THREE MONTHS BEFORE THE MASK COMES OFF

I don’t know what a cold sweat feels like. What I do know is the sensation of waking up sharply, the way 3 AM skews my perception of time and space, the way I’m left blinking and rotating in a body I don’t quite own. More than that, I know the way a dream shatters as my eyelids lift and I’m brought back to a dark room and a squeaky fan.

The brain-melting orange light emanating from streetlamps filters through the blinds, scrawling meaningless messages on the ceiling. The TV buzzes in the corner of the room. With all broadcasts having signed off for the night, the only thing left on-screen is static. The fizzing rainbow of pixels combines with the light from the street in a sickening, eerie glow.

Megajoule stands by the front door, which is open, and stares out into the junkyard and the streets beyond. His profile is hidden in shadow. His animosity, however, is fully apparent.

I’m not in the mood to listen to his usual rant. “What do you want?”

Megajoule keeps his gaze on the street. He lifts his head and sighs. “Pardon?”

And then it hits me. The door is open. Open. I reach out with my senses and find Mateo and Paul sleeping peacefully in their rooms.

“How did you do that?” I ask slowly, staring at the open door.

Megajoule turns to me. His eyes burn with green light. His pupils are tiny dots buried in the ghastly fire. “You don’t know what I am, do you?”

I don’t know what to say to that. It’s usually not hard to come up with a barb, but this time, something in his tone freezes me to my core.

He reaches up into the air, as if to pluck something from it, and then snaps his fingers.

Glass shatters. The fan squeaks. Time and space distort around me and I fall through concrete and neon. I am spinning, turning, revolving, and then—

What is it when you feel like your entire body is a phantom limb? What is it when you feel like your skin will slip off you? What is it when you’re barely there, barely anywhere, tethered by the thinnest strand to your body, a red string of fate from my finger to my soul and

“Where am I?” I ask, looking down at my body. I watch it get up, watch it flex it’s own hands without my say.

The world is receding from me. Swallowed up by darkness.

I fall through winds that feel as if they could strip the flesh from my bones… if I were in my body. I slip into an ocean of ink. My face, Paul’s face, Mateo’s face, the face of the dead in the warehouse, the face of my brothers, all the faces of those I’ve met and more I haven’t bubble up through the dark waters. Torment and anguish and sorrow and pain and all the bad things in our hearts washes over me until I can’t breath, until it’s filling my lungs, until all

I

Am

Is

Fear

There is an uncountable infinity between the number zero and the number one. In the void between one and zero it waits, expanding further and further the more zeros you add behind the decimal point. Every zero represents more emptiness. Every zero is another step away from home.

Every zero

is another inch

further that you

sink.

EVERY ZERO IS MY HAND AROUND YOUR ANKLE, DRAGGING YOU INTO THE DEPTHS

I wake up upside down and ten feet in the air, my hands dangling toward what I assume is the ground. Concrete surrounds me from every side. A thousand thoughts flow through me. Where the fuck am I? What time is it? Are Mateo, Pawpaw, and Paul okay?

Did I do anything to them?

I can feel my Affect manipulating gravity so that I levitate upside down, but for some reason I can’t change this. My power refuses to cooperate. I flail and reach out for something to hold onto until suddenly whatever wall was between me and my power lifts. I stop absorbing the force of gravity, cry out as I fall a few feet before absorbing the impact of hitting the ground, and find myself on my back connected to terra firma.

Somehow, I’m in one of my hideouts: a former doomsday bunker with enough room for a family of four. Whatever resources had been stashed in the bunker when it was installed were long gone by the time I found it while exploring abandoned neighborhoods around the Shells. Greenery had grown up over the metal door, hiding it from passersby. No one had touched it in years, so I made it my own.

Under normal circumstances, it’s not a terrible place to hang out in for a couple of hours of privacy.

But it’s not how I left it the last time I visited. The walls radiate a scant bit of warmth, as if someone left the heater on. The metal chair and table, the only useable furniture I’d managed to scrounge, are missing. Either I did this and somehow don’t remember, or someone else did.

I stand up and find that I’m not wearing a mask or my jacket. Just a t-shirt and jeans. “Shit,” I mutter. “Shitty shit.”

I fill my hand with energy to cast some light. I expect to see faded graffiti on the walls, but instead find the missing furniture, which has been reduced to nothing more than a pile of melted slag in the corner. The concrete walls are blackened and cracked from heat. Parts of my jeans are burnt away, my undershirt a few smoldering scraps of cloth clinging to my chest.

“What the fuck?” I whisper. That whisper is a spark that fans into outrage. “What did you do to me, you shitty superhero? Where the fuck are you?” I whirl around, expecting him to appear behind me or at the door of the bunker.

