Page 1 of Dark Flame

CHAPTER ONE

Phillip “Flip” Cho

“Alice, I’m telling you I know what I saw. That boy moved a dresser across the room without physically touching it or moving his own body!”

Fan Cho was not a man prone to exaggeration or emotional outbursts. He was a tall, lithe man with a calm demeanor, even in the most difficult times. His shock of jet-black hair flopped over his forehead, and he pushed it back in frustration.

“Fan,” Alice whispered, “that just doesn’t make sense. He’s a boy, for God’s sake! A big boy, but still, he’s only eight years old! How could he possibly move a dresser, which easily weighs over one hundred pounds, across a room without a sound?”

“I know that, Alice! That’s why I’m fucking freaking out!”

Fan dragged his long fingers through the mass of thick, straight black hair again. Silver threaded the once ebony locks, but he still looked like the same sweet boy Alice had met many years before.

Whoa! The ‘f’ word from Fan Cho? Alice knew it was serious now. Her sweet husband never cussed. It was one of the many reasons she married Fan, not the least of which he was handsome and tall, unusually so for his heritage.

Alice and Fan met in her first year at Stanford University, both engineering students, but Fan was a PhD candidate. He stood out for his height, and she stood out for, well, everything.

Alice, Samoan by birth, moved to the San Francisco area at the age of two. By sixteen, she was nearly six foot tall and almost one hundred and eighty pounds. By the time she met Fan, they were the same weight and nearly the same height. He didn’t care. The woman with huge brown eyes and cascading mahogany hair, falling to her waist in massive waves, was all he could think of.

On a late fall afternoon, while rushing to class, the handsome graduate assistant stopped her outside the engineering building and asked her to meet him for coffee after class. She was certain it would be a discussion about a class project or grades. Instead, it turned out to be an actual date. The kind where a young man held your hand, paid for the coffee, and actually looked you in the eyes and asked questions that he was genuinely interested in getting a response to. The next hundred dates were the same. He made her laugh and made her feel things she had never felt before.

Three days after graduation, they married in a small private ceremony off the coast of California. Their families gathered around them, more in protest than in celebration. Neither side wanted them to marry outside their culture, but Fan and Alice were in love, deeply in love; that wasn’t something that happened every day.

Fifteen years later, they were both successful engineers working for the Department of Defense when Alice found herself unexpectedly expecting. She was thirty-eight, and Fan was forty-two. Doctors said he would be a big boy, but little did they know he would be their only chance for a family.

At nearly thirteen pounds and twenty hours of excruciating labor, Phillip would be their only child. Alice would be unable to conceive again. But, oh, how their big baby boy was loved! Alice and Fan put everything they had into giving their son the kind of life he deserved. As a baby, he was curious and intelligent. He walked early, talked early, and certainly moved quickly.

When Phillip was three, the DOD assigned them to a special project at Sierra Depot. Although they were only there two years, Alice always felt like something else was happening at the Depot that they were unaware of. The project seemed simplistic in nature and beneath their skill level, but it was steady work with excellent pay and housing. Still, it seemed that the Army Corps of Engineers or Seabees could have performed the task they were handling.

Phillip seemed delighted to constantly play in the annoying pink dust found on base, somehow making his behavior odd and uncharacteristic yet still childlike.

Now, four years later, they were having the same argument about their young son. Large objects moved mysteriously in and around their home. No explanations, no tracks, no signs of anyone or anything. Other than the presence of Phillip.

“Fan, please calm down and lower your voice,” said Alice. “I-I know strange things are happening with Phillip, but he won’t talk to us. I think he’s afraid. If we yell, he’ll think something is his fault and won’t open up to us.”

Fan looked at the pained expression on his wife’s face and grimaced. The last thing he ever wanted to do was hurt Alice Cho. His beautiful, sweet Alice. Her long, wavy black hair was now speckled with gray making her more beautiful than ever. He nodded and let out a long slow breath. They would need to find a way to reach Phillip and help him.

“Mom? Dad?” said Phillip, standing in the doorway. He was over five feet tall at only eight years old. “I’m sorry. I won’t do it again.” He folded his hands behind his back and shuffled his feet back and forth in front of him.

“Son, I’m not mad you moved the dresser, but how? I didn’t hear anything; I didn’t see any marks on the floor. How did you move that heavy thing?” Fan was genuinely curious from a parental interest and an engineering interest.

“I-I just thought about it, and it moved.” Phillip looked down at his feet, praying that his parents would hear him, that they would understand what he was saying. He had the coolest abilityever,and if they could understand that, then maybe he could go to a superhero school or something and really become something special.

“Phillip,” said Alice softly, “it’s not okay to lie to us about this. Just tell us the truth.”

“I am telling you the truth!” he yelled. He clenched his fists at his side and knew he had to show them. “I’ll show you I’m telling you the truth.” His face flushed pink, and the determination in his eyes let Fan and Alice know their son was serious.

“Phillip…”

Fan stood and started toward his son and felt a slight shaking in the old wood floors of their home. He watched his son staring at the massive bookshelf lining the wall of the living room. His intense gaze and focus never wavered, the bookshelf constantly in his line of sight. Fan couldn’t believe his eyes. The shelf lifted, all the books wavering back and forth. Alice clasped her hands over her mouth, staring at her son.

The bookshelf moved away from the wall and into the center of the room, crowding Fan back to the sofa with his wife. As easily as it had lifted, it settled on the floor, and Phillip stared at his parents, a small drop of sweat beading on his forehead. His parents could only stare, darting their eyes to him and then back to the bookshelf.

“I-I don’t do it all the time. I just…”

Fan looked at his son, his brows furrowed in a deep concerned wrinkle. Whatever the boy did, it would certainly not be good for their family. If anyone found out about his abilities, they would take him from them, and Phillip would become some lab experiment.

“You must never do that again, Phillip,” said his father calmly. “I don’t know how you’re able to do this, but if anyone were to see, it could end badly for all of us. Especially you, Phillip.” He said the words with nothing but concern for his only son.

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