by Blake, Matt
I saw the orange glow of the lava right below me. As fast as I flew, my parents seemed to be falling faster. I was pushing myself. Pushing myself to my absolute max. But it wasn’t enough. They were falling. They were going to hit the lava unless I did something; unless I acted.
I gritted my teeth into my lips and thought of all the misery my parents had been through, how different it would’ve been if Cassie was still here. Because her death was the reason. Her death was the reason for everything bad they felt.
Maybe if I’d been quicker when I was a kid, I could’ve saved her.
Maybe I wouldn’t have failed them after all.
I saw them disappearing further away. Saw them on the verge of being swallowed by the lava. I knew they were probably gone already. People didn’t just survive falls like this. The toxic in the air, it’d probably killed them.
But I wasn’t giving up on them. I wasn’t letting them die. Nycto might’ve sent a message loud and clear, but that didn’t matter right now. All that mattered were my parents.
I tried to stop them midair using my telekinesis, or whatever it was. But it was too hard. I could only use one power or the other, and right now my focus was on flying toward them. I was too weak to use two of my stronger powers at once. I needed to keep on pushing. Fast.
I saw them just meters above the lava and I knew it was over.
I felt pain inside. A sharper pain than I’d ever felt, as rocks fell down from above me. I could feel the heat from the lava burning my face, the sulfur in the air choking me.
I’d failed them. I’d let them die. I’d missed my chance to act against Nycto, to get to his level of strength, and he’d punished me for it.
He was stronger than me. There was no doubt about that now.
All I had left to do was try.
I felt power building within, right in the middle of my chest. I didn’t understand it, only that it was swelling, getting stronger, more intense.
I could feel the power moving into my hands. An electricity. Ultimate anger… no. Not anger. Love. Love for my parents. Love for who they were. For everything they’d done for me.
They tumbled towards the lava.
I lifted my hands. It felt like there was something between them, like a magnetic force.
I remembered what Nycto did. How he’d clapped his hands together just moments ago, caused this crazy race down the volcano to start.
I had to do what he did. I knew there was no other way now.
I slammed my hands together.
They bolted apart, again like magnets rejecting each other.
Only I saw something shooting out from my palms.
It was ice. Pure ice, flowing like water. I could feel it freezing my hands. Making my body shake all over.
It fired out of my hands and hurtled towards the bottom of the volcano. I didn’t know how it was happening. I didn’t know how a thing like this could be possible—I mean, it wasn’t possible, not within the realms of humanity. I wasn’t sure I’d even seen another ULTRA do something like this in all the old video clips, the YouTube uploads.
But it was happening.
I watched the ice hit the lava. And right away, as more of that blue ice-like substance hit the lava, I saw the lava’s rumbling, which I assumed Daniel had started, ease. I saw its color change from orange to a dulled pink, then to a gray, then… blue, just like the stuff that’d come out of my hands.
But my parents were still falling towards it.
I moved my focus. Pointed the ice at them. Not directly at them, but at their arms.
I grabbed them. Grabbed them and eased their falls with the ice, then gently dropped them down on the frozen lava. I heard it crack, start to split. I didn’t have long. I had to get them out of here.
I flew down and landed on the ice beside them. They held on to one another, Dad’s eyes wide, Mom gasping with fear.
I wanted to hug them like I was their son. I wanted to tell them they were okay. That I was here.
But I couldn’t be their son. Not right now. I had to get them home first.
I walked over to them. Grabbed both of their shoulders. The power within me that my love for them had awakened made me feel stronger than ever before; more powerful than ever before.
Dad looked up at me, puzzlement and fear in his eyes. “Where… where are…”
I focused all my attention, all my power, on getting back home.
I heard a crack split through my head.
When the crack ended, I was back home. My parents were beside me.
Dad was silent. So too was Mom. We were in their bedroom, in the peace and quiet, away from the madness of the volcano. It was still light, a contrast to the pitch blackness of Indonesia.
They looked at each other. Didn’t look at me, just each other.
And then they fell back on the bed and passed out.
I tucked them in. I wasn’t sure how long they’d be out. They’d be in shock, and I had to keep a close eye on them.
I went back to my room. Pulled off my hood. Took off the rest of my gear and threw it onto the floor. I perched on the edge of my bed, my heart racing, my head spinning.
I didn’t want this. I didn’t want to be an ULTRA. I didn’t want this responsibility. Sure, Daniel Septer might’ve been weak how I used to know him. But he was Nycto now, and Nycto was strong. Too strong.
I couldn’t compete.
I couldn’t fight.
I just wanted to be Kyle again.
I tucked my head in my arms.
I cried.
I didn’t see it, but on the television, the news showed images of the destruction in Chicago; of me, in my outfit.
The greatest threat to humanity, they were calling me, calling Nycto. A shortcut to near-certain extinction. An enemy of humanity.
They were coming for me.
And I couldn’t fight it anymore.
I just couldn’t fight.
35
I stared down into the mouth of the same volcano I’d rescued my parents from just hours ago.
I wasn’t dressed in my gear. I knew it was dangerous, but it was just how it had to be right now. For me to do what I had to do. Finish my job.
