Looking at birds filled my thoughts with the imagination of flying high above in the sky and some days I think that I'd rather have been born with wings than legs. Perhaps it could happen in the world of humans and minuses but I guess I'll just have to keep imagining for now.
"Alic Viser!" A voice yells my name. Cutting my head fast to the front of class, I see Mrs. Atkins with a cocked brow and a smirk of disapproval. She had been shouting my name for a while, I could tell by the use of my full name.
"Sorry, Mrs. Atkins." I say while noticing the rest of history class staring back at me with either turned heads or side eyed glances. A few giggled under their breaths and others aloud.
Mrs. Atkins silenced them with a cough. "I promise you that what I'm saying is more important to you than what's outside." She turns her gaze to the seat beside me. "Also, please wake Felix so he can join us too."
I turn to see Felix sleeping with his head thrown back, mouth open, and low hollow snores. Not surprising, he always sleeps during our last period ever since middle school. My nudge failed to wake him but it was enough to tip him from his seat. I tried to grab him but I was too far to reach him. He falls to the floor and awakes from the impact. Laughs erupt while Felix wipes his locs from his face, trying to figure out what happened.
"Class!" Mrs. Atkins shouts. "Felix, I'm sure your day has been tiresome but let's finish the day strong."
Felix groans while feeling for his chair. "Sorry Mrs. A."
"As I was saying, if you would all turn to page two-o-one we will begin or journey into the Age of Flying which occurred over a century ago." She said while writing along her chalkboard.
"How long was I out for?" Felix asked me.
"I'm not sure, she got onto me too." I said. "You stay up late with your dad again."
"Yeah, swimming laps. I honestly don't know if he's trying to help me make the swim team or develop my powers." He said.
"He seems confident you'll have the same powers as he does." I said.
He rubbed his eyes and began tying his hair back. "Well, your grandpa seems confident too. He keeps telling my father during testing that the odds are more likely than not."
Mrs. Atkins faces the class, with chalk in hand. "Felix, can you tell me what year our government signed the Minus Rights & Regulations Act?"
"Twenty-Two years after the Apollo Arrival." Felix answered.
"Correct. Now Alic, what did this do for the Minus population?" She asked me.
"It granted protection to those affected by Apollo from radical factions and states that arose during the Lawless Decade." I said while looking down at my notes, even though I knew the answer. I wanted to convince her that I had been doing something other than bird watching. "Also, it led to the involvement of Minus governmental cooperation to allow those changed by Apollo to become heroes to the world!"
"Hold on now, let's not get ahead of everyone else. Not everyone here has a Minus for a parent." She said with an approving wink.
"Right, Sorry." I said.
She continued with the lecture of Minus culture and how it formed over the years. The cultural impact they've had over science, society, and safety. Humans have always worshiped gods but when we finally saw one fall from the sky we all had different reactions. Some good and others bad, some with words and some with weapons. The world's efforts were futile against what we couldn't understand, it ultimately didn't matter when Apollo forced his will upon earth. Whether or not we were ready to change as humans didn't matter, change came for better and worse.
"You wanna come over and game after school?" Felix asked.
"I would but mom's out of town on a business trip and dad is randomly home but with the consistent earthquakes over the Atlantic he's been gone for the past two days. So I'm staying with my grandpa."
He playfully tapped me on my chest with his long reaching arms. "Exactly, my pops outta town too so I don't have training. Couldn't you just call him and ask to stay over? You'll be missing out on mama's lasagna if you don't come."
"Well…" I said while pondering the taste of Mrs. Tyde's home made lasagna. "I guess I could call after class. Grandpa will probably be busy helping dad anyway."
"Yeah! That's what I'm talking about" he said a bit too loud.
"Shhh!" I hushed him.
We turned our heads quickly before Mrs. Atkins caught us talking. She glanced over the class but not directly at us. When she turned back to the board and we turned our heads back to one another.
"You going to the beach again this summer?" I asked.
"Of course, what about you?"
"Mom may take me on a business trip but summer is two weeks out and no one has said anything." I answered.
"Oh the perks of having minus parents, am I right?" He joked.
"At least we've made it out of middle school without any trouble." I said.
"Hell yeah to that." He said while we fist bumped.
As class continued I found myself hopping my glances between the chalkboard and clock, stray thoughts of what high school would be like for me crossed my mind while I also noted the lecture and followed the minute hand as it ticked away. I was so focused I almost didn't notice that my phone was vibrating. While reaching for my humming pocket, I made sure Mrs. Atkins wasn't looking. Glancing down I saw the screen light up as the phone's final buzz ended and a missed call from grandpa was notified to me.
Strange for grandpa to call me, he knows I'm in class. Maybe he's stuck in traffic on the way here to pick me up and he just wanted to let me know. I don't know why he wouldn't just text me?
Suddenly my phone started buzzing again, another call from grandpa.
"Yo, everything cool?" Felix asked.
"It's my grandpa, he's calling me but class is almost over." I said as the buzzing continued. It stopped after a minute and another notification popped up. "Well class is almost over, I'll call him back anyway to ask him about coming over to your-"
A singular buzz vibrated my phone. I looked to see the lit screen with a text notification from grandpa.
