Memory Wiper

 Pina tapped her foot in a steady rhythm, trying to move to the invisible beat of her favorite song. She had been at this for nearly an hour now, and was starting to run out of songs. And patience.

Jaz had promised to meet her at four in the college library so they could work together on an essay. Pina had arrived well before that, as usual, and had settled herself in their regular spot in the History section with her laptop.

Where she was an early bird, Jaz was almost always late. She always came up with the most ridiculous excuses too, and Pina always had to give up her exasperation with a snort of amusement. From her friend’s smug grin, she knew that Jaz had accomplished her goal of making her forget what she’d been annoyed about.

That was the usual routine. But Jaz had never showed up this late without sending a text about the situation at the very least. Pina was starting to get worried about her friend. Checking her phone once more to see that there were no new notifications, she decided to find Jaz in her dorm room.

Just as she picked up her books and laptop, she heard a loud crash from the opposite side of the closest bookshelf. The girl ran around the bookshelf to help whoever had fallen, but stopped at the scene she had encountered.

A strange teenage boy was holding Jaz against a bookshelf with a stick as tall as her. The dark-haired girl was well-built and strong from being in the college wrestling team, but was unable to break free even with all her struggling. The boy looked like he wasn’t even breaking a sweat restraining someone twice his age and height.

Pina glanced around in shock for help, but nobody was looking at the odd sight. The loud sound ought to have attracted the attention of a few of the students sitting around, but not one person seemed to care. She was the only one who could help.

Eyes darting around, she saw that her only weapons were what she had on her. Good enough.

However, before she could do anything, the boy whispered something unintelligible and brought his enormous stick to the ground with a loud bang. The sound echoed through the large hall of the library.

Jaz was free from his hold now, but the moment the thunderous noise resounded, she was out cold, unable to do anything. All that remained were the boy with his stick, Pina, and the other students who seemed completely oblivious to everything going on.

The kid began to move towards her friend, and Pina snapped out of her shock. She hurled the book in her hand at him.

He yelped in pain as it collided with his head, stumbling away as ‘The History of Fashion’ landed on the marble floors in a rustle of pages. Rubbing the spot it had hit, he looked up at Pina for the first time in surprise and outrage.

“What was that for?!” He cried, glaring at her with murder in his eyes. Hunched over in pain and watery-eyed as he was, he looked far less intimidating than he did when he was pinning a wrestler to the bookshelf not five minutes ago. He just looked fourteen.

“Uh,” She said intelligently, unsure about her thought process behind that decision as well. “You attacked my friend!” She cried back, regaining her confidence. That’s right! He’d started it.

“Oh, I didn’t attack her,” He said consolingly, hands returning from his head to the stick lying on the ground. He suddenly looked very understanding. Pina didn’t like the holier-than-thou look in his eyes.

She just replied with a dark look, conveying exactly what she thought about that. He shuffled around uncomfortably, before reaching inside his coat’s pocket. Pina stiffened in fear, afraid of what he was reaching for, but he just pulled out a shiny laminated card.

“Kaspian Willow, Blank-in-Training,” He introduced himself, giving a strange little bow and a spin of his unwieldy stick. She took the offered card. It was bright white, with the same words he just said printed on it in boring black Calibri. Nothing else was on it. It was obviously fake.

She snorted in annoyance as he continued his farce of an explanation. “I just wiped her memories. She’d stumbled across the secret entrance here to the Underground. I’m assuming that’s where you were going? For the Van Yelena Festival?”

Pina looked at him blankly. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Step away from Jaz.” She threw his card back at him, and he looked rather offended.

“What do you mean you don’t know? You-” Kaspian cut himself off with a groan of exasperation. “Of course. Just my luck that I stumble across a Resistor. Now I’ll have to write a report and everything..” His complaints devolved into angry muttering.

While he was distracted by his nonsensical thoughts, Pina slowly inched closer to Jaz, who had been lying in a heap between them. Just as she was about to grab her unconscious friend and make a getaway from this clearly crazy teenager, Kaspian ended his ramble.

He sighed wearily, and glanced at where she stood. Giving her a small smile filled with pity he raised his stick again. As it hit the ground once more with an otherworldly crash, she thought she could hear him apologize before she blacked out.