Instead, he remains silent and invisible.

His question lingers in my mind.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

I don’t really know what he is, do I?

Liquid fills my lungs and throat. I sputter, spilling bile from my lips that hits the floor. I wipe my mouth with my arm and find the liquid sticking to my skin. The bile is black like tar or ink. Not vomit.

I cough out the rest, staining the floor with it. “Did you make me drink a jar of ink, you dick?” I ask Megajoule.

He is still silent.

“Fine. Fuck you, too.” I shuffle to the door and head home before Paul and Mateo wake up.

#

I wake in agony the morning after the bunker, still completely mindfucked over Megajoule and whatever he did to me. A migraine clamps down on my skull. I can’t even put on my glasses without my head thumping. I sit on the couch with my eyes closed, rubbing my temples, marinating in the pain, squeezing the blanket I slept under in my right hand.

The familiar clack-clack-clack of claws on tile snaps me from my pity party. Pawpaw, that golden-haired bundle of joy, heard me stir and came to say hello. He might be an old dog but he still walks as light as ever, and when he wags his tail, his entire hind end wiggles back and forth in excitement.

“Who’s a good boy?” I ask, scratching his head. He yawns, which becomes a high-pitched whine, and licks my hand. His way of asking for food.

Even though I feel like shit, Pawpaw comes first. I climb my ass off the couch to make his breakfast. Once the bowl’s on the floor, he happily starts to chow down.

My stomach rumbles. There’s not much in the pantry right now. “You know, I’ve always wondered how those taste,” I say to Pawpaw.

He doesn’t respond, too busy stuffing his face.

“You look like you’re nursing something awful,” Paul says when he emerges from his bedroom at the sound of Pawpaw’s breakfast. “You get into my liquor last night?”

“No, just didn’t sleep well.” I glance at the clock. 6:30 a.m.

I hear the swish of Paul’s clothes and his soft footsteps as he comes to me. The sound of his heart beats louder with each step. Each sound grates on my ears, makes my head throb a little. A gentle hand finds my shoulder before pressing against my forehead. “No fever. Not that I ever knew you to have one.”

“It’s fine.” I shake my head free of his hand.

“You’ve been out a lot lately.” Paul crouches down to eye level with me. “Should take a day off. All this shit’ll still be here.”

What does “a day off” even mean, I wonder? For every day I rest, it’s another day that Pandahead infects this city. It’s another day people get hurt. But I don’t say anything. I just mumble, “Whatever.”

Paul’s the closest thing to a father figure I’ve ever had. Yet there’s so much I don’t share with him. I’ve never opened up about the conversations I have with Megajoule.

Metis, why is there such a gulf between us? I didn’t do that, and I don’t think he did either.

A billion words jumble around in my head and I only manage to snatch three of them: “Yeah, I guess.”

Paul frowns. “I always tried to do right by you.”

He isn’t looking at me. Instead, he stares out the window at the early morning sun for what seems like minutes. I cough to bring his attention back to earth.

Paul turns and peers at me. “You want pancakes, Terry?”

“Terry?” I ask, not understanding.

I reach out with my power. There’s a surge of something inside his body coming from his brain. Paul takes a step just as it hits, and then tilts forward into a fall.

A seizure.

“Paul!” I rush to catch him before he falls. I wrap him in an embrace and let him collapse into my chest. I clamp his head with my hands and absorb the sudden convulsions with my power so he won’t injure his neck or skull. Pawpaw barks as he scurries to my feet and wedges his snout between the two of us. “Mateo!” I call. “I need help!”

Mateo sprints out of my bedroom with his power at the ready, a glowing disk in each of his two good hands. “Where are they? I’ll fuck ‘em up!” He yells before seeing Paul in my arms. His hardlight weapons vanish into thin air. He runs to my side and kneels down, appearing concerned and frightened. “What’s wrong with him?”

Paul wheezes spittle onto arms. Don’t think about it. Don’t think that Paul might be dying. “Seizure,” I tell Mateo. “Kitchen, third drawer from the sink. Little orange bottle behind the money. Get it.”

Drawers open and slam before Mateo brings me the bottle. He opens it and tips it over, pouring a pill into my hand. The pill is shaped like a shotgun shell and full of tiny pellets like birdshot. “Is that enough?” he asks. “There’s not any more.”

It isn’t enough, but I ignore the thought for now. I slip the pill into Paul’s mouth and help him swallow by holding his head back.

It takes a second, but his eyes flutter as falls into a deep sleep. I’ve no idea how these pills work except that they work fast.

