keyword: buzz, title: Larry Kotter and The Mark of Loss in misc. flash fiction

Larry was born into a secret society with superpowers in their blood, hiding in plain sight among us. Very few of them had world-shaking abilities, though, his mother could accelerate someone’s healing and so she worked in one of the hidden hospitals. His father could shape metals with his mind and so he worked in the forges, crafting arms for the elites to wage their clandestine wars.

When Larry turned ten, he was brought before The Council to determine if he had a gift and if so what kind. “Weather manipulation,” a psychic elder remarked, “though to what extent only time will tell.” He tried focusing and then, yes, a breeze tousled at the elder’s hair. More importantly, however, another councilmember exclaimed: “Gods but his hand!” On his left hand, a birthmark that looked a little like a tombstone. “The Mark of Loss!”

They eventually composed themselves and explained the prophecy that Grimlor The Vile would one day return but would be finally vanquished by a man with the Mark of Loss. Clearly, Larry would grow to be that man, so he was swept up into their most prestigious schools, granted the nom-de-guerre “Windrider” and slowly groomed to fulfill the prophecy.

Even though he never seemed to generate anything more than a sixty-mile-an-hour gust, fantastic for a mundane but tame among their own, he was lauded and given all advantage their world had to offer. The adventures that he had, based not upon his abilities, rather upon his mark of loss.

Ten years later, when Grimlor returned, Larry was sent to the front lines, it was just assumed his power would finally manifest in full that terrible day. Grimlor merely swatted him with the back of his bony hand, knocking Larry unconscious fifteen seconds into that most dire conflagration.

When Larry finally woke, Grimlor had long been defeated. His classmate Steve Baez, known as “Buzz”, could only mentally control bees and had been tapped for the farms but Steve stood his ground anyway and it turned out Grimlor was allergic to bees. Not even Grimlor had known, it had just never come up. In hospital, being healed by his mother’s own hand, a psychic sheepishly explained they’d misunderstood that the “mark” was a metaphor. Baez had lost a friend in a mundane-world school shooting when he was young, which had deeply affected him, giving him the desperate courage to stand up against death when no one else would or could.

Everyone was relieved by Grimlor’s defeat but felt terrible for Larry. No one blamed him when he left to live among the mundane, how hard it must’ve been to think himself the chosen one but turn out to just be above-average and that’s all. They say he works for bookies now and that if you notice a field goal pushed wide-right by the wind at a football game, if you look into the crowd at the hands in the air, you might just see it there, the mark of loss.

Last updated September 01, 2021