“Do you know what today is?”

As Ethan’s rusted truck came to a slow halt in the potholed, gravel parking lot, he shut his eyes, breathing out slowly so as to not start screaming.  Ethan had known what day it was from the moment he had woken up, and he’d been avoiding Raz all day in hopes of avoiding this exact conversation, no easy task given how small their shared apartment is. 

Unfortunately for Ethan, Raz didn’t have a car, so he couldn’t avoid being in such close proximity to Raz for the half-hour drive from their apartment to their job in the Stillrock Silver Mine.

”Please don’t say it,” Ethan pleaded.

”There’s nothing wrong with-”

Ethan shot him a dark look.  After a moment, Raz shrugged, grabbing his bag and hopped out of the car, leaving Ethan alone.  

Ethan sighed in frustration, letting his forehead fall on the steering wheel, making a mental note to apologize for that later.  After all, it wasn’t Raz’s fault Ethan was in a bad mood.  Raz wasn’t the reason Ethan still worked in the mine, he wasn’t the reason Ethan hadn’t put together a plan to get out, and he certainly wasn’t trying to rub Ethan’s face in it, unlike the weather. 

The warm sun filtering through the trees warmed Ethan’s face through the car’s windshield, practically calling out for him to come outside.  It was the end of a gorgeous summer evening on the Slope, the kind of day where even the sun seemed to want to hang in the sky as long as it could.  The lasting sunshine made the afternoon perfect for enjoying a game at the Ace’s stadium or finishing off a long hike in the mountains away from civilization, watching the sun disappear behind the mountains. 

Ethan pulled his head up, then immediately wished he hadn’t.  The Stillrock mine, built up on a hill on the eastern edge of Stillrock, had one of the town’s best views of Ascension’s skyline.  Though there was a sliver of light left in the mountains, Ascension was already plunged into night, and every bar and music venue had their own sets of twinkling, colored lights, competing for attention in the crowded city.

There were a million people in Ascension and it felt like seemingly everyone was rushing out to enjoy everything the city had to offer, with the exception of Ethan.  Instead, he was reporting for his tenth straight night of work, staring down another twelve hour shift in the mines.  Twelve straight hours spent in the dark, dusty, claustrophobia-including tunnels, breaking down every large piece of blasted rock with his pickaxe.  With any luck, the rocks they broke up and placed into the mine cart might just have an ounce of silver.   If the tandem could produce enough silver, the mine could sell the silver and pay Raz and Ethan a little more than their meager salary, which was just enough to pay for an apartment close to Stillrock and enough food to keep them upright.

It was also, apparently, enough to pay for Raz’s phone, since he had shoved it through Ethan’s open truck window.

“Whoa,” Raz said, holding out his phone, “did you see this?”

Ethan glanced over at the phone, seeing a news site streaming live footage, seemingly shot from a helicopter, in what looked like the heart of downtown Ascension.  Hailstone, one of the Altered still willing to operate against the Protectors in Ascension, was skating down air she was freezing in front of herself, throwing daggers made of ice behind her at another woman flying in pursuit.  The daggers were shattering harmlessly off her bronze armor, a purple cape funneled behind her.

Even though the fight would’ve been visible from where Ethan was seated, he slid out of the car, turning his back on the city.  He shook his head.  “You know I try to avoid the Protector stuff, Raz.”

“Even when it’s Alex?” Raz asked, incredulously.  He shook his head.  “Sorry, Titan.”

“Especially when it’s her,” Ethan snapped, sliding out of his truck, his boots crunching on the gravel. 

“Hey, I’d be mad too if my sister suddenly became the most powerful person in Ascension.  It’s normal to be a little jealous.”

“It might be, but I am not,” Ethan sighed, walking to the check in trailer.  “At least…not about that.”

Raz, noticing Ethan forgot his bag, or didn’t care to grab it, picked it up out of the bed of the truck and jogged to catch up with Ethan. 

“Hailstone is pretty tough,” Raz said, handing Ethan his book bag.  Ethan nodded his thanks, another thing to apologize for later, as they walked over to the locker room.  “She might be a lot for Alex to handle.”

