From enmity to endless friendship

Aram tried to catch the air with his hands, but it was as if there was no air there.

"Aaaaaaaaaaaa," Aram was shouting for several seconds.

Everyone looked at him in bewilderment.

"This is his ability, right?" thought David. "It is tough."

Ksyu wanted to kneel down to take Aram's hand or at least do something to help him.

"Don't," said David. "This is his superpower."

"If he continues, he will kill himself like that!" Ksyu shouted.

"Leave him," Reia said. "Since he took up this, then he knows what to do."

Ksyu glared at all those present. She was waiting until this would be over.

At that moment, Aram felt his heart stop. And fell to the floor.

"Aram!" Reia shouted.

Everyone looked at Aram with bulging eyes. He stirred.

"There is a real person under the hologram! And it seems someone tried to strangle him, but at the last moment something or someone stopped his heart."

"What?" Kano wanted to ask a question, but Aram interrupted him.

"As you see, my ability worked. This means that he is already dead. But probably not so much time has passed, his body is not so cold. Call Chief William or Felix! Perhaps he can still be saved."

"Reia, stay with Aram," said David. "The rest, run! Let's split up and try to find help."

There was little time. No one answered and leaving the room, everyone fled to different sides of the Academy.

"We need to give him artificial respiration," Aram said, barely catching his breath.

"No. He doesn't just have no breath. He probably has no pulse. We need to do an indirect heart massage," Reia said.

"How can we understand where and how he lies?"

"It seems to me that he is hidden inside the hologram. So, if we do something with a hologram, it will most likely work on him."

"Then do it faster!"

"Now. Wait."

Reia crossed her palms and began to press down on the lower sternum of the hologram. The chest wall, shifting to the spine, squeezed the heart and pushed blood out of its chambers. After 15 such pressures, she bent over the man, covered his nose, and wanted to do artificial respiration, when suddenly his eyes opened.

"Oh my goodness!" Reia screamed. "He's alive!" she said.

Aram crawled over to the man.

"What happened to you? How are you feeling?" he asked.

"Does it hurt? How can we help you?" Reia asked.

The man tried to recover, but for a while, all he could do was blink his eyes.

Ksyu, Felix, and chief William ran into the room.

"Go away!" Chief William shouted to the man and waved his hand.

The hologram was gone. On the floor, a fair-haired guy of about 17 years old, a peer, and most likely a classmate of the guys, was lying. He had frightened eyes that he blinked relentlessly with.

"This is our student," Felix said excitedly. "Are you okay?"

Felix dropped to one knee and began counting the student's pulse.

"Pulse is back to normal," he told Chief William. "Let's go to the infirmary, you need to rest," he said to the guy with a smile and held out his hand to him.

"Boy, are you okay?" Chief William asked Aram who was lying on the floor.

"Never mind. It's okay," Aram replied with a forced smile.

"Okay. If anything, the infirmary is close," he said. "Guys, you are great, you quickly found your bearings. The exam is over, but all of you and your friends, with whom you were in the room, I will ask you to come to my office on the 13th floor," said Chief William.

Together with Felix, Chief William helped the guy to get up and left the room.

Over time, all the guys went back to the room.

"What just happened?" David asked. "What's going on here?"

"Honestly, I haven't really understood myself yet," answered Ksyu. "But at least we saved someone's life."

"Aram, are you all right?" Zen asked.

"I'll survive somehow," Aram replied.

"Can you tell me what happened?" Reia asked.

"I just activated my ability and realized how he was killed."

"But he was not dead," Kano said.

"I do not yet know how it happened, that he came to his senses so quickly. Reia gave him artificial respiration for only 15 seconds, and he opened his eyes as if nothing had happened."

"It's all strange," said Ksyu. "How could he even appear inside the hologram? How is this even possible?"

"What ... What was it?" finally asked David. "What exactly did you feel? Was it really awful?"

"Do you ask me?" Aram asked.

"Yes," David replied.

"It was terrible. I began to choke and tried to catch air with my hands. I thought that I was about to die when suddenly my heart stopped."

David bowed his head.

"Isn't that dangerous? Reia asked. "Using such an ability, how dangerous is it? What is the chance that you would not really die after using it?"

"I have no idea," answered Aram.

"No idea?" David asked in shock. "How so?"

"Well, theoretically, my heart doesn't stop. I just feel that this is happening, and that's it. So I'm unlikely to die."

"You know Aram," said Ksyu thoughtfully. "If I were you, I wouldn't be so sure of that. I read about an experiment on prisoners for a long time. The men, who had been sentenced to death, were brought into the room and told that instead of a painful and terrible death, they would be injected with one drug that would kill them quickly and painlessly. In 10 seconds."

Everyone began to intently listen to Ksyu.

"They were individually invited into the room and asked to sit on chairs. They closed their eyes and then the doctor injected this drug into their hand. After 10 seconds, the prisoner died."

"And so what?" asked Aram.

"The fact that there was no drug," answered Ksyu. "It was a dummy."

Everyone fell silent. Aram pondered.

"Don't think that I wanted to scare you. I'm sure you know your superpower better than anyone. But I would not want you to die by accident," said Ksyu. "That's all. Take care of yourself, the main thing is that."

David held out his hand to Aram. Aram looked at it for several seconds.

"I'm sure we'll be friends," David said without giving up. "Let me help you."

After these words, David looked away.

Aram, without hesitation, grabbed David's hand and got up.

"Thanks. The past is in the past," said Aram and smiled. "But I will remind you of the girls' toilet, ahahahaha," Aram continued, already laughing.

"That's a bargain!" said David with a smile, and they both clapped each other on the shoulder.

"Awwww, how cute. I ship them," said Ksyu.

Everyone turned and looked at Ksyu in bewilderment.

"Oh, did I say that out loud?" she asked and averted her eyes to the side as if she had nothing to do with this.

There was an awkward silence for a second. Then everyone laughed.

"Okay, guys," said Aram. "We need to go to the office on the 13th floor, to Chief William. It seems to me that an interrogation awaits us."