I had managed to avoid goons for a while. Cops, thugs, suits, whatever else, they were all the same. Just would want to trap me, use me, or both. Instead, I inhibited myself as much as possible. It wasn’t as though my curse could actually be hidden whenever it reared its ugly head, but I could prevent that from happening. And I did prevent it. I just avoided dangerous scenarios. Kept to myself as much as possible. Kept busy in unstressful ways. I became very good at art, painting and practicing pretty much nonstop since I became cursed and dropped out of high school. But, it seems that wasn’t enough. All my work, all my effort into hiding, into figuring out my curse discreetly, into avoiding the radar didn’t matter at all. It was at the gallery the night after my opening. I always examined the art afterwards. To inspire my future self with my past self’s ideas. Just in case something sparked a safe sort of fire inside. The door burst open. Guys in weird outfits started to come in. Military seeming. “Stay where you are, Pedro. We’re here to help,” one of them stated as he came in. It was too much, too fast. I could feel the curse, the chaos, wanting to escape. It wanted to wreak havoc on the world. I had to get out of there before it arrived.
Rushing into the back, I hurried through the doors, towards the back door. If I made it to the alley, I probably could make it to my car. From there, getting back to my apartment would be easy enough. These army types were trying to draw the least amount of attention, that was why they struck when no one was around. They weren’t going to go after me in the open like at my building. Too many eyes. But I needed to get away fast. I could feel the screaming inside already. It was growing louder, stronger.
Shoulder first, I pushed at full speed through the alley door. Different soldier types were waiting on either side of the ally. “Mister Paloma,” a woman, the only of the outside people not dressed in combat gear, began, “We’re here-”
I cut her off. “Let me guess, to help. Didn’t believe the last dude, don’t believe you either.” I made my way away from the door. Unlike the others, these guys didn’t care about witnesses. They must have financial backing. “If either of you want to help, leave me alone.”
“What other guys?” the woman asked.
As though to answer, the door burst open. The others looked around. “Crap, we took too long,” the large guy in front said.
Someone behind him ordered, “Boom and me on chaos duty.” The big guy smiled and pointed at the building I was backing up towards. It exploded behind me. Instinctively, I curled over. One of the others in the building shot fire out of their sleeve over the other troops, catching some on fire and causing chaos. Then, after two more explosions, they ran. My curse protected me from the debris. As the noise died down, I slowly stood, surrounded by rubble but untouched. The remaining forces managed to calm down, for the most part. Strange weapons pointed at me, they slowly surrounded me.
“Listen,” the woman began to speak again, “I’m sorry about those people. We’ve encountered them before, but…” Shaking her head, she got back on track. “We really are here to help you. So you can understand what you’re becoming.”
They thought I was new. Thought I didn’t understand my curse. Why now, then? I slowly shook my head. “Like I said before, just leave me alone.”
She smiled. It wasn’t a friendly smile. “You know we can’t do that, Mister Paloma. You’re special, and if you make a mistake, that could spell trouble for the rest of us.”
I looked her dead in the eyes. My control slowly started to fade. “Tell your stormtroopers to put down their guns.”
She continued her false smile. “That’s for your own safety. Don’t worry, we wouldn’t hurt you. They just are ready in case your abilities get out of hand.”
Still locking eyes with the woman, I stated, “If they continue pointing those at me, I cannot protect them.”
“From what? There’s no one here but you,” she said. They did not lower their guns. I allowed just a portion of my chaos to rain out on them. Bursting from me, a wave of fire melted the guns. Quickly, quicker than should have been possible, the woman rushed at me and my hands were in some kind of cuffed mitts. “Sorry about that,” she said, “But those should help prevent you from causing any more accidental flames. You’re coming with us.”
They grew closer, unafraid of me. They should be. They don’t understand. They thought I was making fire. Throwing it about like some street magician’s trick. Perhaps they couldn’t understand. Or they are the type to believe the least of their encounters. I could feel my curse, boiling up inside me. It could not be contained. It would not be contained. They thought me a trickster. If I didn’t want to get involved in whatever they were doing, perhaps I should show them. Let go. “Burn,” I murmured under my breath.
“What?” the woman asked, hearing me but not understanding.
The mitts that were supposed to hold me back melted away as my truth came out. My curse. My chaos. All that was me burnt away, leaving only the fire from deep inside, burning through all else. The alleyway itself began to burn, grass, metal and concrete alike. And, standing on that fire, so did the men who chased me. “I do not bring the heat,” I informed the woman as I grabbed her and began to rise. “I am the heat. I am also all that holds it back.” In my arms, hovering above her dying men, she began to burn herself. I hold the flames back from her. She can hear her men’s agony. “I am no threat to you or yours, so long as I am left alone. Otherwise, the world will burn. Understood?”
