Open Your Eyes (Book 2): Blink

by H. J. Rethuan

  It was warm that morning. He woke, his throat parched, his bladder full. He stumbled to the remains of a toilet, dirty and grimy. It was disgusting. He relieved himself.

  Upon the floor were the shards of once a mirror. It reflected his broken visage. He could not help but stare at it.

  He tried to cry but the tears could not flow. He grabbed one of the shards and held it in his hand, to his wrist. He wanted to end his suffering.

  No. There was still the one thing he must do. That city. He must destroy it.

  Only then will he find peace.

  He decided he would take a chance today. Head into town, get food somehow. He hadn’t eaten for days, and the hunger pains were excruciating, almost as excruciating as his other wounds.

  Almost.

  He stayed hidden in the side streets, his face covered, concealed under his rags. His stomach rumbled as the smell of the food being prepared at the daily market wafted into his nostrils. He had no money, his mere presence would draw suspicion. His hunger distracted him.

  He did not hear the helicopter.

  The soldiers rappelled down, quickly surrounding him. More soldiers appeared, driving up in their Humvees, their weapons raised, laser sights trained onto him. He tried to look for a way out but they had every escape route covered. He was trapped, surrounded.

  His flesh began to burn once more.

  Jahannam had returned.

  He threw his arms forward, as the fire within leeched from his skin and out through his hands, launching a huge fireball that set his would-be captors alight. They screamed in agony as their skin burned, much like his own.

  Throwing his own burning rags off his body, he launches another blast, annihilating the soldiers’ fleet of vehicles. They explode, throwing shrapnel all over the market.

  There were screams, cries. A scene of destruction.

  Bullets begin to rake into him from above. The door gun of the chopper. Jahannam raises his hand to the sky and once again fires.

  The helicopter crashes down. He has destroyed them all.

  Still, he runs.

  Thirteen

  They hit the ground only minutes after the massacre. Starting from the site of his rampage, the unit used their dogs to track the terrorist down. It was made all too easy for them; the smell of seared flesh is something you could never lose track of.

  He did not get far this time. His body still weak, his strength sapped by his latest exertions, they pushed Jahannam towards a dead end: the construction site for an almost completed dam project their nation had funded.

  There, there was no place to go, not many places to hide. It was all a matter of time.

  Again, he was trapped.

  They had cornered him in the bowels of the structure, a dark, dank passageway stifling with humidity and still smelling of welded steel and wet concrete. It was hard to breathe here, even before the point team deployed their smoke grenades.

  Jahannam stood there, waiting for them to come. Minutes passed before a flash of light, a figure appears from out of smoke.

  Seth had only been given the briefest of briefs. Not his name, nor his identity. Only that he was dangerous, and displaying the same sort of powers the others had. Once again he volunteered to help. He had no idea who he was, nor of the connection they shared...

  Still, he would not let them kill him this time.

  Seth raises his hands, palms out, to show that he was unarmed.

  “I’m not here to harm you.” he tells him, edging closer. “Those people out there, they want to hurt you. But I won’t. I want to help you.”

  Jahannam stared at this intruder’s face. The synapses in his brain immediately fired, recalling his image, an image of the man he would never ever forget.

  “You...” he muttered between clenched teeth. “You!” he shouted.

  Driven by his rage, somehow his strength returns to him, restoring his energy on a massive scale. He begins to glow, gain in temperature as his flesh ignites into full blown flame, what skin he had left to melt and burn away...

  “You hurt me!” he bellows, he roars. He raises his palm towards Seth.

  “I will hurt you!” he screams.

  The blast of fire rockets towards Seth, leaving him with almost no time to react.

  Almost.

  Seth found himself outside, staring at the smoking hole blown open at the base of the dam. From there he reappeared, the man he had tried to help. A man who, for reasons unknown to him, was now after his life...

  “You brought the bomb, you brought the bomb that made me into this!” he screams as Seth scrambles to his feet.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Seth pleads as the entity raises his hand again. Jahannam fires another blast as again Seth dodges, blinking out of the path of destruction. Reappearing, he takes cover behind a row of construction vehicles.

  Hidden for the time being, Seth stared at his opponent from behind the safety of a dump truck tire as he searched for him. Thoughts raced through his mind, but no easy answers were forthcoming.

  How do you bring down a man of flame?

  “Where are you? Where are you? WHERE ARE YOU?” growled the entity as Seth dashes straight for him. Again raising his hand, Jahannam fires another blast only for Seth to blink past it once again...

  He reappears behind Jahannam, swinging his fist into the back of the entity’s head. Upon contact, the searing heat of his body flash burns Seth’s hand. Seth lets out a scream.

  He stumbles away, clutching his badly injured fist. His opponent turns, and raises his palm once more...

  Blink.

  Reappearing, Seth again scrambles for the cover of the dump truck. It won’t last for long though, for this time that thing knows he’s there...

  “Why are you running?” Jahannam shouts at him. “Come out here and die like the warrior you claim to be...”

  “I’m not a warrior!” Seth shouts back. He glances down at his hand. It’s already blistering, the pain excruciating...

  Jahannam laughs.

