“Sam?!”

“Calm down Adele… k-keep Alice close to you!”

All around them was nothing but chaos. The sky was filled with blood and elevating column of smoke from every corner of the city. The heat was rising, as Sam’s little sister, her head still buried in Adele’s chest, trembled in tears and shiver.

It was too much for a kid her age. And it should have been the same for the other two, especially after witnessing this last explosion. They were scared, for sure, but Sam's guts were concerned about something else.

He felt... that the worst had yet to come.

And as the world was answering his worries, a salve of gunshots resonated from further back.

“Wh-What’s happening?”

“We are not alone! We have to move!”

Sam started to run, but as stop by Adele. They exchange a glance, and, without a word, he let her pass in front of him, and hopped on her back.

“To give a bit of context… you remember about the i-talent scale of level?”

"1 to 5, and you're a two. And I believed your sister is a 5?"

"Almost, you see, the scale was good and all, but it had struggled to keep up with the really powerful talent. For instance, Naomi's and Xavier's was stronger than most other 5's, and although the two of them didn't make through, a 6th level was created, for the sole purpose of ranking three people. Alice, another kid who I never met and who died in the attack, and Adele."

“So… she had super-strength? And stuff?”

"Yes. She was crazy strong and fast, and smart, and everything, but it was more than any of us.Even with my power, I don't think I would be able to beat a 12 years old Adele..."

Lifting the pair of siblings, the girls in her arms, and the boy on her back, Adele took a deep breath, and started running. Despite the images of chaos, the occasional screen of smoke and shooting sound coming closer, the streets didn't change much.

At a speed unfitting such a small body, she was carrying them through the remains of the road. Drops of water started to fall from her eyes, but Sam couldn't tell if it was her or just the wind on her face.

She has no real place to go to, but with the number of gunshots increasing it would be foolish to stay in plain sight. They had to escape this hell, and fast.

However, passing the corner of yet another crumbling building, Adele stopped her run. She was running for a few minutes at full speed, faster than any adult of this current and previous age, but her stoppage wasn't du to fatigue.

On the other side of the road was a small child running away and crying.

Sam recognize him immediately, it was another kid from the park. He was younger than him, but still faster and stronger than the adults.

Seeing him, Sam diverting his eyes for a second, unable to bear the sight.

He wasn't running away, as he couldn't run at all. One of his legs was missing, leaving a burnt stump just under his knee.

Unable to keep his balance, he was crawling on the ground, leaving a faint trail of blood behind him. What he was running from was obvious. Entering Adele's superhuman field of sight was a trio of armed soldiers, wearing gas masks and military gear.

Holding automatic rifles in their hands, they steadily advancing toward them.

At this instant, two pieces of the puzzle matched together in her mind. Without a doubt, those masked people were adults, given their physic. However, they were all missing this morning, a few hours before the attack.

It was painfully obvious, and it was making her mad beyond herself.

Sam had already descended from her back and, after getting hold of himself, went to help the suffering boy, while Alice had her eyes still closed, as she was understandably freaking out.

Adele gently put her on the floor, whispering in her ear.

“Everything will be fine.”

Using one of his sleeves as a bandage, Slam covered the edge of the severed leg, even though there was no blood loss. The kid had probably some regenerative i-talent, which wasn’t that much of a blessing in these circumstances.

Focused on his task, he didn’t see her blond friend walking toward the group of menacing soldiers coming their way. Her eyes were burning with rage, as a vein popped out on her forehead. Another vein appeared on her neck, followed by a multitude of others all over her body.

The lovely young lady was no more, as her skin was now covered with intermixed blood road. It was ugly and extremely menacing.

She put herself near Sam and his patient, waiting for the squad to come at sight range.

The only thing Sam saw was her over contracted back, before he disappeared a split second later.

One blink.

It was all the time needed.

One of them made a sign.

She took it for her, and jumped in.

Around 20 meters and 4 broken necks later, she was finished.

As soon as he had understood what just happened, Sam swiped off the cold sweat from his forehead, and ran toward Adele as fast as he could.

Although her i-talent allowed her to break through human physical limit, to the extent of running faster than a car, lifting a truck with ease, or being almost immune to bullets, it had a major drawback. Her veiny contraction is supposed to be an all-in card, as it was putting a tremendous effort on her body, often resulting in broken bones and hot fevers.

Fortunately, Sam arrived just in time to catch her before she could touch the ground, exhausted.

“What the hell did you do?”

“I-I… I am fine.”

There were 4 corpses around them, but Sam couldn’t care less, there was too much at stakes. Moreover, the issue was not that they are dead, but the reason there are here.

“It-it all make sense.”

“Do…Don’t rush it, let’s walk back. Everything is fine for now.”

Of course, it wasn't. The explosions sound had stopped, unlike the gunshot, and the cries of the one leg kid.

Fortunately, as she only used the veins for no more than a few seconds, the after effect wasn’t too significant, and she recovered on the way back to Alice and the kid.

“This Adele was a hell of a badass.”

“She was.”

Also while walking back, Adele explain her theory that the adults were trying to wipe them out, and even though Sam didn't believe it, he didn't argue back, as it was clear they were all in high danger. No matter who wanted to kill them, it was at least obvious that someone wanted to do it.

The explosions were already bad enough, but now that there are teams of soldiers patrolling the streets, they had to live the town immediately.

“Adele! Are you okay?!”

Seeing her best friend directly risking her life threw Alice out of her trance, even though she had still constant tears on the corners of her eyes.

The four of them grouped up and tried, after calming down the injured kid, to put down a plan.

It came out simple: avoid the soldiers, and get the hell out of this hell.

Adele would carry Jonathan -the name of the kid- while Sam and Alice would run by themselves. At this point, Alice wasn’t able to use her talent fully and had no way to carry Sam, or run as fast as Adele.

Well, that was the original plan, but as they were about to live, Sam saw one building, in the corner of his eyes. It caught his attention, as he was surprised to see it still standing, almost untouched by the row of explosions.

It was the town library, a giant stone building, one of the oldest of the town, with marble columns before the entrance. To summarize, it was nothing more than a boring place for a kid like Sam. Nonetheless, he knew it pretty well, because he used to hang out in there from time to time.

With someone special to him.

He looked back, trying to catch Adele’s eyes.

He had a bad feeling. Something bad was going to happen, and for the first time in his short life, he had no idea what decision to make.

“What are you talking about?”

“I always had pretty good instinct, and I never had trouble making choices until then. So it was kind of a weird feeling.”

“…wait, were you a psychic before coming in my world?”

“No. I was just… I… I don’t know, it always felt like I always knew what to do, like when the park was swallowed in the explosion. My guts prevented me to follow… I mean…”

“I thought your talent was luck…”

“Isn’t that more or less the same thing? Sometimes, I just know what is the right thing to do, but this time it was different. For the first time, I thought of two possible choices, with none of them being the good one.”

"What do you mean ‘two choices'? You were just planning to leave, right?"

“That was before I spotted the library. You see…”

“Oh! Of course! It’s so obvious! Naomi was in there! Right?!”

“…it’s not a game.”

“You became closer and closer, and started to hang out outside the park, and because she loves books, you went together to the library on several occasion. Then you started dating and…”

"Okay!… gosh, I'm in the middle of a dramatic flashback…! But you are right, I did go to the library with Naomi, because she loved the place so much. In fact, after finishing a book, she was immediately going back to borrow a new one, no matter the time of the day. If the library was closed, she would simply sneak in and take a new book by herself."

"So… when you saw the library, you thought she was in there?"

"Yeah..."