Chapter 40.

The Powder Keg.

Damien Reyes.

Time/Area: August 2nd, 2013. NYC

BEEP BEEP BEEP!

I sat up in my bed, grabbing my phone next to me before switching off the alarm.

It was one o'clock in the morning, and I had to say, I was shocked when I didn’t hear the rapid shuffling of Jason getting dressed.

“Did he forget to set his alarm or something?” I wondered, stretching my arms out to the side before glancing at Jason’s bed.

I was about to throw my pillow 90 miles an hour at his face, but something…stopped me.

I squinted at his form, feeling an off sensation ripple through my head. It felt kinda like…no, it wasn’t Terry. If it was Terry in my head again I was pretty sure he’d be the one urging me to cause violence, not stop it.

I slowly stood up, willing my brain to wake up so I could understand what was going on.

I looked down at Jason, cracking the stiff bones in my neck while bringing the blue-ish, transparent layers into my eyes.

“Okay,” I thought, blinking out the remaining sleepiness before adjusting to my ‘Night Vision’.

Nothing looked wrong with him, but…

No.

Something was wrong here.

What were these…feelings in me?

Fear?

Why was I scared?

I noticed sweat dripping down Jason’s sleeping forehead, only one more second passing before I knew exactly what was happening.

I wasn’t the one that was scared; he was.

Jason was having a nightmare.

It felt so…weird. This must’ve been because of whatever mental link me and Jason had.

“Hey, Jason,” I tried, viewing no difference in his stasis. In fact, it felt like the fear was getting worse.

What was he dreaming about?

I tried again, this time louder,

“Jason!” I hissed, glancing waringly at the wall behind my dresser.

Mrs.M had come in late last night, and I didn’t want us to wake her up.

I turned back to Jason, instantly feeling another wave of terrified emotions wash over me.

This time, I could’ve sworn I heard Jason’s voice…but his mouth wasn’t moving.

Words…at random… resounded through my brain, causing me to take a step back as I clutched my temples.

Dad…Melissa…Mom… Selina…Monster…Dead…Damien…No…Stop…Dad’s dead…Mom’s dead…Damien’s dead…like he said?

I gritted my teeth absently, not wanting to creep on my best friend’s dreams any longer.

I walked over to his bed, snatching the sheets draped over him before throwing them to the side,

“Hey.” I said, watching Jason’s eyes shoot open as he rocketed upwards in the mattress.

His eyes were wide, “Ah!” He looked up at me, freezing “Ah..”

I stared at him for a second.

What were the thoughts I couldn’t hear?

Jason glanced at the phone beside his nightstand, then back at me,

“U-uh why are you looking at me like that?” He gave a small laugh, “I..I woke up a little late, so what?”

I remembered the card I had made for his birthday, cursing myself for even writing it.

Damien’s dead…like he said.

I shook the thought away, sighing, “Well, it’s Sunday...you wanted to practice before church?”

Jason’s breathing slowed, “O-oh right..sorry I just..”

I stopped him, “You're good,” I said, finding it difficult to ignore my pending questions, “E-erm Jay” I coughed, “You know I-”

Jason got up,

“Imma take a shower.” He said, walking towards the bathroom door.

I frowned, “Jason-”

“Don’t worry, jeez,” He laughed, stepping inside the bathroom before glancing back at me, “I’m not gonna use all the hot water…probably.”

Click.

He shut the door.

“Well great,” I thought to myself, falling back on my bed before boring my eyes into the roof.

I raised my hand in front of my line of sight, moving each finger one at a time slightly.

I could feel the tiny, almost insignificant, tingle of energy wrapping around each digit, a calm reminder that I was still in control here. The crap I wrote on that card wasn’t true anymore. I could defend myself. I could defend everyone. I had to.

I heard the shower start running from beyond the bathroom door,

“I just hope he believes that too..”

-

Once we had both washed up and were outside, it was already two thirty AM. The backyard grass hadn’t grown all that much since yesterday, and was still cut to the point where the soft blades were below the pads of my sneakers. The Sunday sun was still rising, the growing light casting neat shadows across the field while the air temperature wavered between cool and warm like a seesaw. The fence was finished being fixed, but the new wood could clearly be distinguished from the old, leaving a sort of scar on the lumber. A reminder, almost.

That, and of course an entire tree was still missing.

“So, I have an Idea..” Jason spoke, tapping his notebook while pacing around a tree.

Jason was dressed in black jogging pants and a white T-shirt, his uncombed hair waving around in the breeze.