I could see the lava right at the bottom of the volcano again. Whatever I’d done to it, whatever my cursed powers had made happen, they’d been undone. Which was just as well. It’s what I’d been hoping for.
The sky was lighter now. Sunrise was approaching. There was total peace around this place. It’d been hard work forcing my way here. It’d taken hours in itself to activate the teleportation I knew I was capable of. I’d ended up in rubble; I’d ended up in the middle of streets. I was rusty. So rusty, especially compared to Nycto. So weak.
That’s just who I was. That’s just who I’d always been.
And that was why I couldn’t save anyone.
I smelled the sulfur below, and it brought back the memories of the fight to save my parents’ lives earlier. The silence now contrasted the chaos earlier; the chaos that started with Nycto—Daniel Septer—revealing who he was, revealing he knew who I was.
I wanted to fight. I really did. I wanted to use what I had for good. To make sure no more people around the world had to suffer at the hands of this psychopath.
But I didn’t have it in me. I didn’t have the strength. I didn’t have the power. I didn’t have anything.
I lifted the suit I’d spent so long carefully choosing. A suit I felt proud of when I’d first seen myself in it, stared at myself in the mirror wearing it. Stupid, really. Because the Figure in Black was wrong. No matter what I covered myself in, I was always going to be Kyle Peters underneath. I was always going to be the same loser. Daniel Septer might’ve been able to shake his loser image, but look how that’d turned out for him. He was the enemy. The enemy I was trying to fight. Trying to stop.
The enemy I’d failed to stop.
I felt a lump swell in my throat as I held that suit further over the smoky open mouth of the v
olcano. A voice in my head told me not to do this. Not to give up. To keep on working. To keep on fighting. To believe in myself.
But I couldn’t.
How could I believe in myself especially now my parents and God knows who else were at risk?
How could I believe in myself when Daniel Septer—the guy destroying the planet—knew exactly who I was, what I was?
There was only one thing to do. Only one way out.
I held my breath.
I dropped my suit down into the mouth of the volcano.
I watched it fall. Watched the identity I so wanted to be descend into the lava.
When it drifted out of sight, I teleported myself back home.
I was never using my powers again.
36
Three weeks later…
Another day, another city randomly terrorized by Nycto.
I sat on my bed and watched the news enrolling on the television in front of me. My eyes stung, and the headlines kinda mashed together, I’d been staring at the screen that long. I felt like if I sat here any longer, I simply wouldn’t exist.
But what else was I supposed to do? What was anyone supposed to do?
The sun was beaming outside my bedroom window. We were two weeks into the summer break now, although it was a different kind of break, that was for sure. Summer was a scorcher, and despite all the panic over Nycto’s random attacks, which had claimed casualties in over twenty global cities over the last three weeks, there were the sounds of laughter out on the streets. The sounds of basketballs bouncing against the pavements; of people trying their best to make the most of the weather despite everything else going against them. Eager not to let Nycto destroy their lives. What was left of their lives, anyway.
“You hungry, Kyle?”
My mom’s voice always made my stomach sink. Even when I was hungry, the thought of sitting at the table and eating with the people I’d nearly killed—all because of my stupid frigging naivety that’d blown my identity to Nycto in the first place—made any hunger slip away. “Nah,” I said. “I’m good.”
Mom didn’t respond. But I heard the floorboards outside my bedroom door creak. I knew she was still standing there, trying to figure out what to say, to work out the right combination of words to pull me outta my stupor.
Truth was, there was nothing to say.
This was who I was. This was just the way it was.
“Well, we’ll leave some leftovers for you. It’s tikka. Your favorite.”
The thought of tikka right now made me want to hurl. “Thanks, Mom,” I said.
Again, a few more creaks of the floorboards.
And then Mom walked away, down the stairs, into the kitchen, the smells of tikka cutting through the smell of sweat in this bedroom.
I covered my face with my hands. Brushed back my greasy hair. I knew what my parents would think. I’d been through a lot. A hell of a lot. Gunman attack, ULTRA attack at the party venue. And all the baggage that followed. I was stressed. Course I was stressed. Everyone was stressed.
But they didn’t know the half of it. They didn’t understand my guilt. My shame. They never could.
Nycto’s attacks were getting more and more sporadic, more and more random. But crucially, they were getting more and more deadly. Every time my heavy eyes refocused on the news, I’d see fresh footage of a flattened town, or skyscrapers tumbling down. I’d see tears in people’s eyes. I’d see anger in the voices of protestors on the streets.
The worst thing of all?
Not only were they blaming Nycto for all this. They were blaming “Orion II,” too.
“Orion II” was what they were calling me, by the way. Figured it worked. I’d tried to make myself look as much like Orion as possible. To them, I was nothing more than a name. A name of another dangerous entity. And even though I hadn’t used my powers since the day I’d cast my outfit into the flames of Krakatoa, people claimed they’d seen me by Nycto’s side when he attacked their cities, when he unleashed his rounds of destruction.