”Alex is invincible,” Ethan reminded him.  He tried to stretch his tight back, sore from the previous few nights of work, then grunted and grabbed his assigned hard hat and vest, throwing his jacket in his locker.  He nodded at Oscar, the site supervisor, and waited in front of the service elevator. 

“Yeah, but she can still get hurt, right?”

“Of course,” Ethan agreed, “but that’s what you sign up for when you become lead Protector.”

The rickety elevator’s doors opened to take them down to the tunnels.  Ethan sighed, stepping inside, and turning to face the doors.  While the service elevator doors crawled to a close, Ethan’s eyes caught a blast of cerulean, frosted light shooting up through the clouds over Ascension, then someone bursting through the clouds after them.  Ethan could practically hear the roar of the city, which was soon washed out by the mechanical whir of the doors shutting in front of them. 

“Man, can you imagine that life?” Raz asked, shaking his head.  The elevator began descending, Ascension's bright lights replaced with a dusty dim glow.  “Having the power to launch yourself into the sky anytime you wanted?”

“I used to, all the time,” Ethan sighed.  The elevator crawled the hundred feet down to the tunnels below.  “But I stopped.”

“Why?” Raz asked.

“Because, every time I opened my eyes…”

When the doors opened he heaved his pickaxe over his shoulder, the familiar stale air and dust attaching itself to the back of his throat.

“I was right back here.”

Ethan stalked down the tunnel with Raz in tow.  The tunnels were just wide enough for Raz and Ethan to stand next to each other, and shallow enough that Ethan, the taller of the two, had to duck slightly or risked clanking his helmet on the jagged ceiling, illuminated poorly by dusty lanterns hung irregularly on the walls.  The tunnels themselves were supported by rotted wooden support beams, no doubt placed decades ago and desperately past current OSHA standards.

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Wordlessly, he set out to work, slamming his pickaxe down on the newly unearthed ore and breaking them into smaller, more manageable bits that Raz threw into the minecart left half full for them by the earlier crew.  Each swing reminded him of the blisters on his hands, hardly tempered by the gloves, and the twinge of pain in his back that had come decades too early.  He tried to ignore his aches, wiping his dusty brow on the back of his gloves.

An hour into the backbreaking labor, Ethan pulled off his helmet, pushing back his black hair, and reached into his bag for his water, leaning against the uneven stone wall.  He was panting hard, taking gulps of his water when Raz decided, unprompted, to pick up their conversation from before.  Raz reached into his back, then held something cylindrical out to Ethan.

“So, you cut me off earlier…but I brought hot dogs.”

           Ethan, caught off guard by the gesture, narrowed his gaze at Raz, who was holding out two aluminum foil wrapped hot dogs.

          “Why, exactly, did you bring those?”

           “Well, I looked it up and traditionally miners eat pasties, but we don’t exactly have a working oven at the moment, so the best I could do was boil a few hot dogs in the microwave and wrap them in foil.  They’re not exactly the same, but the thought was there.  Anyway, happy work anniversary!” Raz told him excitedly, taking a bite out of the lukewarm hot dog.

Ethan waved him off.  “I told you not to bring that up,” he muttered.  “I don’t need to be reminded how much of my life I’ve wasted down here.”

“Come on, Ethan,” Raz shook his head, disappointed.  “We’ve survived three whole years working down here.  We’ve made a living for ourselves, albeit not a glamorous one, like Alex’s, but we have a roof over our heads and clothes on our back!”

”That shouldn’t just be enough, Raz,” Ethan sighed.  “Don’t you want more?”

Raz shrugged.  “Opportunities will come, I’m sure.  We just have to give it time.”

Ethan laughed, humorlessly.  “What opportunities?” he asked, throwing his hands up.  “Six months ago, three hundred people in Ascension gained superhuman abilities while we were working down here.  We already missed our opportunity, Raz!”

“Do you want to be the one Hailstone was trying to kill this evening?” Raz shook his head.  “I’d much rather be doing something thrilling like fighting for my life than wasting it down here!” Ethan shouted back.