“Wall running!” He exclaimed.

I blinked, unsure about this, “Do you even know what you’re doing anymore-”

“It’s actually a lot simpler with something narrow when you think about it,” Jason interrupted, pointing at the tree with his pen, “When you use BB for your legs, you have to worry about turning and all that, but with something like a tree, there would only be one direction to go, right?”

It took me a minute to remember that BB stood for Body Boosting; AKA, whenever I charged one of my limbs with ‘Excess’. It was interesting how quickly Jason had added these kinds of terms to his official vocab.

I tilted my head, responding to Jason’s question, “Up?”

“Up!” Jason agreed, sounding like the host of some game show, “So why don’t you give it a try?”

I shrugged, walking over the tree he was previously pacing around and placing my left foot on its base.

I was wearing blue jeans, a green long sleeve, and a new brown jacket Mrs.M had bought me. I also brought a set of red M.M.A gloves that I had ordered online. I had no other reason for buying the gloves other than the fact that it made me look cool, and at least I wasn’t wearing some stupid compression shirt with an ‘O’ plastered onto its front.

I looked up: the tree was about 15.5 feet tall.

I didn’t really know how I was going to go about doing this, but the simplest idea that came to mind was to just rocket myself upwards and hope that I kept going.

Even hearing it in my head sounded stupid, but I was willing to try it. I had survived…much worse.

“Here we go,” I thought, unable to keep the excitement from showing on my face.

Every new day of using my powers made me feel like this. It was kind of like the feeling I used to get on Christmas. I used to run into the living room to see a bunch of presents under our tree, but at the same time feel so scared to go to bed in fear of each gift disappearing overnight. Nothing was quite like waking up the next morning and finding them still there; untouched.

That was how using my powers felt. Of course, that feeling would dwindle as I got used to them being…well… my powers, but that wouldn’t happen for a while.

I slid my foot back, my leg beginning to hum and vibrate as I felt electric red sparks run up and down my skin. From the outside, it simply looked like my Jeans had begun to glow a soft red, yet only I could feel exactly how powerful the limb was at the moment.

“There it is!” Jason hollered, his nerdy brain possibly more thrilled about my powers than me.

I had been thinking a lot about the mental aspects of my abilities recently, realizing that

It wasn’t just the power behind them, but the control that made everything function;

Knowing which part of my body did what. Even when we weren’t in the backyard, I tried boosting certain areas of my body, trying to learn how everything worked to try and make myself stronger.

Just charging a random limb was great; it was what sent that monster back to hell, but I found it a little…messy.

Sporadically washing my arm with sparks would just make parts of my arm stronger than others, but what if I focused that energy?

I tried experimenting with this using my pinkie after my last conversation with Terry left me a little shaken, and what I found was more than satisfying. As I assumed, directing my attention to certain muscle groups whenever I used my powers made that limb even stronger.

I also found out I could do this with my regenerative abilities, as focusing on specific areas of my skin would cause them to heal faster.

“Alright..”

Once I felt my quadriceps and calves sparking with the crimson energy, I shot myself up the tree, laughing as I began to climb the wood like stairs. The entire feeling was surreal. It was like my body knew what I wanted before I put in the effort to actually do it. Then again, that was how using “Excess” always felt to me. It was like I didn’t need as much confidence to just…do things. Either that, or the stuff just sent my confidence up to insanely high levels. It didn’t really matter; either way I was freaking running up a tree.

“It’s working!” I realized. The red arcs coursed through my vision and the rest of my body like a sort of dance, a rhythm that was so random yet so natural.

It was a bit disorienting, being upside down, but was exhilarating at the same time.

I stopped when I reached the top of the tree, immediately kicking off with my legs as gravity took hold. I flew backwards through the air, unintentionally performing a flip before landing on the soft grass.

I felt the sparks fade away from within me, a mix of disbelief and pride replacing what was random bravery.

“Th-That was awesome dude!” Jason laughed, giving me a high-five as I slid in front of him.

I turned around, smirking at the tree I had just scaled. Shoe prints still lingered on its now burnt bark, the tip of the tree collecting most of the crimson energy while indicating where I had launched off of.

“Whoops,” I thought, grimacing downwards at my brand new shoes before quickly stomping out the smoke excreting from their heels. Jason insisted that I order new ones yesterday after the whole ‘monster go boom boom’ fiasco, and I didn’t really want to mess these up too.

“So what’s next?” I asked.

