I could hear fire trucks coming. Very quick response time, impressive. I ran across the road towards the explosion. To an old hotel that was several stories tall. Cars were stopped in the middle of the road so that their passengers could sit and stare at the fireball. If I was just a bystander, I would’ve thought that no one could have survived that explosion. The fireball engulfed the building, even from where I was standing I could feel the heat. But I knew better. I could hear the screams of children being choked to death by flames, people gasping for air, and every whispered prayer.
This is the other side of the coin. If I lived a normal life, if I’d never been put under this shadow of death, I’d be on the other side of this equation.
I’d be just as vulnerable as them. I’d be the one choking on my own lungs. But instead I’m the one who has to save them.
I heard a smaller explosion as one of the onlookers dropped to the ground. His car window was painted red with his blood. It was jarring how sudden he dropped. Shots continued to be fired off at the onlookers. After the first few dropped, they all scattered, their cars speeding away. I spotted the culprits. A white van, leaving from the direction of the blaze. They were firing shots at the bystanders to clear a path for their escape. It worked perfectly.
I wasn’t as fast as a car. Something about the bloodshed awakened something in me, though. It made me run faster than I’ve ever run before. I could feel the soft tissue of my legs burning and pulsing beneath the suit. My breath was ragged even with oxygen being directly forced into my lungs.
I’m not fast enough to catch a car. Even going full speed. Luckily I was a little bit further down the road than the car, and I didn’t need to catch it. Something inhuman and primal came over me as I caught the van at an angle.
In my head I planned to jump on top of it, but as I approached I realized that wasn’t a viable option, so going full speed and using all my momentum I did what I could. I jumped forward and slammed my shoulder into the moving vehicle in a superhuman football tackle.
Mental note: I’m not strong enough to tip a van over. I am also not strong enough to slam my shoulder into a van full force without dislocating it.
I am, however, strong enough to get two wheels of a van off the ground for a few seconds and leave a dent that would be very hard to explain to a mechanic.
The van slid at an angle, almost spinning. Then it skidded to a complete stop. I could hear arguing from the men inside. I counted their voices, four of them. While the car was stopped I took the opportunity to jump on top of their vehicle. While they talked about what had just happened, I shoved my dislocated arm back into place. It made a popping noise as it did.
My shoulder felt as though it was being torn apart. Enough adrenaline was pumping through me that the pain felt like background noise. I could still hear the screams of people burning, fewer each second. Cops and ambulances and firetrucks came rushing by in the distance. They were speeding faster than any car on the road and they still wouldn’t get there in time to save most of the people inside.
Need to hit something.
As if in response to the thought, the passenger side door opened up. A very aggravated man popped out of the side of the van. He was holding a handgun. He instinctively looked side to side to see what the commotion was. When he looked up at me I waved at him. He fired the gun off at me before I could move out of the way.
The loudness of the gunfire was amplified by my enhanced hearing, and left me disoriented. My head felt like it was spinning as I fell hard against the pavement on the other side of the van. It was enough force to knock the wind out of me. I tried to suck in air but I didn’t really need to because the rebreather was pushing it in for me. The driver’s side door opened up and a man hopped out.
“Okay, I think you got him. Now get your ass back in the car!” The man said after a casual glance at my body.
He closed the door, and the men drove off. One of the wheels drove over my legs as they fled. The sirens of emergency vehicles and the screams of innocents are all that were left to comfort me as I laid on the sidewalk trying to breathe. I touched my chest to see how bad the wound was. Instead of feeling blood, a clump of fur and a bullet fell onto my hand.
I’m alive. Also I’m bulletproof, so that’s kinda cool.
Jacob, people are burning alive twenty feet from you.
What am I supposed to do?
GET UP!
I pulled myself up. My ribs and shoulder hurt like hell, and I wasn’t breathing right. I built up enough strength to stand. I looked up at the fire. The bottom three floors were burning. It looked like it was an electrical fire, deliberately done by those guys. I ran over to the hotel. I’d have to climb to the fourth floor if I really wanted to help. Pretty much everyone on floor three and below was dead by that point. For a second I pondered whether the suit would keep me from breaking both of my legs if I fell from that height. Then I dismissed the thought.
I’ll burn to death way before that ever happens.
I found the spot on the building that was covered by the least amount of flames. Then I jumped up on the side. My toe blades sank into the sides, but my hands found nothing to grab onto. I instantly fell back. It took all the muscles in my abdomen to keep me from hanging limply on the wall. The strain on my chest made the pain in my ribs all the more prominent. I released one foot, then moved it upwards, as I sank it back in. Repeat for the other foot. After a few tries it started becoming easy.