There were talks of Nycto being the most powerful ULTRA in existence. That he was some kind of experiment-gone-wrong; a leftover from the Era of the ULTRAs. The government spoke about the urge for human unity against the forces of Nycto and Orion II. That if we didn’t stick together, as humans, and fight, then the world would fall. They were pretty clear about that.
Worst part? I couldn’t disagree with them. They were right.
But I wasn’t the one destroying the world. I was just a human, like everyone else. A human with a few party tricks. Party tricks that I was hopeless at using.
I saw the grainy footage of Nycto on the television and wondered why Daniel hadn’t just exposed me. I could expose him, I knew that, but it’d only get me into trouble, raise questions and suspicions. But why hadn’t he exposed me?
Then, it clicked. Of course he hadn’t exposed me. He was enjoying his new power. Power came in many forms. Holding the secret identity of your arch rival? There were a lot of things you could do as an ULTRA, but there wasn’t anything quite as terrifying as knowing that kind of info, especially when you had so much to lose.
Clearly Daniel didn’t feel he had much to lose. If he had, he wouldn’t have shown me his face in the first place.
He had all the leverage.
I heard the door slam downstairs. Heard footsteps coming up the stairs. I tucked my sweet popcorn under my bed quilt. Weird. Who’d be here for me at this time?
I felt the fear tingling within and did all I could to keep my powers under grips. Nycto. Was he here for me? Was the government on to me? Was someone else coming for me?
When my bedroom door flew open, it wasn’t quite who I was expecting.
“Damon?”
Damon didn’t look happy. In fact, he looked pissed. Pissed like I’d never seen him before. He didn’t look me in the eye. He just looked around my bedroom. Looked at the mess on the floor. The empty crisp packets. The unwashed laundry. “Man, I’m just gonna say it. Just gonna say it as it is. But I miss you. We all miss you. Where the hell’ve you been?”
My mouth went dry. I hadn’t seen Damon in almost three weeks. I’d been ignoring his calls. Ignoring his texts. Ignoring everything, everyone. I wasn’t in the mood for people anymore. I wasn’t in the mood for interactions.
Because everyone I was close to was at risk because of what Nycto knew.
“I’ve—I’ve just not been well.”
“Man, none of us have been well. Not with all this Nycto crap goin’ on.”
The mention of Nycto made my head hurt. I didn’t want to talk about him anymore. Spent enough time thinking about him as it was.
“We’re your friends. And friends are supposed to look out for each other.”
“Well, I appreciate you being here,” I said. “Appreciate you checking in.”
“No,” Damon said, raising his voice even more. He was looking me right in the eyes now. “You just don’t get it, do you? We… we miss you. Hell, we need you. You’re our best friend, and that’s what we all need more than anythin’ right now. Friends. It’s what… I need.”
I wasn’t sure it was possible to feel any guiltier than I did already. But hearing Damon’s voice crack on those final words just about did it. “I’m sorry,” I said.
“Well, good. You should be. ’Cause… ’cause you’re being selfish.”
“I’ve been ill—”
“Nycto’s tearing the world apart, man. Him and that Orion II, they’re tearing the world apart. And it’s only a matter of time before they destroy New York, too. We’re all in trouble. Every single one of us is in trouble. So now’s not the time to be sitting around in our rooms staring at bullshit television. Now ain’t the time to be sulking about what’s happened, about what might happen. ’Cause… Kyle, I don’t think we’re gonna make it, man. I don’t think any of us is gonna make it this time. There’s no one out there. No one who can save us. No one strong enough. So we should be making the most of the time we’
ve got. However… however long left that is.”
Silence followed Damon’s speech. I couldn’t say anything if I wanted to.
“Call me,” Damon said, walking away from my bed. “Please. Avi misses you. We all miss you.”
He walked to my bedroom door. Stepped out of it.
“You look like total shit, by the way.”
“Thanks,” I said.
Damon let out a little laugh that reminded me of the way we always used to tease one another.
And then he stepped out of my room and disappeared down the stairs.
I looked at my open bedroom door. Inside, I felt my stomach turning. My muscles tightening. The fuzzy noise of Nycto’s destruction on the television echoed around my mind.
But above anything, it was Damon’s words that stuck with me.
There’s no one out there. No one who can save us. No one strong enough. So we should be making the most of the time we’ve got.
I thought about my powers. I thought about what I was capable of. The powers I’d been cursed with.
And I realized right then that the Figure in Black was right. He was right when he told me that I was weak, mentally. That it was dragging me down. Because I’d done amazing things when I’d been pushed. I’d fought off gunmen. I’d teleported around the world. I’d hurtled to the bottom of a volcano, frozen a pit of lava with my bare hands, got my parents home without as much as a scratch.
I’d done it because I cared about them. Because I loved them.
I’d done it because I’d had to do it. Because it was my duty to protect them. To save them.
Because I could.
I threw the quilt off my bed. Stepped onto my bedroom floor. The room around me grew clearer. The sunlight outside seemed warmer, stronger.
I stepped over to the window. Looked outside. Pulled open the window and breathed in the summer air. Listened to all the people out there chattering. The people playing basketball. The people doing what Damon said—making the most of what they thought were their final moments on earth. Because there was no one strong enough to take down Nycto. To protect them.
