Inferno

Summer 2015.

That was the first time I used my powers.

Back then, I didn’t even know I had powers.

I was 18 at the time, and it was the day of the Annual Derry City Carnival. It was a pretty big deal for our coastal city. Derry wasn’t as big as New York or Washington D.C. , but it wasn’t small either.

We had our businesses, living quarters (split based on wealth) , traffic jams, intersections and gangs. We were like every normal city.

Every normal city with it’s own superhero.

But we’ll get to that later.

The gangs mostly kept to the west, sometimes they ventured into the east, but everyone generally knew to steer clear of them.

Unless you wanted to be eating bullets and swimming at the bottom of Derry Bay with the fishes.

Even their name was scary. The Derry Dragons.

Or maybe it was just the coward in me.

I was about to leave, but then I remembered my best friend, and apartment buddy, AJ Drake. She was supposed to come with me.

She hasn’t left her apartment in about three weeks.

Now I know what your thinking, “If I was a real friend, I should’ve been worried sick.” But that’s just AJ. When she gets caught up in a story, nothing can jar her out of it until she’s finished it.

She was a reporter of the Derry Gazette. And she was stubborn, hard headed, determined, and had the mouth of a filthy sailor.

But I loved her the same.

Friendly love.

We became friends when we were little, when she had just moved into my apartment building, and decided that i was to be her sidekick in all her adventures. And from then, she’d always have my back.

I knocked on her door, anxious. Usually, I’d just knock on her door, and she would give a shout, proof of her existence. But for the past week, she’s been silent.

I was beginning to worry.

“AJ!” I knocked three times. “You in there?”

No response. I tried again, “AJ?” I knocked harder. ” It’s me, your best friend. The one and only-”

There’s a crash inside.

“AJ?” I start to panic. “AJ, you okay?” I start pounding on the door.

The door is opened quickly, and a muzzle is pointed in my face.

“You know this Drake bitch?” A gruff voice asks.

“I... I don’t-”

I don’t respond quick enough, as the muzzle is jutted out and pressed into my forehead.

“Yes or no, boy.” I start to shake, and finally look up. The man who’s pointing his gun in my face is tall, towering over me with a glare, one brown eye as the other is covered with an eye patch, a long, pink jagged scar along his face, going through his damaged eye and ending wright at his mouth. His mouth is set in a hard line, his nostrils flared.

He’s mad.

“N-no!” I manage to squeak out. “I don’t know-”

“Hey Ten,” another voice sounded from inside her apartment. “Look what I found.”

There was another one?

I looked passed the one I assumed was Ten and saw a flash of red.

“What the hell is it Blaze? I was interrogating this piece of shit.” Ten’ turns to his companion, and I contemplate running. I flick my eyes down the hall,shifting my body ever so slightly. But it was short lived.

A hand shot out, wrapping around my throat, lifting me off the ground. It was ‘Blaze’.

He was all the way across the room. How did he get here so fast?

“You weren’t thinking of running, were you?” Blaze was in my face, his gold eyes taunting and mocking me.They changed color frequently from reds to golds and oranges.

I was sick just looking at it, it was so disorienting. I looked down.

My eyes were drawn to his hand, that held a picture frame. But not just any picture frame. The one with me and AJ from when we went to the beach with my parents.

He held it up, “Now now, Mr. Kirk. You wouldn’t be lying to us, would you?”

He knew my name?

He tilted his head to the side, as if he expected an answer. Like he didn’t realize he was choking me to death.

I shook my head furiously, gasping for air.

“’Cause I don’t like liars,” he sang. Then everything got blurry. He threw me down on the ground. Everything went black.

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“Elliot? Elliot wake up!” a far away voice sounded.

The world was blurry, everything was spinning, then fading to black. I couldn’t concentrate, and I felt so weak.

“Elliot goddammit! Wake the hell up!” I felt a blow to my leg, and that jarred me awake.

I was in a dark room, the lights flickering every few seconds. I was handcuffed to a wall, my eyes darted around, I couldn’t find a way out. But then, my eyes were drawn to a shadow a few feet away.

“Nice of you to finally join me in this shithole.” She smiled, then winced.

Then I got a good look at her.

Her clothes were torn and dirty, and she was sporting a black eye on her dark skin. her face was swollen a bit, and one of her hands were handcuffed to a pipe. Her other hand, it was bent-

Let’s not talk about the state of her hand.

“What are you doing here?” I asked her, I didn’t know what to feel. I was suddenly bombarded by pain in my head. “Ugh, what am I doing here?”

“They grabbed you and threw you in here not too long ago,” Her head drooped, and her body shook, like speaking was too hard for her, then her head shot up, anger in her eyes. “What the hell are you doing here? I’ve tried so hard for them not to find you and you had to go and screw it all up!” Her nostrils flared.

Now it was my turn to get mad, “Well, excuse me for being worried about you like a friend should!” How could she say that?

“You’ve never acted like a friend before, so why start now? Always clinging to me, following me around like a little shit! I’ve always hated it!”

Well that escalated quickly.

I looked at her, like, really looked at her.

She had this little thing where she would peer to the left when she was lying.

She was looking straight at me.

Did she mean what she said?

Suddenly, a door opened from the far corner of the room.

There was a door there?

A bright light was flashed into our faces. I squinted my eyes. Then I heard a snicker.

“Well, well, well, lovebirds,” I recognized the voice of Ten. “We’re gonna go on a little trip.” He smiled, but it looked twisted and... Just plain wrong.

I’m not a fan of cursing, but we were in deep shit.

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