Jason grinned wildly as he opened his notebook, “Let’s see…”

------

We spent the next couple of hours on more commonly expected drills.

We ran more invulnerability tests, and it was a good thing we did. Last time, I guessed that my ‘invulnerability’ might’ve been a ‘Skill’, but this time we finally proved it. Jason had shot me with three arrows (his idea). At first, I barely concentrated, and it was more of a surprise. The second, I was allowed to see the arrow coming, and on the third I concentrated as hard as I could. I wasn’t entirely sure what exactly to concentrate on, but all I knew was that the third arrow barely felt like anything- which was good enough for me.

I also kind of figured out a new ability. It wasn’t major, but that didn’t stop Jason from scribbling endlessly in his notebook over it. He called it a “Stamina Booster”, and put the move under ‘Skills’. All I did was mention that I felt way less tired whenever I started burning my ‘Excess Energy’, but that was enough to send Jason reeling.

An interesting thing Jason tried to do was get me to actually fire out my “Excess” like I was Static Shock or Miles Morales. Annoyingly enough, nothing happened, but it didn’t keep me down for long because of how much other progress I had made. I couldn’t get the idea out of my head, though. Shooting red colored lightning from my hands would probably give me an unexplainable amount of joy.

Terry really was right: I should train more often.

Wow, was I really?

“Shut up,” I told him mentally, smirking slightly.

“Hey, I’ve been thinking,” Jason started, scribbling some more things in his notebook as he pulled me out of my thoughts.

We were inside at the moment, sitting on the kitchen counter as fresh light broke through the windows overlooking the yard.,

“What is it?” I asked, drumming my fingers on the granite.

Jason raised his eyebrows,

“We’ve gotta come up with a better name than Bubble Man, don’t you think?”

I sighed, getting up and opening the nearby fridge,

“That was your idea, but okay..” I agreed, looking through various ‘Toaster Breakfast’ boxes on the metallic shelves of the cold interior before settling on pancakes, “Have anything in mind?” I paused, glancing back at Jason while slightly leaning on the open fridge door, “Something not as stupid as bubbleman…preferably.”

I was only able to entertain the idea of a ‘superhero’ name because my life seemed somewhat calm at the moment. It was sad what passed for calm now, but I would take peace wherever I could find it.

Jason sunk into his chair, watching me lazily exit the fridge with a set of frozen pancakes in my hands. As far as cooking went, I pretty much only knew how to boil water. That, and toast stuff.

“What about Dark Elite?”

I rolled my eyes- that was another thing from Fight4Life,

“Uh, no.” I disagreed, dropping the discs of frozen bread into the toaster beside Mrs.M’s stovetop,

“Can’t you think of something simple?” I tried, positioning myself against the counter as I waited for the toaster to pop, “Like, something one word at least?”

Jason groaned as I made my suggestion,

“But that’s boring.” He breathed, “You’re boring.”

POP!

I grabbed two paper plates.

“Ugh, fine.” Jason conceded, grinning when I handed him a pancake,

“We’ll call you a work in progress.”

I shrugged, taking a bite out of the very artificial pancake. To be honest, I was just surprised that someone in Jason’s family [besides Jason] even possessed toaster food. The only ‘instant’ styled foods I expected in Mrs.M’s home were all thirty dollars or more, not the simple Reddos brand that was a mere ten.

—

After we finished eating, we went back upstairs to our room.

Jason closed the door, grabbing the TV remote before laying down on my bed to annoy me.

I laid on his in defiance, but sat up when the TV screen came to life.

The New York Daily’s morning broadcast was on, but I found myself rereading the headlines flashing at the bottom of the screen over and over instead of truly appreciating what was being displayed.

It would seem that peace hadn’t lasted for long.

Jason gasped, sitting up as well from the other side of the room, “No..way.”

He turned it up a little, glancing cautiously at my dresser wall in fear of Mrs.M waking up. I took my phone out, looking at the time.

We had church soon, but Mrs.M was probably still sleeping at the moment, so I turned back to the screen.

The Headline:

First Confirmed Monster sightings in Brooklyn.

I gulped, looking up as a slideshow of blurry pictures were displayed.

There was a twelve foot, black, glowing blue monster on screen, crawling on the side of Brooklyn Point. It resembled Terry in its shape, as it appeared to be without hair and possessed huge muscles, but the glow was off. We were red, this thing was not.

I’ll admit, at first, part of me ignored the headline.

Why?

