From the Anne Falls Gazette, added to the files of Nathan Hawkins

ANOTHER BUILDING MYSTERIOUSLY COLLAPSED

November 3, 2015

ANNE FALLS-Employees of the 5th Street Mall managed to escape before the strip mall collapsed suddenly yesterday afternoon. Abigail Preston, owner of the Sunny Days Hair Salon, reported she felt the ground shaking, slightly at first, before it intensified, and then the building started collapsing. Though Anne Falls is not close to a fault line or even in an earthquake zone, the survivors all agree it was an earthquake. City officials state there is no cause for alarm, even though this is the third such building to be destroyed in such a manner. When asked for a further comment, Mrs. Preston said, “I’m not sure about an earthquake storm, or whatever the experts online are calling it, but I wonder if that first, small tremor was a warning. Almost like someone was telling me to get out.”

Chapter 1

The sun started to fall below the horizon, casting beams of red and orange from behind the shifting clouds. It was the time of day when Sol appeared larger than normal; it was like a blazing orb in the darkening sky. To the citizens of Anne Falls, specifically those standing on the corner of Fifth and Tenth Street in the William district, it was almost difficult to tell if the red and orange in the air was from the sun or from the flames ripping through the apartment building.

A woman in a business suit glanced over her shoulder to the blaze before turning back to face the man with the camera on his shoulder. She brought the microphone closer to her mouth. “Firefighters have managed to contain the blaze from spreading to the nearby buildings, but as you can see behind me, it continues to burn. There is some doubt as to whether this building will be salvageable at all.”

She paused while listening through her earpiece to the question from the news anchors at the studio. “That’s right. This is the only building left occupied on the street. It was built in the early 1950s and developers have been trying to buy it for years, but the owners have refused to sell. Many of the tenets simply don’t have anywhere else to go. Because of this, some of the witnesses I have spoken to believe the fire may have been started intentionally-”

She was cut off as an explosion rocked the building. The crowd gasped and one person gave a short scream. The reporter spun around while the camera operator zoomed in on the burning structure. A row of windows near the top floor shattered, sending out waves of black smoke into the air.

A firefighter gestured them back. “Safe distance!” he ordered, “Get back to a safe distance.”

The young woman who had screamed before pushed through the crowd. “My daughter’s still inside there!” She tried to run past him, but he held her back, “On the top floor!

The firefighter shouted to the people dressed in similar uniforms on the street. “Top floor! Get the ladders!”

The camera operator focused on the fire department before turning his camera to the top floor. He caught a glimmer of movement from the window on the end, like a person running past. He refocused but the person was gone.

He blinked and rubbed his eyes. The smoke was so thick it was starting to blot out the setting sun. No one could be standing in that, much less running through it.

“Nothing,” the operator said, “Must have been a lens error or something.”

***

The little girl lay curled on the floor in the center of her room. The thick smoke hovered close to the top of her bed, and she recited in her mind what she’d been told time and again to do in a fire; crawl along the ground to the fire escape.

She looked out the door to the hall. Orange flames danced across the floor. Despite the heat, she shivered and curled even tighter into a ball. She squeezed her teddy bear and wished the flames would go away. She wanted her mommy to tell her everything would be okay. She wanted her daddy to take her into his arms and bring her to safety. She wanted someone-anyone- to save her!

“Hello? Is anyone in here?”

She gasped and twisted her head to see out the door again. A man was standing in the hallway!

He looked into her parents’ room and then into the bathroom before he turned his attention into her room. “Hey! Are you okay?”

She knew he shouldn’t be standing; he needed to get on the ground like her, but the smoke just seemed to push away when he ran towards her. He wasn’t a firefighter because he wasn’t wearing a yellow jacket. He was wearing a pair of jeans and a plain red t-shirt and a long jacket that reached to his knees. He crouched in front of her. “Come on! We’ve gotta get out of here.”

She looked up at his head. His face was covered by one of those masks that she remembered wearing when her family went sledding last winter; a wool mask that covered everything except for the eyes and mouth. She couldn’t see his face, he was wearing winter clothes when she was sweating in the heat and now she couldn’t even see his face. He looked like a monster from one of her cousin’s scary video games.

He held out his hand and she skittered back.

“No!” he gasped, “No, don’t do that.” He motioned with his hand again, “I’m gonna help you. Is your mom or dad here?”

She shook her head.

“Are they outside?”

“I-I think so.”

He smiled. “Then they’re probably really worried about you. Don’t you want to see them?”

His smile looked like the ones the doctor used before she gave her a shot, but he didn’t sound scary. His eyes were really brown, almost black, but something about them reminded her of her father.

She nodded. “O-okay.”

He stood back up and the smoke pushed away from him again, all the way to the edges of her room. She stood up and breathed in clear air. “Come on,” he said.

She followed him into the air, the smoke pushing out like they were in an invisible bubble. They walked into the living room and it felt like her heart was rising into her throat; he was taking her to the fire escape!

Then her heart dropped when she saw the couch, which was pressed up against the wall, in front of the window, was covered in flames. Then the man said a bad word and then he gasped. He turned back to her. “S-sorry. Um, no worries.”

