Frostfire

Jacob Graves had never really seen himself as one of the smartest kids at school, but he wasn’t one of the most popular either. He was more or less… average. Second grade, when Jacob was seven, was a chance for all of that to change. Not only was he going to a new school, he went to a new school in another state. Nobody really knew who he was, aside from his family. But halfway through the year, all of that changed, and his family didn’t exactly know him anymore either. Something changed him, but he never said what it was, and no one ever knew about it. At least, not until a few years later.

Moving schools had never been a huge change for Jacob. He had been to eight different schools in his life, in three different states, so he got used to the feeling of nobody knowing him at all. Not even his family knew everything about him. When he started seventh grade, he started to trust other people more, and more people knew more about him. Some knew even more than his family did. After he told Lilith, who was practically a social outcast, except for with her small circle of about seven friends, Carmen, who was extremely popular, and was friends with mostly cheerleaders, jocks, and anyone else that was considered majorly popular, and Junior, who was Jacob’s 10 year old brother, about what happened to him in second grade that changed him, Carmen experienced similar occurrences within seven weeks.

“Okay, I need you to try to remember everything that happened last night, when you felt the shock.” Jacob told Carmen.

According to Carmen, she and Jacob were both almost asleep, when they felt the shock, which felt like lightning coursing through their veins, the sudden heat, which could not be explained, and the sudden, intense cold that came right after the heat, most likely due to that amount of heat they both felt. “So, um… Try not to freak out, but I do have some questions about what happened,” Jacob started to explain. But Carmen cut him off before he could finish. “Don’t freak out,” she began. “How can I not freak out when you say that? You can’t just tell a person not to freak out, and expect them not to freak out. If you tell someone not to freak out, then they’re most likely gonna freak out.” As Jacob asked his questions, Carmen seemed more and more confused as to how Jacob knew what she felt. “Was there any pressure on your chest during the shock?” Yes. “Did you feel a lot of heat, then cold?” Yes. “Did your hands feel a little numb after the shock? Maybe your left hand was hotter than usual, and your right hand was colder than usual?” Kind of, but my left hand was cold, and my right was hot.”

There were only two differences between the two circumstances: Jacob’s left hand was hot, and his right was cold, and Carmen’s were the exact opposite, and Karin. Jacob had seen Karin’s ghost in second grade, for about three months, before she randomly went away, right after the shock. Only two of Jacob’s closest friends, Carmen and Lilith, knew about Karin. Junior, his younger brother, was never told. Not long after Carmen realized what she could do, because of the supernatural lightning, Lilith felt the same thing. Junior hadn’t gone through that yet, and none of the four could figure out why. Neither Carmen nor Lilith had seen Karin, but they both knew that whatever happened to Jacob had happened to them too.

Junior was the last to be affected, and after he was, the four started trying to figure out why this was happening. Helping those who needed it was what they mainly did, but they’d sometimes use their abilities to manipulate fire, ice, and conduct electricity for simpler tasks, like heating something up or even instant ice cream. (This was Junior’s favorite use.) Most of the time, their abilities worked really well, except for when the power in the school went out. All four of them went to the same school, and when the power went out, they all tried to fix it. Their strength was a little too much, and the lights all blew out. Just as the lights went out, they all saw a silhouette, and when the lights turned back on, all four were gone. Nobody had seen them since the lights blew out, and there were no leads as to where they would’ve went, or why they left. No traces were left, aside from a single word uttered by all four of them, that echoed throughout the halls. “Karin” was the last thing they said. Four friends, all different backgrounds, and all different roles in their school. One jock, one cheerleader, one nerd, and one outcast. Different in life, but alike in death.