Mirko
The facility. Atlas’ fortress at the seams of the city. Scene of gruelling experiments and the violation of all sorts of humanitarian rights.
“You ready?” Mirko whispers, eyeing the complex through the fence.
Daragh nods and so does Riekah. It still feels weird to be working together with him. The monster. Mirko was really scared of him after they first met. Riekah had been in his other form, then, had brutally slaughtered the policemen that’d cornered him. They’ve come closer since then and Mirko has come to realise that Riekah is just another one of them. Except he’s much stronger.
“Right for the console, okay? It doesn’t matter if they see us, they can’t stop us,” Riekah says, his hands on their shoulders. He’s older than the two young men. Mirko doesn’t know exactly how old, but he’d estimate him to be in his late thirties. Still younger than Noah, but not that much.
He can feel the anatomy of Riekah’s hands shift against his shoulders. His fingers grow long and thin and claws emerge from their tips. He’s gotten used to it by now, doesn’t flinch anymore.
“Ready for teleport,” Mirko whispers and positions himself behind the other two. Taking two grown men with him is hard, but they’ve trained it a lot. He’s got this. With a final breath, he puts his arms around them and pulls them into the dark.
Being good at teleporting is really nothing about simply having a lot of power. It’s about skill. Teleporting is becoming one with the dark, as he likes to call it – nobody knows what it really is – and emerging somewhere else. Fighting as a teleporter means spending most of the time blind, in the darkness, reassessing the situation within the split of a second, attacking, retreating. Navigating the dark is already difficult, but fighting? Mirko is confident that teleportation is the most difficult power to master and he’s also confident, that he has.
The torrent of wild darkness collapses against him, tries to throw him off, tries to take his control away. But Mirko knows what he’s doing. The waves can’t throw him, not anymore.
And then it’s over and they re-emerge at the foot of the main building. It takes Mirko a second to steady himself – that’s normal after such a strenuous act – but the others are already on their way. With the grace of a predator, Riekah leaps up and the claws at his hands and feet dig into the wall just slightly, giving him enough hold to catapult himself upwards. He doesn’t really put holes into the walls when he does that, Mirko has come to realise. He just fades the tips of his fingers into the material. Daragh follows him, a black blur along the drain.
Mirko takes another breath and returns to the darkness, immediately coming out again on top of the second floor, not far from the large window that looks out over the premises.
Riekah is already inside and as he watches, the monster disembowels the three guards inside.
Seconds later, the window opens, and Mirko and Daragh step inside.
“Get them, I’ll go hunt,” Riekah snarls with the monster’s voice.
Mirko knows which buttons to press. Noah told him. One button to open every single cell in the entire complex. Every cell, except two. Their targets. Two women, Noah told them, with very special powers.
Daragh is already waiting by the door, waiting impatiently when Mirko teleports past him into the corridor. They do that sometimes, racing each other. Mirko, using a lot of quick jumps through the darkness, barely reassembling himself in between, while Daragh simply runs fast.
It only takes seconds before they’ve left Riekah behind, probably about to destroy the facility’s last shot at containing the situation.
Another few seconds and they’ve arrived at the first cells, already open. Some of the wielders have come out and are about to fight the oncoming guards. They won’t stand a chance, the guards. The only reason why this facility worked in the first place was because they managed to contain and isolate the wielders, only getting them out one at a time, usually subdued and restrained.
Mirko and Daragh don’t stop to help them. They’ve got more important matters to attend to.
Mirko doesn’t think the wielders even register them as they whizz past. Seconds later, they’ve made their way down several stairs to the high-security tract. By then, the alarms have started blaring. By now the poisonous gas has probably started leaking into the cells. Noah warned them about it, that’s why they have to do it. Because they’re the fastest.
A group of four guards is waiting at the bottom of the stairs. Mirko assumes they would’ve started firing immediately the moment even the cloud of black appeared, that usually preludes his appearance – although, the way he’s jumping right now, nothing but the black cloud appears – but by the point he’s there, Daragh is already crashing into the first one, probably breaking the poor guy’s chest bone in the process. Only one is left standing by the time Mirko emerges from the darkness behind him, jamming a knife into the back of his neck. He misses the spine just barely, then pulls it out towards the side, cutting through muscle, sinew, and artery in one fluid motion. The guy won’t suffer for long.
Without stopping, they continue towards the doors. Daragh has taken the keys from one of the guards and he knows the security codes, so they’ll be open in a second. Mirko didn’t see it, but he knows his partner.
And indeed, just as he emerges from the dark by the first door, it flies open. It’s already misty behind, but Mirko hears coughing, so he teleports forward, grabbing the barely conscious woman around the waist and bringing her to safety before throwing the door back shut.