  “I find that hard to believe!”

  He blasts away at the dump truck, causing it to flip over and explode as once more Seth dashes for safety, finding it in a shallow ditch filled with debris and discarded tools.

  Picking up a nearby sledgehammer, Seth again dashes towards his opponent. Once more he blinks and reappears behind him, swinging the hammer against the villain’s smouldering body, smashing once, twice...

  It’s no use.

  Catching the tool mid-swing, with his increased strength Jahannam tosses it away with Seth still holding on to it, throwing him across the construction yard. Picking himself up from the dirt, Seth again finds himself in the sights of one of the entity’s blasts.

  With barely enough time to blink, the shockwave hits him and hurls him backwards into a pit of wet concrete, knocking him out cold.

  Cold. Wet.

  Wet concrete sinking in...

  Seth opens his eyes, as the burning man comes closer and closer with every step. He tries to extract himself from the concrete, but it weighs him down. It’s cold, heavy, unpleasant...

  The synapses in his own brain fire.

  With a final effort Seth drags himself out of the concrete and reaches for a shovel left by the edge. He takes hold of it with his hands, and digs in...

  With a shovelful of wet, cold concrete, Seth blinks, crossing the distance between him and Jahannam, reappearing right in front of him. Swinging the shovel, he throws the first load of concrete in the entity’s face, blinding him.

  Before he can wipe it off, Seth blinks and returns again, throwing another load of concrete on Jahannam. He repeats the process, over and over, over and over as he buries him in a pile of rapidly setting concrete, the villain’s own internal heat curing it rock solid...

  Exhausted, Seth drops the shovel as he stands in front of the now entombed Jahannam. He had defeated him, the man made out of flame.

  Still, Seth doesn’t believe this will be the e
nd of this.

  It never is.

  Fourteen

  Leaning on the rusted railing, Seth looked out over the calm ocean. He tried to take his mind off his burned hand. It hurt like hell.

  Yeah, punching a guy made out of pure heat in the back of the head. Smart move, idiot.

  Thoughts swirled through his mind. That thing, The Scimitar, Daniel Asha, whatever they called him, he said he knew Seth but Seth had never met him before. Yeah, Seth knew the name, and his reign of terror while he was still an ordinary human was known worldwide. But now he was this, this monster. How? Did someone do experiments on him? Was he given those powers, or was it just a freak accident, like how Seth got his?

  Again, how did he know Seth, and why was he so furious with him?

  The Toy Shop says they don’t know. They assumed he had died in a bunker explosion months ago. He doesn’t know if he should believe them.

  It bothered him, an evil man with such power left to roam this world.

  Ow.

  Yeah, it hurt like hell.

  “What I would do for Wolverine’s healing powers...” he chuckled quietly to himself.

  “Yes, they would come in useful.” said the voice from behind, as the man in the bucket hat joined Seth at the railing.

  “So, you’re the man with the powers...” he says to him.

  “How did you know?”

  “Oh, I know. Everyone knows...”

  “Yeah, it’s a small rig. I guess they do.” Seth relents.

  “I'm impressed how you’ve come all this way with your powers sir, like you didn't need any training to use them at all...”

  “Oh, I had training.” Seth tells him. “I mean, I sort of had training. My sister, she was the one who actually helped me out with this. She’s a huge geek so it’s like she knew what to do with all this stuff, all this superhero stuff. She supported me the whole way, even during the bad times.”

  “Bad times?”

  “Yeah. Self doubt, stuff like that...”

  Seth hesitates.

  “People died, people I tried to help. It almost killed me. Almost. But I forced myself to move past it. It was hard...”

  “So why did you stick with it? Keep doing this thing you do?”

  “Because I still needed to help people. Help people in my city, everywhere else if I can. There’s a lot of shitty stuff in this world, and I guess someone like me can do something about it. Someone has to.”

  The man chuckles.

  “That’s what I wanted to hear...”

  “What?”

  “You should go home Seth, get out of this place. They’re going to need you there. Soon.”

  Seth sighs.

  “Yeah, you’re right.” he mutters. “But Agent Salt doesn’t want me to leave. She’s got me, by the neck so to speak...”

  “You sure?” Doug shoots a look at him. “Hey, let me take a look at your hand.” Doug asks him. Seth obliges.

  “It got burnt pretty badly.” he tells him.

  “Burnt?”

  Doug lightly places his own hand upon Seth’s bandaged mitt. His fingers tingle, as the man in the bucket hat starts unwrapping them.

  “Hey! What are you...”

  The sight of an unburnt hand silences Seth. He is fine.

  “What the hell?”

  “Go home Seth.”

  As the man in the bucket hat turns to leave, Seth again examines his hand. Not a scratch.

  “Hey, wait...”

  Too late. He’s already gone.

  Even as an adult, Charlotte Marie Salt still loved playing with Lego. Even on this rig out in the middle of the ocean, she kept a lunchbox of a hundred blocks or so with her in her office.

  It was calming, putting things together, pulling them apart only to build something newer, better. Creating a sense of structure, an order, things that formed part of how she wanted to see the world, instilled in her by her father who had thought the very same.

