[Alex's POV]
A little less than an hour later, Alex was sitting in an interrogation room. Alone. Waiting for someone to actually come and talk to him.
"Ugh! Seriously! What is taking so long?! I want to go home already," Alex complained out loud for the first time since he'd taken a seat inside of the room. Muttering and bustling on the other side of the one way glass could be heard and the officer that had led him to the police car earlier, appeared through the inner door with a neat bundle of paper in one of his hands.
"Sorry for the wait," he said as he took a seat across from Alex at the table. "We wanted to gather all the evidence first before confronting you, but I'm afraid it's even more of a mammoth task than we first expected."
"Oh, come on! How much could there possibly be? The whole thing barely lasted half an hour, and I think I crossed five streets before my friends encouraged me to fly," Alex said. The officer glanced at him neutrally, before he opened the file he'd brought with him.
"Twelve houses set on fire, countless objects cut or singed because you touched them, not to mention the trail of molten lava footsteps you've left behind. Forty people traumatised, twelve with burns from touching the feathers that flew from your wings when you took off, not to mention wearing an inappropriate getup in public, and yet there is an enormous crowd right outside the door of this station, hoping to see -and I quote- 'the angel on earth'. Shall I go on?"
The officer showed Alex all the pictures in the file as he was talking about them. Alex cringed. He'd hoped the officer had been exaggerating, but the proof was all laid out before him.
"Wait, … inappropriate getup?" Alex asked and for the first time since he'd woken up looked down at himself. Sure enough, he was still wearing this Greek looking tunic. He sucked in a surprised breath and instantly he was wearing his usual clothes again.
"Sorry about that," he said as he felt his face burn with embarrassment and quickly started distracting himself with the papers the officer had laid out before him. Luckily, it succeeded in shifting his mind.
"Shit," Alex cursed as the scale of the disaster started to dawn on him.
"Mother?" he asked after a moment of silence. "Could you help this kind officer gather evidence of all the damage I've caused? Oh, and while you're at it, would you mind drawing me out the route I've walked on a map?"
The officer was about to ask him something when Aurora's voice came from the intercom of the one-way-room.
"The kind officer can go gather all the evidence at the central printer."
The officer looked at the intercom speaker with a deep frown edged in his brow.
"Does your mother work here at the police station?" he asked after a long pause. "What's her name? I don't recognise her voice."
Alex couldn't help but laugh.
"No, she doesn't work here," he said. "But I'm not going to bother you with details."
The officer looked like he wanted to say something again, but then thought better of it and left to get the prints.
"Mom?" Alex asked once more once the officer had gone. "How's the crowd outside?"
"It's bad," she said, a lace of worry audible in her voice. "The crowd is already counting 120 heads and is still growing. People are crying, praying and reciting bible-verses. It won't be long before the local authorities won't be able to hold them off anymore."
"Shit! How the hell did it come to this?" Alex wondered out loud.
"You've been caught on many photos and videos," Aurora reported dutifully. "Most of them are barely more than a bright spot on a dark background, but all content about you is going viral on the internet none the less. From what I can make out from comments on news-articles, 70% of the people think it's a scam, but more than 60% of the believers want to meet you and hope for some miracle. There are hundreds of people travelling from all over the country just to see you."
"Crap," Alex cursed again. "Why did they wait a freaking hour to tell me?!"
"From what I can tell, all of the police officers are terrified of you," Aurora said. "Apparently, they see the punishment that you've giving that rough police-officer as divine punishment and now all of them are scared they won't be able to go to heaven if they somehow anger you."
"That's complete and utter bullshit! All I did was give him a fright! Fear wears off over time," Alex cursed and wanted to complain some more, but didn't because the police officer reentered the room. He was carrying a very large pack of paper, all the pages filled to the brim with pictures.
Alex reached out his hand for the officer to give him the pack of paper so that he could start looking at the damage. Funnily enough, the officer actually hurried up like an eager school boy to do so.
Once he held the package in his hand, he studied the map Aurora had drawn out for him and cringed. He had not only walked through the shopping district, he'd also crossed a living area in the worst angle possible. It was a miracle in itself that only twelve houses had caught fire.
"Ok, here's the deal," Alex said as he leafed through the pictures.
"I'll fix all the damage, but I'll need your cooperation on the crowd of believers outside," Alex said as he made the damage that he could see in the pictures disappear in real life, which caused the pictures to change too.
He stopped leafing through the pictures to look up at the police officer, who'd gone awfully silent. The officer was looking at the pictures as if he was going crazy.