The firemen had arrived by the time I’d broken a window to the fourth floor and crawled through. The smoke was so thick in the hallway that particles were starting to seep into my sealed mask and choke me. The heat was so intense that my cooled suit stopped working correctly. I wasn’t burning, but I was definitely sweating. I could hear survivors. Some were trapped in their rooms, crying for help. I banged on the walls and made a ruckus to get the attention of the survivors. A family of four and a young couple are all that came out. I looked over them.
“I can only take three.” I told the group. I used the voice modifier to sound more adult. The parents of the two kids gave me a frightened look, like I was some terrible monster. I whipped my tail around to rub against their boy’s head, so I would seem less scary. I don’t think it worked.
“Take the children, please!” The mother cried.
“My girlfriends pregnant!” The boyfriend of the young couple screamed. I wasn’t sure if he was telling the truth or just desperate to save her. I gave them a secondary glance.
I scooped up the pregnant lady and the little girl in my arms. The girl was about twelve and heavy for her age, but I still used my formerly dislocated arm for her because the alternative was using it to carry the grown woman. I scooped up the five year old boy with my tail and lifted him high above my head. The parents gave me an uneasy stare. I ran towards the end of the hallway with them in my arms and then I took a leap of faith straight down. They each received scratches from the broken glass on the window, but a few scratches are better than burning alive.
Pain shot through my legs, my ribs, and my shoulder as we landed. I almost instantly dropped both girls, but gently I placed the boy down on the ground and patted his hair once again. They looked unharmed, if a little shaken. I looked back up, ready to save the others. The firemen were working on putting the fire on the bottom floors out, and getting ladders to the upper floors. Policemen were communicating on scanners trying to find out where the terrorists went. Ambulances were putting bodies with shattered legs and bullet holes in their throats on stretchers and moving them to a place where they could die.
As I ran towards the window, an explosion rippled through the third floor. I was knocked backwards so hard I rolled. I couldn’t see much from the heat and light, but I heard the screams of everyone on the floor being abruptly cut off as they disappeared. I dropped limp. There was nothing more I could do, the firemen had the upper floors covered. The children screamed as they watched flames engulf where their parents just were.
As I turned to run back to my lab, a news crew ran over to stop me. The local news woman grabbed my hurt shoulder and held me. She shoved a microphone in my face before I could even tell her to let go.
“Are you the masked figure that stopped the murder of Jack Golding, and the robbery of Mr. Kelly?” The woman asked with a smile on her face that made me uneasy.
I tried to move forward, but she pushed down harder on my hurt shoulder. I looked deeply into her eyes. She put on a big toothy smile and kept her hand in place, right until I whipped my tail hard enough behind me to make a snapping sound. She jumped back and let out a squeal. I used the second of freedom to push past.
“Well there, you have it folks. Our very own superhero!” She exclaimed into the camera as I ran off.
…
By the time I got back to my lab, got out of the suit, packed up, and walked home it was midnight. Which was earlier than the last time I came back, so points for me, I guess. I could see through the drapes that the lights were off in the living room but the tv was still on. Which meant mom would be awake.
When I walked in the front door I saw mom sitting on the couch with a blanket laying across her lap. She was watching a documentary about chimpanzees on the tv. I swung my bag over my shoulder and laid it on the floor next to the front door.
Doing that made me realize how much my shoulder actually hurt. I grabbed onto it and rubbed, but I tried not to wince too hard to signal that something was wrong. Even though mom was facing in a different direction from me.
I limped over to the couch. I sat down next to my mom. Her hair was loose and she was wearing an old baseball t-shirt. I laid my head in her lap. She gently stroked her fingers through my hair.
You idiot. Hurt Emily. Hurt Mar. Hurt Danny.
Made those kids orphans.
Let those monsters get away.
Hurt that old man.
Let those people burn.
Ruined everything.
Kept your mom up all night.
Trash. Idiot. Monster.
You deserve everything you get. You deserve to die.
“What’s wrong, little Monkey?” Mom asked while stroking my hair. I guess she could feel the tears soaking through the blanket. I didn’t know if I should tell her, or not tell her, or what. I didn’t know how she’d respond if I did. I couldn’t possibly put all the nightmares I’d just experienced into words.
“I just…. Why does everything hurt?” I asked through the tears.
“I wish I knew, baby. I wish I knew.” She answered. I fell asleep with my head in her lap.