  She made sure no-one would ever see what she was doing though; she thought it would be embarrassing if the men under her command saw her with these toys meant for children. She kept it hidden, as secret and as private an activity as much as she could... and she did a good job of it too.

  Still, she jumped in her seat when she heard the cough behind her.

  “What do you want Seth?” she grumbles, scrambling to hide the bricks.

  “Are those Legos?”

  “Lego. No ‘S’.”

  She puts them away back in the box. She slides them to one side.

  “Again, what do you want Seth?”

  “I’m leaving.” he tells her, curtly. She laughs.

  “You know that’s not going to happen.”

  “And why not? Why am I here? What do you want from me? I’ve had enough of this shit Agent Salt, I’m going home, where I can actually help people. I’m certainly not doing that here. I’m not your pawn.”

  “So what do you want me to do then? Write you a letter of permission?”

  “Take that thing in my neck out. Or else.”

  “Or else what?”

  A pause. Seth sighs.

  “I’m going to take my chances. Goodbye Agent Salt.”

  Seth begins to close his eyes. Bomb or not, he was going home...

  “There is no bomb inside you.” Salt blurts out.

  “What?”

  “There is no bomb...”

  With a violent swing of his arm, Seth suddenly clears her desk of everything. The box of Lego tumbles to the floor, spilling its contents. Leaning over the desk, he screams in her face.

  “What? What’s inside me then?” he shouts.

  “A tracker. Just a tracker.” Salt mumbles. “The bomb, it was a bluff. You’re too valuable.”

  He steps back. The plastic bricks crunch underneath his feet as he steps on them.

  “You could have left anytime you wanted.” she continues. “But still, you stayed.”

  “No, I stayed because you lied to me.”

  Seth reaches behind his neck, feeling the tracker underneath his skin. Blinking, it falls out onto the floor. He stomps on it.

  “You’re a good operative Seth.” Salt tells him.

  “Yeah, in a shitty operation.”

  He looks to her, unimpressed.

  “You’re going to need my help again one day. You should’ve have been nicer Agent Salt.”

  “We’ll see Seth. We’ll see.”

  He turns. He blinks. And now he’s gone.

  Sighing, Salt starts picking up all the Lego bricks off the floor of her office.

  She doubts this will be the last time she will see him again.

  It is still morning in Port City. Seth opens the door to his house expecting the place to be deathly quiet and covered in dust. Instead he’s greeted by the smell of toast and eggs and the sound of a young woman humming to herself in the kitchen.

  “What are you doing here?” he asks his sister. She pauses, almost unsure what to do.

  Emma rushes to him and hugs him, before punching Seth in the arm.

  “Ow!”

  “Where the fuck have you been?” she asks him.

  “It’s a long story.” he replies to her. “A very long one.”

  Fifteen

  The absence of The Blink had worried Hannah. It was not the first time he went missing though, but this absence had been the longest. Still, time didn’t stop; people’s lives went on even without their chosen guardian watching over them, and bar an expected increase in crime without his presence, business continued as usual in Port City.

  Still, even the absence of The Blink did not worry her as much as the absence of Seth.

  She knew Seth had his issues. That sometimes he wanted to be left alone, needed some space, some time just to be on his own. It could be days, sometimes even a week at a time, but this long? Sure, Emma had told her he was fine but he could have at least called her himself, texted her, said he was doing okay... but he didn’t.

  It frustrated her.
She cared for him, and he certainly did care for her. “Maybe he’s The Blink?” she entertained herself with. “Maybe that’s why he’s gone missing too?”

  No, that stopped being funny a long time ago.

  Still, Hannah couldn’t spend all this time dwelling on this, wondering where her boyfriend was, or where the bread and butter of her journalism career had went to. Her work reporting on The Blink had brought her notice, more investigative work. Nothing too exciting or extraordinary compared to the exploits of an apparent superhero, but it was work, and thankfully it kept her busy. It kept her buried in it. There was time for little else.

  She was still so buried in her work that afternoon that she didn’t even notice Seth hovering right above her desk.

  “Hey.” he said, as if it was the most normal thing in the world.

  It takes a second for Hannah to form a reply.

  “Hey.”

  A moment.

  “You wanna get a bite to eat?” he asks her.

  “Okay.” she nods.

  Their bite to eat at the sandwich shop was too quiet, too awkward. Loaded with unsaid words and pent up feelings. It took a while for someone to finally broach the subject.

  It would be her.

  “So where have you been all this time?” Hannah asked him, her tone restrained.

  “I got a new job.” Seth replied, sounding rehearsed. “Fly in, fly out.”

  “And you didn’t tell me?”

  “I was busy. We were isolated and...”

  “Please stop talking.” Hannah tells him, trying to maintain her composure.

  “Hannah, what’s wrong?”

  “You know what’s wrong. You were gone for weeks, no calls, no texts or emails. Not even a fucking Facebook message. You just disappeared...”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I know you’re sorry Seth, but...” She pauses. “I still don’t know what this thing between us is but I care about you Seth. You can’t just go for so long without telling the people who care about you where you are or if you’re okay!”