Blue light glowed around Kinetix's hands. The light made a crackling sound like electricity. I was very scared. I raised my hands up to show I meant no harm. My heart beat very fast in my chest. He was not just a young hero anymore. He is powerful and saw me as a threat.
I am a paramedic, I said again. My voice came out soft and weak.
No you are not, Kinetix said. His voice shook but was loud. I saw what you did. You made the dead man speak. That is a bad power. A villain's power.
He took a step closer. The blue light around his hands grew brighter and larger
I did not mean to do it, I tried to explain. It just happened. I was only trying to help him.
But he was not listening. He was scared. When people are scared, they do not think clearly. He was a hero who saw something he could not understand. So he decided I was a problem.
Stay right there, he said. Do not move.
He touched a device on his wrist and spoke into it. This is Kinetix. I need a Meta Human Response team at my location now. I have a hostile anomaly. He was interfering with a body.
I felt cold all over. The Meta Human Response Bureau, or MHB. Everyone knew about them. They were not like the heroes people saw on television. They were the police for dangerous people with powers. They were very serious and very scary. If they took me, I would disappear forever. I would never see the outside world again.
I looked around. The street was still a disaster area. Most people were still behind the safety barriers far away. But some other emergency workers were starting to look over. They saw Kinetix with his powers active. They saw me on my knees with blood on my hands. They did not know what was really happening.
About two minutes later, I heard a new sound. A low humming noise. A big black van with no windows drove over the broken concrete. It did not slow down for the rubble. It stopped near us. The words Meta Human Response were printed on the side in big white letters.
The back doors of the van opened. Two people jumped out. They did not wear hero costumes. They wore black uniforms with protective vests. They had stern faces and guns on their belts. One was a tall man with short hair. The other was a woman with her hair pulled back tightly. She looked at me like I was nothing.
Kinetix pointed at me. That is him. The anomaly. He has a power related to death. He made the corpse speak.
The woman nodded. She did not look surprised. She had probably seen many strange things. We will take it from here, hero. Good work.
The tall man walked toward me. He was very large. He did not speak. He took out a pair of heavy metal handcuffs from his belt. They looked like they were made for someone huge.
Put your hands behind your back, the woman said. Her voice was flat and held no emotion.
I had no choice. If I fought, it would only make things worse. I put my hands behind my back. The big man snapped the cold metal cuffs onto my wrists. They clicked shut and were very tight.
What is your name, the woman asked.
Elias Vance, I said softly.
The woman held up a small tablet. She typed my name. A lot of information popped up on the screen. My photograph. My home address. Where I worked. My entire life was on that device.
Elias Vance. Paramedic. No prior power registration. She looked from the tablet to me. Your ability manifested today. Classification, Necromancy. Sub class, Anomalous. Threat level, Class Three. She said the words like she was reading a boring list. She did not care that she was ruining my life.
Please, I said. You have to believe me. I did not want this. I did not ask for this power.
Nobody does, the woman replied. She did not care at all. Let's go.
The big man took my arm. His grip was very strong. He pulled me to my feet and walked me to the black van. He pushed me inside. The inside of the van was a small gray room. There was a metal bench on each side. There were no windows. The door shut behind me with a loud clunk. I was locked in.
I was alone. The van was silent. I could hear my own panicked breathing. I was going to a place called Purgatory. Everyone knew about Purgatory. It was a special prison for people with dangerous powers. Nobody ever came back from Purgatory.
I felt complete hopelessness. My life was over. It had taken only ten minutes to destroy everything.
Then, I felt it again. The cold.
It was the same cold from before. The deep grave cold. It started in my chest and moved through my whole body. The world became quiet again. But this time, I was not outside. I was inside a metal box.
A voice, but not a real voice. It was a thought that was not my own. A whisper in my mind. It was full of fear.
I looked around the empty van. No one was there.
Help me, please.
Who is there, I whispered. My voice sounded too loud in the quiet van.
So dark, cannot move.
The voice was weak. It was like a bad radio signal, fading in and out. I realized it was not in the van with me. It was in my head. It was a ghost. Or the leftover piece of one.
Where are you, I thought, trying to speak back with my mind.
Here. In the walls. In the machine. He killed me.
The voice became a little clearer. I could feel what it felt. Fear. Confusion. Pain.
Who killed you?
The man with the snake eyes. He found my hiding spot. He wanted it. He pushed me. The machine. It hurts.
I understood. This was not about the monster fight today. This spirit was from before. Someone had died in this very van. Maybe someone else the MHB had taken. Maybe they never made it to prison.
This van? You are in this van? I thought.
Yes. My body is gone. But I am stuck. In the wires. In the cold. Please. Help me move on. Find the key.
The key? What key?
The key he took from me. The key to the vent. It is hidden. In the vent above you. It can open the door. Please.
I looked up. Above my head was a small metal air vent. It was covered by a grate.
How? I am tied up.
You are like me. You are touched by death. You can call the small ones. The ones nobody sees. The ones that are already gone.
I did not understand. What small ones?
The rats. The insects. They are everywhere. They are drawn to you now. You can ask them. They will listen.
I remembered the dead cockroach at the MHB truck. I had just wished for a distraction, and it had moved. Was that really me? Could I actually do that?
I had no other choices. I had to try.