“It’s not a waste,” Raz protested.  “We’re saving money.  We’ll move to Ascension soon.”

Ethan gripped his pickaxe tightly, spying a boulder near the wall.  He brought the pickaxe over his head, swinging down hard.

”Three years,” he grunted, taking a chunk out of the stone.  The anger in his voice echoed off the tunnels.  “I’ve waited three years when we were supposed to move to Ascension after one!”

“Ethan, you need to be careful,” Raz warned him.  “You’re close to-”

”Three years of my life,” Ethan swung again, nearly cracking the stone in two.  It cracked, but held together.  “Wasted.  And for what?”

”Ethan,” Raz took a step with his hand out, pleading.  “You’re going to-”

”For nothing!” Ethan roared, swinging the pickaxe down as hard as he could.  Swinging wildly, his aim was off.  Instead of shattering the stone in front of him, he missed the side of the rock and clipped the wooden support beam, cleaving it in two. 

The old wooden beams overhead groaned in protest, splintering against the sudden increase in weight, hundreds of tons of stone suddenly shifting for the first time in decades.  The “T” shaped beams above them bent, and the rock split, causing Ethan and Raz to shrink towards the ground, for all the good it would do them, as dust and bits of rock rained down on top of them.

Ethan instinctively held his breath out of fear that any sudden change could result in a cave in, but after a moment the stone settled and the beams seemed to acclimate to the weight.

“I…I think we’re okay,” Ethan sighed in relief.

Raz punched him in the shoulder, causing Ethan to wince.

“You moron!” he yelled.  “All I wanted to do was eat hot dogs, and you tried to kill us!”

“I’m sorry,” Ethan said quietly.  “For being rude in the car, for not grabbing my bag, and for almost killing us both.  I’m…not myself today.  Our work anniversary…just reminds me of how long we’ve been doing this.”

Raz sighed curtly, but nodded.  “I know you want to get out of here, Ethan.  And we will.  We just have to be patient.”

Ethan nodded, then hesitated before he spoke.  His eyes had become accustomed to the particularly dim, gray light inside the tunnel, but now he was picking up something else, a glimmer above them.  He squinted, confused.  They were twenty stories below the surface of the Earth, he thought, so where would a burst of light possibly be coming from?

“Well,” Raz grabbed Ethan’s shoulder, causing him to jump.  “Let’s get out of here, before-”

Raz’s voice was cut off by the thunderous sound of thousands of pounds of rocks suddenly rushing to fill a vacuum, and before Ethan had a chance to interrogate the light source any further, it vanished as the roof twenty feet in front of them collapsed, huge stones bursting through the ceiling and crashing into the floor.

Ethan wondered, in the brief moment he had before he ran, if even Alex could find them under this much stone.  He grabbed Raz and pushed him forward while the ceiling collapsed perilously close to the pair, running as fast as he could behind him.

Raz, nearly a foot shorter than Ethan, was not fast enough.  A rock clipped his shoulder, knocking him to the ground.

“Raz!” Ethan shouted, skidding to a stop and nearly falling himself.  “Get up!”

“I’m trying!” Raz yelled back, scrambling to his feet.  Before he could get fully upright, a chunk of stone the size of a soccer ball landed directly on his right knee, then rolled off. 

Raz screamed in pain, grasping for his leg.  Ethan swooped in under him, grabbing his arms and pulling backwards, dragging him over the fallen rock, grunting with exertion and gritting his teeth.  He pulled with all his strength, just able to tow him underneath a more stable intersection of tunnels before the entrance they had just used collapsed entirely in front of them, sealing shut any chance Ethan had of investigating the strange lights further.

Several other miners had run over now, screaming for help through the commotion and grabbing the gurney kept for emergencies.  They lifted Raz, as gently as they could, and started to head for the shaft’s elevator.

Ethan took one last look at the tunnel they collapsed, looking for any hint of the strange light he had seen swirling within.

“Ethan!” Raz called out.  “Coming?”

He pulled his eyes away from the stone wall, feeling suspiciously like he had just missed out on something important.  He turned, jogging to catch up with Raz.