Because like, ‘duh, we already knew monsters existed.’

But then I realized the one, true, city breaking fact of this whole thing.

Literally nobody else did.

Or, at least, no one else knew for sure. I was sure that others had seen something, but living in New York, it was hardly surprising everytime something an outsider deemed as big was overlooked and regarded as unimportant.

This was different.

When big time News stations give something like this?

Powder keg, meet Fire.

I didn’t need telepathy to know Jason was running through the same thought process at the moment; his silence was deafening enough.

I couldn't help but feel like a clock had started. Even amidst everything that had happened to me and Jason that were monster related, there was a sort of protection in the fact that…well… it didn’t seem real. Actually, I knew it was real, that wasn’t the right word. It helped everything slow down. The world had been slow to catch on, giving us time to catch up. Now, all reminisce of that was gone.

Jason shook his head, muting the TV before turning to face me,

“Things just keep getting better, don’t they?”

I sighed, checking my phone,

“Social media is blowing up with theories..” I stated, causing Jason to check his as well,

“Yea..” he said, “I see aliens, some mystic curse...some people even think this is a failed cloning experiment. Bunch of weirdos, the internet…”

“This is crazy.” I thought, “Just crazy…”

Jason nodded, “Yea it is,” He agreed, “Someone must’ve gotten a shot of the monster by accident.” He paused for a second, “You think the government will try and take the news down? Like, to stop panicking?”

I shrugged, “I wouldn’t give the news too much credit,” I started, still squinting at the headline to make sure I wasn’t seeing things. That the…city…wasn’t seeing things.

“I bet it’s gonna take some time for people to take this to the point of like…riots, since the whole thing is completely out of the ordinary.”

Jason nodded, agreeing, “Yeah, I guess,” he said, “Plus, I bet the government shutting the Daily down would only make things worse.”

I returned the nod, “Silence is deafening, and when people are cut off from a possible truth, they’re only likely to believe it that much more.”

Jason went back to the TV, unmuting it.

A male reporter was on, Brooklyn Point behind him. The area was already crowded with people. It would’ve been natural for New York, but lately the skepticism surrounding the apocalypse being a real threat made New York streets quieter.

That was not the case this morning.

“In addition to this confirmed sighting, three unconfirmed sightings were reported across the city, and apparently these were only the newest on a long list of unconfirmed monster events. This list’s beginning has been traced all the way back to what people have been referring to as the ‘France Fiasco’. The newest three have been reported in the following locations: One in the Bronx, one near New York harbor, and one in Queens. The reports were immediately ignored by most, but it seems Ember Defense was approached with a contract on the situation, though Draxon himself says he will focus on other problems. These newest sightings, now under the light of the city’s first confirmed one, have been making smaller headlines more rapidly across the boroughs. Social analysts say they expect the trend to continue as more sightings are reported, and as more people are alerted to the possible severity of the issue. In other news, this has been sparking big questions. How many are there? What do they want? Was it really the result of the famed ISAC competition like many theorists believe? Where else in the world is this happening? Is this-”

Jason muted it again, which was good because that man talked way too much, “Dang...if those were all real sightings then…”

I coughed, “Then the gas that Sarah was talking about has already spread pretty far.”

I turned my attention to my nightstand, finding a bit of solace in my framed pictures.

Those were some of the only memories I had left of my parents- and I found myself turning to them whenever I got nervous.

“Damien..” Jason grabbed my attention,

“Maybe we should..call another uh..Zombie Squadron meeting or something.”

I nodded, agreeing while averting my gaze towards the bedroom window.

From here, a normal person could see and understand a brief portion of the busiest part of Manhattan’s skyline.

I wasn’t a normal person.

My ears warmed on my command, willing the millions of distorted voices and sounds in the city to stabilize into one frequency as I listened.

Call your dad…

Is this for real?

I guess this is it.

What about grandma? Isn’t she over there…

Should we stay inside now?

I still think this is a government hoax!

I guess this means y’all still are out of school…

What about the colleges. They can’t ignore this one…

Okay, but does this affect our gas prices?

W-wait, how do monsters form, e-exactly?

Am…I infected?

What now, exactly?

What do we do now?

What happens now, dad?

I pulled out, letting out a small gasp as my hearing returned to normal.

I looked at Jason; he was staring at me with an expectant look,

“Well?” He asked, pointing outside, “What do the people really think?”

I gulped,

“Y-yeah…” I breathed, standing up, “text the group chat, we’re meeting after church.”