Run
A thunderous impact from the front of the school shook the ground violently, causing everyone to grab their desk in front of them and Mrs Atkins bracing herself against the board. My phone slips from my hand and meets the floor with a shattering impact while I fall towards the nearby windows. The shifting room halts its movement long enough for everyone to gain their balance and stand to search for the cause of this unsettling event. My hand scrapes along the floor in search for my phone that I dropped but when I find it the condition it's in renders it useless. The screen was split from its body, wires and circuits strung outward, and I nick my finger on a sliver of its glass protruding from the screen as I tap it to see if by some chance it still worked.
I felt a strong grip on my arm as Felix helped me to my feet. "You alright!?"
"Yeah but what was that?" I asked while looking around the class, seeing that they were fixing their sight on the classroom windows. Some slowly started to back away while others were frozen from the shock. I noticed that the fire alarms were blaring through the halls, muffling Mrs Atkins screams towards us. She started grabbing students from their trances as I turned back to Felix to see his eyes wide, staring past me at the window behind me. As I turned to see what gripped everyone's attention the thought of what grandpa text crawled up my back as a shiver, sending a cold feeling of certain danger down my body in a nervous sweat. Run.
The window I had watched birds fly from all year long was fogged by a cloud of dirt and smoke that was slowly settling down. Even with the obstruction there was a bright orange glow that pierced through in shimmers and beams of light. At first I thought it was a fire until my vision found a much worse, confusing truth. Standing in a newly formed field wide crater stood a man wearing a skin tight suit of yellow and red. Flames spawned from the center of his chest and wrapped around his shoulders, connecting into a cape of cosmic fire.
My gut told me who this was but my mind wanted an absolute truth with no uncertainty. I saw the other students flee with Mrs. Atkins' prowess to wake them but I kept staring. In only a minute the rest of the debris cleared and I saw the answer to my curiosity. The man had a head of black hair that flickered into a black flame, tan olive skin, and a violent look on his face. The only thing I didn't recognize were the eyes of bright red that veined energy across his face and down his neck. This man was Maximum Minus.
"Dad?" I questioned quietly under my breath, as if I was still uncertain.
He lifted his hand and pointed towards the school as the flames that made his cape latched to his body and streamed down his arm. An orb formed at the end of his finger as the heat from it scorched what little grass was left from his impact. My dad always told me the longer his cape was the stronger he was but the more of his flames he used the more dangerous his attacks became. I've never seen him use all of his flames at once until now.
The combustion power called ember eraser shot towards the school and impacted the front my class room. Maximum Minus, my father forced me to witness his most deadly use of his power head on. The flames were blinding as I closed my eyes and raised my hands. Before the explosion I felt someone grab my shoulder and the immediate I felt the force of my father's attack. I blacked out for a moment, just long enough to feel like I had died but then my visit slowly started to return. How am I still alive?
Heavy sharp pains shot throughout me as I stared up at the falling ash, spotting my soot cover body. Something laid along my body and as I reached up to force it away I felt the bones of a body that had all organic components stripped away from flame. I wanted to scream but it was weighed down by water within my throat. Panic set in, I vomited the liquid from my mouth and pushed the skeleton to my side. When I finally calmed down all I could do was shiver in tears at the sight of all the skeletons that were once my classmates, buried in gray and white.
My mind was twisted with stress and confusion but I managed to remember the moment before the attack. Blinding light, shattered glass, and Mrs. Atkins were in front of me. No, please no. I looked down at the skeleton that I had pushed from me and noticed that it was larger than the others. If me and Felix weren't sitting in the back of the class then she wouldn't have had to… Wait! Felix!
"Felix!" I managed to scream. "Felix! Please Felix, answer me!"
A groan cuts through the silence between my screams as a pile of shifting debris moves a few feet from me. I charge towards the pile, peeling the few layers of fallen concrete and rebar off of the source of the sound. It was Felix surprisingly unharmed but his clothes were soaking wet and the falling ash absorbed the water on his dark skin. He slowly opened his eyes and didn't look at me but past me.
He pointed upward as he painfully said. "Run."
An orange light from behind casts my shadow over Felix as that familiar cold shiver returns. Before I can turn around I'm lifted into the air, away from Felix who reaches out for me. He shrinks slowly into the gray destruction as I ascend higher, witnessing the destruction of my father. The orb trailed far past the school into the peaceful neighborhoods behind, leaving a valley of chard destruction. Dozens of firetrucks and police lights shine in the distance, traffic builds as people exit their cars, and helicopters hover closer towards me from far off. Then I stop suddenly right before I'm turned around by my shoulders, forced to face my father.
His eyes streamed red blood from his split eyelids, something I couldn't notice from afar. A feeling of harm coursed through me as he bruised my arms with his inhuman strength.
"Dad! Why are you doing this?!" I yelled.
He was silent for a moment while staring into me.
"Where is he?" He yelled.
"Who?!" I said with obvious confusion.
"Where is Isaac Viser!" His voice boomed.
"Grandpa? What does he have to do with this?!" I said with a cracked voice.
"Everything." He says while igniting his chest, slowly forming his cape back. "If he's not here yet, he will be. He wouldn't let you die."
Tears rolled down my cheeks and sadness filled my stomach. "Please dad, this isn't you! I love you! Whatever happens we can figure it out together!" I was barely able to get the words to pass by the knot in my throat.
"No. Not as long as he exists." He said.
"I don't know what you're talking about. Please, don't hurt anyone else! You're a hero dad! You're my hero! I want to be just like you!" I poured my heart out with hope.
All my father did was look at me in my eyes with the deadened gaze of a predator looking down on his prey. "If you're my son, then fly."
His grip leaves my shoulders as birds fly between me and him and I did not fly.