“What the heck?” Mateo asks. “What was that?”

“How many times I gotta say seizure before it gets through?” I huff and grab the bottle and shake it to confirm that was the last pill. “Shit, I gotta get more from Thanh.”

I carry Paul to the couch and lay him down. I cover him with my blanket, tossed into a corner from all the chaos, and tuck him in.

“What are you going to do?” Mateo asks.

“I can get his medicine on short notice, but it’s extra,” I say. Normally Paul would have taken care of this, or at least asked me, but I guess with everything it slipped our minds. Now I have to deal with it.

I check the cash drawer while I mentally calculate how much this is going to set us back. Between Mateo’s needs and our regular bills, we’re down to eighty bucks. I rub the crinkled paper between my fingers, wishing for more money to spontaneously appear in my hands.

The nurse we buy through asks fifty American dollars a refill, but that’s with two weeks of warning. A rush job is beyond what we can afford right now, especially with other necessities to worry about—like food. The pantries are empty, as is the fridge.

I turn back to Paul. He’s slumbering quietly now, despite the spittle on his lips and chin. I grab a cloth from the kitchen and wipe his face. He looks peaceful. “Mateo, watch Pawpaw and Paul. I’m going to go make some money,” I say.

“Can I come?” he asks. “My hand’s all good!”

I shake my head. “I need someone here in case Paul has another seizure.”

Mateo pouts at me, but nods anyway. I tell him to lock Paul in the bedroom if he gets crazy while I’m gone.

#

Thanh’s ramen shop is unusually empty. I’ve become accustomed to a few guests, the late night usuals who come and go one by one. It’s a pleasant emptiness. Tonight, however, there’s a void in the restaurant. Only Thanh is here aside from the bouncer by the back door.

“I thought you were keeping your head down,” Thanh says.

“Gotta eat,” I say. I don’t want to tell him about Paul’s condition.

“I don’t have anything for you,” Thanh says. He throws a glare over his shoulder. He’s rattled by the last few weeks and the attention I drew. His heart rate quickens, enough to make me think he’s lying. His whole upper body and arms light up in my thermal sense. There are a few different heat maps I know of that correlate to an emotion. This one belongs to anger. Not that I’d need that to tell he’s angry - his Affect soaks the room with his frustration.

He clicks his tongue. “You could at least change your clothes. That’s practically asking for trouble.”

I probably could have chosen something besides my baseball jacket and red mask. It’s probably the most iconic look in Houston right now. “It’s nothing. You know they can’t see me if I don’t want them to.”

“That’s what I’m worried about,” he says. “You’ve been acting a lot like you want them to see you.”

"Just because I took down one cape?” Admittedly one of the most famous capes in the city. And got my face plastered on screens across the country. “Danger Close was an accident. It won’t happen again.” I sit down across from him, waiting for him to spill the details, and when he doesn’t, I say, “Oh come on, I know you. You’ve got something. It’s written all over your dumb face.”

Thanh winces at me, guiltily, caught dead to rights. The poor man doesn’t look like he’s been sleeping much. There are bags under his eyes; his hair’s a mess. “Someone’s putting the squeeze on my properties.”

“What do you mean?”

“I own an apartment complex, not far from here. The tenants are saying… monsters… are stalking around the apartments.” Thanh scowls, shaking his head and searching the table for crumbs so that he can crush them with his fingers. He finds one and ends its miserable existence. “Someone told me that a mask offered to make the monsters go away for a lot of money. I think it’s just hooligans raising a scare.”

I know a business opportunity when I see one. “Hooligans! Thanh, this job was made for me.”

Thanh stares at me for a beat too long. Anxiety darkens the air between us, frays at the edge of my skin. His Affect isn’t very powerful but it’s enough to feel his fear. “If it wasn’t you, I’d throw you out.” Which is as strong a statement as he’s ever made to me. He didn’t call me right away, which shows just how much he’s scared of my growing reputation.

It’s Home Run, it’s my name all over the news because of Danger Close. Fuck, what if Thanh thinks I’m a monster? I really can’t lose out on my main source of cheap ramen and income, not to mention the fact that he owns my house, and someone who offers me a back room to sit in when I need space. So, I backpedal. Losing a job prospect is much better than losing a friend. “I’ve always done right by you. If you can’t make it work right now… that’s fine.”

“Tch…” Thanh looks away from me, muttering into his palm. “No. I can make it work.”

“I won’t make it loud. It’ll be quick, clean, and scary.”

Thanh’s stare is knowing. “I’ll let you do this… but don’t muck about, and don’t come back for a while. These are strange times, Gabe, and I’d really like to help, but I can only do so much.”