He turns to check in on Daragh as he eases the woman to the ground but she slips his grasp because as he turns, he sees Daragh collapse to the floor, hands at his throat, red mist swirling around him.
“Don’t worry, child,” a cackling voice says from inside the cell, “The pain will pass in a second.”
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Tearoh
Noise. Screams, gunshots. They’re still far away. Then there’s the sound of locks disengaging.
I’m already on my feet, then. Any notion of sleepiness has long left me. This is our chance. Something is clearly wrong up there, maybe somebody’s managed to flee their cell and is now running rampant.
My hand is already on the handle but then I hesitate. What if it isn’t safe out there? What if they kill me? What if they kill Bone?
Steps outside, right by my door. A gentle knocking.
“Little Spark?” Bone says. “Are you there?”
Without meaning to, I put my hand against the cold metal and lean in. “Yes!”
Finally awaken from my stupor, I pull the handle, but it doesn’t budge. For a moment, panic threatens to rise up my throat.
“Wait inside, just another minute,” Bone says from the other side. He must be holding it shut. “Guards are coming.”
“So let me out, then!” I beg. “I can help! We can fight them together!”
“No,” he says. “I’ve got this. Please, just wait. The door’s already open.”
Steps. Closer. Shouts. Gunfire. A roar of rage. Bone. Heavy steps pushing against the concrete as he runs toward them. The gunfire intensifies, mixes with screams of pain. Then, silence.
“Can I come out now?” I call, anxious to finally get out. I don’t want to spend a second more than I really need to in this cruel space.
“Yes, Little Spark,” he calls back, sounding a little out of breath. “You can come out.”
I give the iron handle a good tug and the door swing open. It’s different. So different, now that it’s me opening it. The pull in the air that brushes against my face makes my heart race in anticipation.
And then I see him. Bone. Not far down the corridor, amidst five bloodied corpses. They’re not just dead, not just bloody. They’ve been slaughtered. Arms have been torn off, heads face the entirely wrong direction. One’s chest cage is weirdly deformed.
Bone’s standing with his back to me, his hulking shoulders move with every breath he takes. He’s huge, easily seven feet. His shoulders are broad enough that I could comfortably sit on one of them. And then there are the bones. I can only make them out on the outer side of his forearms and the back of his hands because he’s wearing a T-shirt. Is it weird that I always imagined him without a shirt? Like some action hero? Maybe like the Hulk? Another child at home once showed me a picture and I’m sure Bone looks a lot like him. Except he’s not green.
I know he has more boneplates underneath his shirt. He told me about them and when I look closely, I think I can see the protrusions even through the fabric.
He looks mostly like I imagined him – apart from the T-shirt.
“Hi,” I whisper, my hand raised in tentative greeting.
“Hi,” he says back, then frowns as he looks at the corpses strewn around him. “Sorry, I- You really shouldn’t have to see this.”
Slowly, I step out of my cell and make my way toward him. “I don’t mind.” And I really don’t. Which is probably strange? I’m a child after all. Death shouldn’t feel so… normal to me. But it does and I don’t think there’s anything I can do about it. Want to do about it. “They deserved it.”
He gives a slow nod. “We should leave,” he says then.
I’m about to walk past him when suddenly he extends his right to block my path. “Stop! There’s glass.”
I look at him sidelong. Yes, I’m barefoot, but what is there to do about it? The guards’ boots won’t fit me.
“My skin isn’t cut so easily,” he explains. “I should carry you.”
He moves to pick me up in the classical princess-carrying fashion, but I dodge his hands. “Not like that!” I complain and suddenly, I’m grinning. “Turn around and crouch.”
Understanding flashes in his eyes and he does as I ask. It’s not exactly easy to climb his back. I have to lean in and grab his shoulder muscles and then pull myself up to finally get in a position where I can comfortably put my arms around his neck. I don’t even try to put my legs around his waist.
A memory flares up. I’m sitting at the dining table at home and all around me, the other girls are talking, laughing, fighting. And then one of them says that her dream is to have a daddy who’ll give her piggyback rides and I decide, that I want that, too. That one day, I’ll have a daddy who loves me and lets me ride on his back and holds me up high and tells me I’m beautiful.
I doubt Bone is ever going to tell me that I’m beautiful, but he lets me ride on his back and he protects me even though he knows very well that I can do it myself, too. He’s the first, really.
So I smile and nuzzle my cheek into the crook of his neck as he carries me past the corpses and through corridors littered with even more guards. I don’t even care that his skin is very rough and grates against mine. It’s such a strange feeling to be this close to somebody. And at the same time it’s so very not. Because I spent hours upon hours dreaming of this. When the mist hurt me or when I couldn’t sleep with fear.
Now I don’t have to be afraid anymore. Bone is here with me.
We don’t meet anybody on our way out. The other inmates must’ve long fled. We see signs of their fight with the guards all over. Not only bodies. Some corridors have collapsed, there are icy spots on the floor, scorch marks on the walls.
