Bubbles looked over and finally
nodded. She gave Blossom a glance,
before the two of them started flying back for the tent with the art
exhibit. Blossom watched them go, until
they were out of view, then quickly turned and looked around the park, her eyes
finally falling on the games section.
Descending quickly to the ground, she started looking around for the
fortune teller’s hut.
It wasn’t hard to find; she retraced
her steps quickly and spotted it. Her
heart nearly stopped when she saw that there was a ‘CLOSED’ sign hanging out in
the front. What? she thought. No,
where’d she go? She can’t have left! She
flew forward and poked her head into the hut… sure enough, it was empty, save
for the mechanical crystal ball light in the center. Blossom’s breathing quickened as she realized that the one person
she needed to find the most had vanished, the one person who could shed some
light on what was going on, and possibly the one person that could reverse
it. I have to find her… I have to find her, before it’s too late…