Today was different from usual. Today marked the anniversary of the attacks in The Hague. I didn’t go straight to Minnie’s Diner. Instead, I went into the woods where I had built a small shrine from twigs and rocks on the first day I had arrived in Kite’s End. I’d come here on the anniversary each year, but also on my siblings’ birthdays so that I wouldn’t forget about them. I remembered Laura. She was the first to fall that day. Never stood a chance against the blast. I wasn’t near any of the blasts that day, but the birds were. I could see everything, but was too far away to actually do something. The Comet they used to call her. She could defy the laws of physics by soaring through the sky and emitting bright rays of flaming light. She always thought herself less than the others. I never quite understood why. I remembered seeing Wanda giving it her everything in an attempt to revive Laura, but it was to no avail. Walter was next. He wasn’t the smartest of us, but he certainly was the wisest. His powers were unrivaled by any of us. I should have been there for him. I was on my way to help my siblings fight at the Peace Palace, but chaos reigned throughout the city and I couldn’t just abandon the civilians. By the time I got there, it was too late. Lastly, Nick… stabbed in the heart by his own brother. He trusted him, otherwise, he would have just gone invisible or intangible like always. He had the power of existence, yet was no more. I watched Wanda beat Nathan up in the garden of the Peace Palace. My siblings, those that survived, I had never seen such horrified looks on their faces. I couldn’t join them. I wanted to, but I hadn’t been there for them. I was probably the last person they wanted to see at that moment. After a while, too much time had passed to simply turn up on their doorstep again and so I came here. I grew fresh flowers around the shrine and said goodbye.
The town was in an uproar. People were running around from one place to the next, unsure where they were really going.
“What’s going on?” I asked but no one answered. They were all cooped up inside their own heads. Fortunately, where people stayed quiet, animals spoke volumes. The birds circling above Kite’s End quickly revealed to me a thick smoke rising from Minnie’s Diner. I ran as fast as I could until I felt the heat of the flames almost burning my skin. I looked around. The people of Kite’s End were rushing to the Diner with buckets of water. The flames rose high above the Diner and there was no way the villagers could put out the fire on their own. Kite’s End didn’t have a fire department. It would take too long for neighboring firetrucks to get here in time. I decided to grab a bucket myself and help douse the flames even though I knew it wasn’t going to make a difference. Every time I emptied a bucket, I pushed back the flames. That was all I could do without revealing my identity. It wasn’t until I heard Minnie herself screaming for her grandson that I started to doubt my actions.
“Kieran!” she yelled to get my attention. “He’s still inside! You have to help him!”
“We’re trying, Minnie,” I said as I filled a bucket, handed it to one of the townsmen, and filled another for myself.
“No,” she begged, “you have to help him.”
She was right. I hated myself for not realizing it sooner. Being a hero had nothing to do with having superpowers. Those were just a means to an end. What really mattered was having the guts to get out of your comfort zone, step into the unknown, and actually help someone. I threw down the bucket and rolled up my sleeves.
Everyone said they would run into a burning building to save a child and I truly believed they would try at the very least. Fact is, most people can’t imagine how strong your survival instinct is. First time I went into a burning building I had no idea how fast fire could spread or how hot it could burn. This time I was prepared. I knew what would hit me once I opened the door to the Diner. The first breath would burn my lungs with smoke and heat. I had one ling full of air upon entering the building and that would be it. I might get a couple of gulps of air somewhere near the floor, but I wasn’t counting on it. So I took a deep breath and went in. The heat burned my eyes to the point of uncontrollable crying. Any normal human being would have fallen unconscious by now, but I could redirect the smoke and flames away from me and bought myself valuable time in doing so. I wanted to call out for Isaac, but that would’ve cost me precious oxygen and I doubted the boy was still conscious.
I found him lying on the kitchen floor covered in soot. He had a notebook lying beside him and a pen still clutched in his hand. Stop fire, was written down in it over and over. I wasn’t sure what he had tried to accomplish with it, but the heat can play nasty tricks on the mind. Especially the mind of a nine-year-old. I picked him up and threw him over my shoulder. I felt my power weakening and carrying the extra weight only made it worse. It was all worth it when I saw the look on Minnie’s face once I emerged from the flames. The local doctor had just arrived so I handed Isaac over to him.
I couldn’t set another step and fell down to the ground. I had completely exhausted my power. It was as if waking up from a terrible nightmare. You find yourself gasping for air and sweating out of every pore, your sight gone black and your body aching, you’re freezing yet feel like you’re burning up and you just have to lay down and catch your breath. I was out by the skin of my teeth. A couple of seconds longer and I wouldn’t have been able to control the flames. We both would have burned.
I laid in front of the burning building until I heard the first sirens in the distance. It gave me peace of mind knowing that the professionals had arrived and I could just rest. I watched the firemen roll out their hoses and the doctor rushing off with Isaac. Eventually, I managed to stand up straight again and went to speak to the sheriff about what had happened. Sheriff Ramos was a kind woman with a heart for her people. She didn’t have to deal with much of the police work you’d find in large cities. She mostly had to worry about minor disputes between locals. The fire was hers to investigate and was probably the toughest job she’d faced so far. I didn’t know her all that well though. I mostly stayed out of her way, afraid she would recognize me. I had no reason to think she would other than police officers having a nose for such things. I walked up to her, but it was she who spoke first.
“That was very brave of you,” she said. “And very stupid. Do you know Isaac well?”
“No,” I said, “but I know Minnie. I couldn’t just do nothing.”
“I understand. There were safer ways of helping, though… Anyways, did you notice anything out of the ordinary inside?”
“You mean aside from the flames?” I joked. “Not really.”
“Any idea where the fire originated from?”
I didn’t and that was unusual. I had felt the fire’s presence all around me, but there was no particular place it burned the hottest as you would expect with a fire gradually spreading. The place where it started is where the fire burned the hottest. There was no such place here. It was as if the fire hadn’t occurred naturally.
“No,” I answered. She kept quiet for a while and wrote down some things in her notebook as she kept glancing up from the paper to look me in the eyes which made me feel a little uncomfortable.
“Anything wrong?” I asked.
“No,” she smiled, “it’s just… curious, that’s all.”