And then we get out. The first thing I feel is the cold. Cold air bites my feet, my toes, the tips of my fingers, my ears, my nose. It crawls underneath the thin layers of clothes and huddles up against my skin like a pet I really don’t want around.
Then we turn a corner and stand before the exit. It’s dark outside. The heavy metal doors have been blasted straight off their hinges, lie several metres onwards in the snow.
Snow. It’s snowing. Somehow, the possibility hadn’t even occurred to me. When was the last time I thought about snow?
Probably when I was having a snowball fight with one of the other girls from home – or maybe when we were building a snowman?
But now I can’t even think of doing any of those things. I’m too cold. Already, the tips of my fingers and ears are going numb from the icy wind. I’d never thought this would be the problem. I’d expected military to come after us, but this?
Bone doesn’t seem to be cold. Stoically, he strides along the driveway, towards the broken gate. We’re going to escape into the city, but… will I even make it that far?
“Bone, I’m cold,” I tell him and I hate how afraid my voice sounds. How afraid I am!
Just barely, he turns his head. “I know, Little Spark. I’m sorry.”
I’m about to ask him if we can find a place where I can warm up, when I finally register what he said. Little Spark. Being the opposite of cold is literally my power! It’s just that up until now I was far too scared to ever really use them. But I don’t have to be scared anymore.
“Bone! Let me down!” I say, scrambling to get to a position where I can just jump.
But he complies quickly enough and sets me on the ground.
He gives me a worried look. “Aren’t your feet going to-”
I give him a large grin. “No, they’re not. I’m a little spark, remember?”
And with that I turn away from him, point my palms at the horizon, and let loose. A roaring pillar of flames erupts from my hands, easily twenty yards long. It feels good to finally use my powers freely, not just because somebody tells me to. It’s wild and powerful and giddying.
Then I stop the flame and concentrate on my body. Quickly, a comfortable heat spreads from my heart throughout my torso, to my arms and legs, fingers, toes, and ears.
And suddenly, the night is beautiful. The sight of the stars plasters a huge smile across my face and then I breathe in through my nose and I can’t help but close my eyes and take several deep breaths more.
I love the smell of snow, of pristine cold, and nature. It’s the fir trees, I think.
Finally, I open my eyes again and look at Bone. “Isn’t this cool?” I ask with twinkling eyes as I let spheres of heat sprout from my hands.
His lips carry a smile that’s small but seems so genuine. “Yes, Little Spark. Yes, it is.”
I’m overwhelmed with joy. We’re free!
As fast as I can, I cross the distance between us and slam into him, hugging him around the waist.
“We’re free! Bone, we’re free!”
It takes him a second to react, then he puts his hands against my back. They’re large. Together, they easily cover the upper half of it.
We stand like that for a few seconds, before he says, “We should go. We don’t know when reinforcements might arrive.”
I nod and let go of him. He still insists on carrying me, though, since there might be stray pieces of glass lying around, so I climb back onto his back. Only then do I realise that just like me, he isn’t wearing weather-appropriate clothing either.
So I ask, “Aren’t you cold?”
But he only shakes his head. “It’s not comfortable, but I think my body’s built to deal with much worse.”
With a little huff, I put my arms against his chest and turn up my body heat even further. “Better?”
Deep laughter rumbles through his chest and shakes my body. I like it when he laughs.
“Yes, Little Spark. That’s better.”
Bone is a fast walker. It doesn’t take long and we leave our prison behind, make our way along the dark street towards the city. Bone insists on walking close to the underbrush that lines the road, but he has no reason to. Because nobody comes looking for us. And the reason for that is that we aren’t the only ones. It was obvious before, when we were leaving the prison building, but it’s just as obvious as we enter the city. Flashes of light, explosions, rubble on the street, screams.
Bone slows as we arrive at the first intersection.
“What do you want to do now?” he asks, turning his head ever so slightly. Not enough that he can see me, but enough that I can see the side of his face.
I shrug. I haven’t really thought about that yet. I only ever thought about how I’d get out, together with Bone. But right now it seems like that’s been accomplished. They can’t ever catch all of us. At least I hope so.
But what now?
“What do you want to do now?”
“I want to stay with you,” he says. “I want to make sure nobody’s ever going to do something to you ever again… if that’s okay with you.”
I nod. “Yeah, I want to stay with you, too.”
“So, what’ll it be, Little Spark?”
For a moment, I close my eyes and breathe in the smell of his skin. He smells of smoke and even a little blood.
“I want to find out who those people were, who experimented on us. And then I want to make them sorry they ever took us.”
He nods slowly. “We should find whoever broke us out, then.”
“Yes,” I say and open my eyes again. “Let’s do that.”
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