He held out his arm and moved it like he was drawing a circle. She squeezed her teddy bear tighter as the flames on the couch started going towards the man’s palms! It looked kind of like water being flushed down the toilet! All the flames were pulled from the couch and they collected into a big ball in front of the man’s palm. He then threw the ball into the window and it blew apart. The ball of fire disappeared into a big puff of smoke outside.

The girl looked at the couch; it wasn’t on fire anymore. The man hopped onto the cushions. “See? It’s not even hot.” He gestured to the window. “Hurry!”

She climbed over the couch and through the window, stepping onto the metal grates of the fire escape. The man was still inside. “Are you gonna come?”

“I have to see if anyone else is here.”

She started to climb down the staircase but stopped to look at him. “Are you a superhero?”

He grinned. “Yeah, I guess I am. Hurry up, your mommy’s waiting.”

She nodded and started down the stairs.

***

Nathan Hawkins waited until the little girl had made it all the way down the ancient fire escape and was safely on the ground before he turned from the window to run out of the apartment and further down the hall. The inferno roared around him. His hand brushed against the flames that ripped from the walls. It didn’t burn him, of course, nor did he feel the heat. Neither had affected him for years.

The smoke parted as ran into the next apartment. A new ability he recently discovered; if he concentrated hard enough, he could alter the temperature in his immediate surrounding. Not large enough to affect an entire building, but enough to create a small air pressure imbalance, enough to push the smoke aside.

There was no one in the apartment. He checked the next apartment and, when he didn’t find anyone, he moved onto the next. He continued down the hall and checked each apartment. His ski mask was getting wet; he was sweating. He hardly ever sweated. He rested against a wall, filling his lungs with each breath. Then he coughed as strands of thick smoke started to drift around his face. His powers were failing; he was too tired, too fatigued.

He lifted his head to study the rest of the hall. Only one more apartment. He started forward but the smoke pooled around him. He pushed the smog aside and forced himself through the open door.

“H-hello!” he shouted, “Is there anyone-“

He coughed as smoke whooshed in front of him. The large window in the living room was open. He walked through the burning apartment and poked his head through to see the fire escape. Whoever had been in the apartment was gone.

He inhaled but smog flowed into his mouth. He hacked and heaved until he could breathe again. Time to go.

He climbed onto the metal railing. Across from him was the remains of another apartment building. Below him was the alley between the two buildings. It was empty except for a few metal garbage cans. He followed it to the street where the red and blue lights of the emergency personnel flashed through the night sky. The army of firefighters were bathing the front of the building while police officers questioned the crowd of onlookers.

He bit his lip. Should he climb down and run through the crowd, hoping that he could escape before he needed to identify himself or jump across the alley and make his way down the abandoned building where he could, hopefully, get out without being seen? If he was Superman, he could just fly away, if he was Spider-Man he could just swing across, if he wasn’t at the bottom of his class for the long jump, he could jump across! But he wasn’t any of those things. He manipulated heat and fire, that was it. Yeah, some pyrokinetic from fiction could fly, but not him, He was completely grounded.

He shrugged to himself and started down the stairs. He’d just hoped he could run fast enough.

Something moved from inside the building. He twisted to look back through the window. Someone was standing in the apartment!

He was ten, maybe eleven-as if Nathan could tell with his black hoodie pulled over his head. He looked normal, as normal as a kid just standing in the middle of an inferno like he was waiting for the bus, aside from his brown eyes, peering, dark brown eyes.

Crap! “I’m coming,” Nathan said, “Just-“

Then the boy smirked and made a quick gesture, like he was flicking his wrist. A tremor shot through the building. Chunks of the ceiling rained down, blanketing the boy in a mist of wood and white particle board. Nathan tried to keep his footing but the sudden jolt made his foot slide forward. He pivoted over the railing and fell head-first towards the ground! He closed his eyes and held his breath, waiting for the impact.

Would the coroners get third-degree burns when they did his autopsy?

He stopped with the same jolt as when the roller coaster ride comes to an end. He opened his eyes and found that he was hovering inches from the pavement. His mouth would have dropped if he wasn’t upside down.

“You’re lucky I decided to check this out. I’m sure the paramedics are a little too busy right now to have to scoop up your guts from the sidewalk.”

Floating beside Nathan was a Black teenage boy with his arms crossed and a slight grin on his face. He made a small circular motion with his wrist. Nathan winced as he was twisted around right-side up. “Yeah, thanks, Marcus,” he said.

They both dropped to the ground. Nathan wobbled on his feet to regain his balance and then hissed before holding his breath.

Marcus raised an eyebrow. “You okay?”

Nathan was about to tell him that the unplanned roller coaster ride was making his stomach slosh around, but he started coughing instead. Marcus glanced at the building and nodded. “Right, right. Hold on, I got ya.”

He held out his palm and air rushed up Nathan’s windpipe. He gasped as a few clouds of black smoke exited his mouth. Marcus scrunched his nose. “That wasn’t that much.”

Nathan heaved. “No! I was fine!”

“You should have said so!”

The building shook again, followed by a loud crash from inside. “We’d better get out of here,” Marcus said.

Nathan nodded. They hugged the wall of the abandoned building until reaching the street. The firefighters were focused on the building while the police officers were pushing the crowd further back. Nathan nodded at Marcus. The two darted around the corner and raced down the sidewalk.

“Yo,” Marcus said, “Was it him?”

“Yeah, it was him.” Nathan narrowed his eyes. “The Earth-Singer.”