She nodded. I furrowed my brows and, with that, all of the fires on the ground dissipated in an instant. The troops looked around confused as I lowered my body to the alleyway. “I will be returning to my art now. Please leave me be,” I told the woman. I turned back towards the gallery and started my walk back. With each step, my body slowly formed back up, the fire pulling back and my flesh remaining.
I opened the door. I felt a sharp pain in my neck. Then, nothing.
I felt nothing for an indeterminate amount of time. It wasn’t that time didn’t actually pass. I just couldn’t notice it. Like a dreamless sleep, one moment I was gone, the next I was back. I could tell time had passed, though. A couple things clued me in on that fact. First, I woke up with a tube down my throat. Floating. In water, or something that felt an awful lot like water. The next thing I noticed was a grogginess in me. Like there was a moment’s hesitation between when I thought to look somewhere and when my head moved. There must have been something else in the air, or the water. I knew the moment fact registered in my mind that this was not going to end well for whoever was dumb enough to put me in there. My experiences from attempted self medication taught me such methods were no way to hold back the fire.
I felt a voice in my head. No, not a voice, more a pressure. Thoughts that weren’t my own being pushed up against my mind. It was trying to calm me down. Thinking things like this was for me. That they were trying to help me. But whoever they were, I doubted helping was what they did. Between the tank and the drugs, this seemed more about control than help. I thrashed about best I could, hoping to get out of the tank before my curse took hold. It told me that wouldn’t work. It told me the tank was secure. It was right on one account.
Brightly, the fire burned through me. But, they weren’t fools. Without air, the fire dulled. Smothered by the surrounding water. But they didn’t understand the curse. They didn’t understand the chaos. Slowly, reforming around my dying flame, my body regrew. But, with the drugs pumping, the process was slow. Those very same drugs took care of the problem, though. The slow regrowth gave time for my chaos to cool off. My body began to glow subtly, like the embers of flame. Chaos is not something easily defeated. Chaos is never only one thing, else it wouldn’t be very chaotic. The pressure felt proud of itself, of their technology. They thought that a victory. They did not yet realize what was happening.
It was a slow fall at first. Subtle. The calmer side of chaos often is. It took it’s time, ensuring everything was just so. Had I been not lost in my chaos, the water would’ve felt a tad cooler. Soon, the strange people around the tank felt the temperature begin to fall. Soon, but too late. The water froze and that same lack of air in the tank that saved them from the flame doomed them to the cold. Shattering the tank with the immense pressure, the ice began to spread open. To let me out. As the people who had been watching me were trying to make it to the emergency buttons, to sound the alarm, I lifted a hand and chaos reigned. They froze. Unfortunately for them, it was quite literally. Walking calmly out of the door, I entered a hallway that felt empty. Unfinished. Like, perhaps containment wasn’t the woman’s purpose here. Interesting, I thought as I walked through the hall. I chose left. My curse told me there were more people that way. The alarm sounded. Someone had noticed me missing, or the frozen bodies, or perhaps the pressure was a two way line, I couldn’t tell. It did not change my goals, nor did it affect my curse’s.
As I approached the end of the hall, two of the soldier types from the alley. Here for revenge about being burned. “Stay down,” one shouted as he fired his weapon. Letting loose some of my collected energy into the barrels, the bullets melted as they were travelling through the gun. Hot liquid sprayed out, only to cool as soon as it hit the air. That art caused one of those safe sparks inside me. But, the chaos was in control, so I continued to walk. “Bastard,” one of them shouted. Perhaps it was the same as before, perhaps different. Didn’t matter to me. I decided that fair was fair, and as I burned them before, I would cool them off. They, too, froze in nearly an instant. And onwards I walked to the double doors at the end of the hall.
Swinging the doors open, I saw a control room, of a sort. Tracking hundreds of names. People all around the globe. Several were here. One was me. That was not good. In the center of the room was the woman from earlier. She was scared. I entered. The doors closed behind me. I approached her. Each step caused the floor to freeze.
“What are you?” she managed to stutter out as I walked into the central area.
“I already told you that,” I said, grasping her neck just below the jaw, “Don’t you listen?” I lifted her into the air. It took some effort, but the effect was more than worth it.
“Stop it,” she said, “You don’t know…”
I cut her off. “I warned you.” My voice was even, one might even say cold. “I am the heat. Now I’ll be taking yours.” Staring into her eyes, I watched as slowly, bit by bit, she froze from the inside out. I wanted to make it fast, but the chaos, it had a different idea in mind. I wasn’t positive, but I thought it made her feel everything. That must have been even worse than burning alive, feeling yourself freezing to death. It was time to keep my promise, I thought to myself as the chaos inside lit up with fury once again, burning away the cold. Burning away the room.
“I agree,” said a voice in my head. It felt different than the pressure. Younger. Calmer. More distinct. “I believe we can help each other.”
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