"Are you ok?" he asked, feeling rather worried. The officer met his eyes slowly, but didn't say anything. Alex sighed. "Would you like me to wipe your memory?"
The officer blinked at him in surprise. For a moment Alex thought he was going to nod in confirmation, but then he swallowed and said: "No, I think at least one person here at the police station should know about your existence so we'll be able to handle correctly if you ever decide to cause another disaster."
His answer made Alex chuckle.
"Then I'll ask you again," he said, a smile still pulling at his lips. "Are you alright?"
"Yes," the officer finally said. "I'm so sorry, but I'm still a little shell-shocked. I never thought I'd see magic in real life."
Alex chuckled again, remembering all the trembling floating lights. Now he knew what they'd been: People terrified out of their mind just because of his existence. Compared to them, this officer was doing fine.
"Ok. Now where was I?" Alex said as he turned his attention back to the pictures of the damage. "Ah yes! I was saying that I'll take care of any physical damage I've created, which will reduce the crowd outside a little, but we'll need a good cover-up story before the rest of the crowd will disperse."
"Yes, sir. How can I be of assistance," the officer asked. Alex, who had already restarted to erase the damage, immediately stopped leafing through the pictures and stared at the officer.
"Did you call me 'sir' just now?" he asked incredulously.
"Yes, -sir?" the officer said again, but made the title sound like a question as he obviously didn't know what to call Alex anymore.
"Dude," Alex said. "I'm a sixteen-year-old, not to mention that you are a police officer. If only to make a possible cover-up story believable, you should treat me like any other sixteen-year-old."
The police officer looked intently at Alex, as if he'd asked a million dollar question.
"Kid?" he finally asked. His conclusion made Alex snort.
"My name is Alex. But kid will do just fine," he said, still smiling.
"Ah, uhm… My name is Francis. Nice to meet you, Alex," the officer named Francis said as he reached out a hand for Alex to shake.
"Likewise," Alex said as he grabbed Francis' hand and gave it a firm shake. "Now, I have the feeling you were saying something important before I interrupted you, but I can't remember what it was?"
Francis blinked in surprise once again, as if he couldn't believe he was talking to a sixteen-year-old.
"Can I help you with anything?" he repeated his question from earlier, seemed unsatisfied and added: "Kid."
"Oh! Right? Could you bring my girlfriend here, please?" Alex asked. "Her name is Otto. Mom? Can you send a picture of her to Francis?"
This time, Aurora took some time before answering.
"Can I send him the one from your holiday in the mountains?" she asked.
"No!" Alex said, feeling his cheeks heat up. "Aren't there any less embarrassing ones?"
"There are, but you're just so cute in this one," she chuckled. Alex noticed Francis opening the door to the room behind the one-way glass to see who was talking over the intercom, and looked severely confused when it was empty. "Plus they're the most recent ones of her I can find."
"The answer is still no," he said sternly, leaving no room for argument.
"Sheesh! No need to snark at me just because you feel embarrassed," Aurora said. She sounded rather offended. Then it was silent for a few seconds, making Alex nervous. What now? Had he really offended her? Should he apologise? But before Alex could think up an apology, Francis' mobile phone pinged, and Aurora continued: "I'm still your mother you know?! You should show a little more respect young man!"
Alex released a breath he hadn't realised he'd been holding and laughed. In the meantime, Francis checked his phone, blinked at the image on the screen and walked out of the room without a word.
"Now she acts like my mother," Alex mumbled as he shook his head disapprovingly, but felt a smile tugging at his lips.
"What was that?" Aurora asked in a threatening way.
"I love you mom!" he quickly replied in a loud voice.
"Ha! That better be what you said," she huffed. "By the way, this photographer, Lindsey Swan? She has some really nice pictures of you."
"Lindsey?" Alex asked in surprise as he couldn't place the name for a second, but then it clicked. "Ah, yes! I know."
"Six months worth of them. And she's been receiving quite the internet attention with them too. She's at an average of 6 and half thousand views per picture. My estimated guess is that her series is responsible for at least 10% of the crowd outside."
Alex felt conflicted. The percentage wasn't extremely high, but it could make all the difference in a crowd.
"Wait," he said as an idea was starting to form in his mind. "Has she posted any pictures of my walk through the town this morning?"
"No," Aurora said. "But I found some horribly over exposed pictures in her drafts."
"Don't let her post them!" Alex said urgently. "Tell Otto to bring Lindsey inside too and get dad on the phone while you're at it."