I closed my eyes. I tried to push my fear away. I focused on the cold feeling inside me. I thought about the small dead things in the walls of the nearby buildings. I thought about the rats that had died in the cracks of the street. I sent out my need, my desperation, with that cold feeling. I asked for help.
Come. Please. Help me.
For a moment, nothing happened. I felt foolish. Then, I heard a new sound.
A scratching.
It was a soft, tiny sound at first. Then it got louder. It came from outside the van. It sounded like hundreds of little feet and wings.
The two MHB agents were outside the van, talking to Kinetix. I heard the woman's voice stop.
What is that, she said.
The scratching got louder. It became a frantic crawling noise. It sounded like it was coming from every direction at once.
Then came the screams. Not human screams. The high pitched squeaking of rats. The buzzing of flies. But there were so many of them.
What is happening, yelled Kinetix. His voice was high with surprise.
The van shook slightly. I heard thumps on the roof and the sides. I looked through the small cracks in the door seals.
It was a nightmare. Dozens of rats, their eyes milky white and blank, were swarming over the van. They were dead. I could see injuries on some, bones showing on others. But they were moving. They were scratching and biting at the metal. Mixed with them were cockroaches and flies, a swirling cloud of dead insects.
The MHB agents were shouting. I heard the zap of Kinetix's powers. A flash of blue light. The smell of burnt fur filled the air.
Stop it, the woman agent yelled. She sounded disgusted and shocked.
I cannot, Kinetix yelled back. There are too many.
I did it. I actually did it. The dead things were listening to me. The ghost was right.
Now, the voice in my head whispered. The vent. The key.
My hands were still cuffed behind my back. I could not reach the vent. I needed to help them help me.
I closed my eyes again. I focused on the swarm outside. I asked for a different kind of help.
A small group of dead rats stopped scratching at the van door. Instead, they started chewing at the metal hinges near the bottom of the door. Their teeth were small, but there were many of them. I heard the sound of gnawing metal.
Inside, I asked the smallest ones for help. I focused on the air vent.
A few dead flies squeezed through the grate of the vent. Then a couple of small beetles. They dropped down onto the floor of the van. More followed. They gathered together on the floor below the vent.
Then the spiders came. Tiny little bodies dropped down on nearly invisible threads of web. They joined the pile. I did not know what they were doing.
Then I saw it. The pile of dead insects was getting higher. They were climbing on top of each other, forming a small living, or rather, unliving, ladder. They were making a step for me.
I got to my feet. I moved over to the vent. I stepped onto the small platform of insects. It crunched under my shoes, but it held my weight. Now I could reach the vent.
The metal grate was held on by two simple screws. I could not use my fingers. But I did not have to.
I looked at the bugs on the grate. A few ants and a small centipede, all long dead, moved over to the screws. They began to crawl into the grooves of the screw heads. They began to turn, their tiny bodies working together like a living screwdriver.
It was slow work. Outside, the noises were changing. I heard more energy blasts. Kinetix was getting the swarm under control. I was running out of time.
One screw fell out and dropped to the floor. Then the second. The grate was loose.
I pushed it aside with my head. The vent hole was small, but maybe big enough. I looked inside. It was dark.
The key, the ghost whispered.
I felt around inside the dusty vent with my face. My fingers were still trapped behind me. It was difficult. Then my lips touched something cold and metal. A small key.
I managed to grab it with my teeth. I carefully lowered myself down. I spat the key into my cupped hands behind my back. It was slippery with my saliva.
Now for the hard part. I had to get the key into the handcuff lock behind my back without being able to see it. My fingers fumbled. I dropped the key twice. I had to feel around on the floor to find it again. My heart was pounding. The noises outside were getting quieter. The distraction was ending.
Finally, on the third try, I got the key into the keyhole. I turned it. For a terrible second, nothing happened. Then I heard a click. The handcuffs sprung open.
I pulled my hands apart. My wrists were sore and red. But I was free.
Now I had to get out. The door was still locked from the outside. But the agents were still distracted. I could use that.
I looked at the van door. I put my hand on it. I reached out with that cold feeling inside me. I asked the few remaining dead rats to do one last thing.
Instead of chewing the hinges, I asked them to be a distraction. To make a lot of noise on one side of the van.
I heard them start squeaking and scratching loudly near the front of the van.
Hey, over here, yelled the male agent. His voice was near the front now.
This was my chance. I took a deep breath. I focused all my energy on the door lock mechanism. I did not know if this would work. I thought about death, about things breaking, about metal freezing and becoming brittle.
A sharp, cold feeling shot from my hand into the door. I heard a faint cracking sound from inside the lock. Like ice forming.
I kicked the door as hard as I could.
The door burst open. The broken lock fell to the ground.
I jumped out of the van. The scene was chaos. A few dead rats were still moving on the ground. The female agent was kicking them away. The male agent and Kinetix were at the front of the van, looking at the swarm that was now falling still.
They all turned and saw me.
Stop, the woman yelled, reaching for her gun.
I did not wait. I turned and ran. I ran into the damaged building next to me. I heard shouts and footsteps behind me. I ran through dark rooms and over broken furniture. I did not look back. I just ran.
I ran until my lungs burned. I did not stop until I could not hear them anymore. I hid in a dark, ruined bathroom, surrounded by broken mirrors. I was alone. I was free for now.
But I was still a wanted man. I had no home. I had no money. I had a power I did not want. And I had a voice in my head that would not leave me alone.
My old life was gone. My new life had begun. And it was terrifying.