Ethan always thought of Stillrock as a black hole, a place that fed on the ambition of everyone who lived there and kept them stuck in place, leaving everything around it cold, dark, and empty. It was merciless, unquenchable in its desire to drain life force, and, worst of all, it was also the only place he could afford to call home.
Located an hour and a half west of the much larger metropolitan of Ascension, Stillrock is a tiny mountain town nearly perfectly situated between the ridiculously expensive city of Ascension and all the amenities it offers to the east, and the much too expensive ski resorts to the west. The town was almost entire bereft of any sort of amenities, which made sense given few there have any disposable income. Without producing much and lacking any universities or colleges, there were two main jobs Stillrock had to offer its adult workforce: working in the physically demanding silver mines, or working in one of the mind numbingly dull gas stations that lined the town’s unofficial main street in between the on and off ramps for the highway.
Normally, driving back into town from Alex’s luxurious apartment in Ascension gave Ethan a deep seated feeling of dread, his stomach forming a tight knot whenever he saw the Stillrock exit sign. It marked a continuance of the norm, his failure to break out of Stillrock and get himself somewhere else, anywhere better than here.
But on this particular trip, Ethan practically ran inside his outdated townhome apartment, ignoring Raz and leaving him to slowly amble out of the car alone. Still dripping wet and tracking mud and lake water onto their outdated beige carpet, he threw his bag on the couch and locked the door to his room, preparing to disappoint himself with a familiar ritual. He locked the door behind him, then took a deep breath and set his sights in front of him.
Despite having lived in the same apartment with Raz for years, Ethan’s room was nearly bare. No art on the walls, just one framed old photo of him and Alex she got for him as a present years ago, and as little furniture as he needed: a bed underneath the open window to supplant the barely functioning air conditioner, a dresser up against the wall on the right, and a sparse closet with a few shirts and jackets he wore whenever he wasn’t at work, minus the clothes he’d brought to Alex’s while Raz healed.
His room was meant to be a temporary space until Ethan was free of the mines and on to starting his life in Ascension, but that plan had taken longer to come together than Ethan had cared to admit. Still, in the years that he’d lived there, Ethan had never bothered to take the time to put down roots, convinced he was on the cusp of moving on to something better. His room was barely a living space, dimly lit be a lamp next to his bed, and more of a spartan bunk, barely functional, and almost entirely devoid of attachments that most people would consider essential. The sheer amount of empty space, however, made it perfect for Ethan’s tests.
Only a small fraction of Ascension’s population was affected by the Surge, with some estimates putting the number at less than a thousand. While only Apex knew for sure, it was thought that people showing any abilities at all were slim, numbering less than two hundred, and the number of people who manifested dangerous abilities (including Protectors like Alex) was somewhere around fifty. It was, in short, exceedingly rare to gain abilities in the first place, and even rarer still to gain anything that could be considered either useful or destructive, depending on how you wanted to make a living in Ascenscion.
After changing into a dry pair of jeans and white t-shirt, Ethan eyed his dresser. It was as tall as he was and a few inches wider, far too heavy for him to pick straight up on his own, making it a perfect test dummy.
As far as Ethan knew, no set of siblings had both been affected by the Surge, but it stood to reason that people with similar genetic makeups could experience similar changes from the Surge. It was possible that, like Alex, he could see his strength increase, and it made the most sense to him to start there. If anything, Ethan was feeling weaker after spending too long at the bottom of a frozen lake, but he still had to try, to see if just being near a breach point had been enough to give him powers, like Alex’s.
He wrapped his arms around the dresser gingerly, just in case he was as strong as Alex now, so as to not snap the wood. Or, preferably, stronger, so he could show her up the next time they met.
“Hopefully I don’t throw this through the roof.” Groaning with strain, he tried and failed to do anything more than rock the dresser back and forth, the wood scraping the wall behind it.
“You’re safe for now,” he said with a sigh, patting the dresser and then rubbing a muscle strain in his shoulder, releasing the unmoved dresser. “Unlike Alex’s dresser, which I accidentally knocked over and could not pick back up.”
Strength was out, which was almost a relief for Ethan. Being a brawler like Alex meant getting hit, and no matter how invulnerable she claimed to be, getting whacked with a steel beam by the Showman more likely than not still hurt like hell. Besides, Alex was fiercely competitive, and having the same power as her would only invite comparisons from the media. Being known for a different power was undoubtedly a better way for him to carve out his own identity, he just had to find one first.
Not giving up, and spying the aspen tree outside his window, Ethan focused his vision.
“Please don’t be eye lasers,” he whispered, narrowing his eyes and straining his head. Whatever he thought would happen next…didn’t. The tree stayed standing, un-lasered, mocking him in its silent defiance.
“Thank God,” he whispered, his shoulders dropping as his tension disappated. “Those would be gross anyway. And…hazardous. I can’t afford to get a new TV every time I get mad watching the Aces play. Plenty of better, more appealing options left that won’t end up making my life a nightmare.”
After jumping a measly three inches off the ground, flight was out, which was a major disappointment. Driving in the city took forever, so that would’ve been useful.
He wasn’t able to heat or freeze an old glass of water he left on his nightstand, nor could he turn his fists into katanas, another power he was grateful not to have, but had heard about online. An attempt to move his book bag with his mind just left him with a headache from the effort, and unable to figure out a way to test if he could or could not control gravity, Ethan slammed his hand down onto his carpet.
“Nothing,” he snapped. His mind went back to the breach point just a few feet away from his hand. He could feel the radiation caressing his fingertips, but that wasn’t enough. He’d need a full embrace, at least, if he wanted powers, it seemed.
That, he knew, was going to be more dangerous. Staying on the edges of a breach point, while probably not healthy, at least didn’t kill him.
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Throwing himself into one, on the other hand, probably would. But, Ethan thought, he hadn’t come this far to back out now.
“Gotta keep going,” he whispered to himself, his head banging against his door. “There has to be a way out of this.”
“Get anything good?” Raz interrupted, his voice clear through Ethan’s door.
“Damn thin walls,” Ethan cursed. Turning, he opened his door and saw Raz leaning against his doorframe, arms folded.
“I’ll be honest, I would’ve thought that almost drowning might’ve knocked some sense into you…but apparently not. You can’t stop, can you?.”
“I have to keep trying,” Ethan said, more harshly than he meant to. Raz recoiled at the tenor of Ethan’s voice. “Look around, Raz! We’ve been in this same apartment for three years, and now we can’t even afford it!”
“We start back at work tomorrow,” Raz told him calmly. Ethan always hated when he used that voice. “We’ll pick up a few extra shifts and we’ll catch back up, little by little.”
“You’re not even healed!” Ethan gestured to Raz’s leg. Raz annoyedly pulled his shorts leg down, hiding his scar. “You could barely walk at Alex’s, and you’re telling me you can work for twelve hours straight down in the tunnels loading the carts?”
“I’ll be fine,” Raz waved him off.
“You don’t look fine,” Ethan countered. “What if something happens again?”
“You mean, what if you do something again?”
Ethan’s shoulders dropped with his voice. “You know that was an accident.”
“You got frustrated,” Raz said pointedly, “and you weren’t thinking. Once is an accident, but you’re still not thinking, and that’s how you ended up prodding Hailstone and nearly drowning at the bottom of a lake.”
“I made it out fine,” Ethan shrugged him off. “She overreacted.”
“All I know,” Raz said slowly, “is that we barely made it out of the mines with our lives and you barely made it out of the lake alive. We are lucky to still be here, and yet you continue to treat every day of your life like it is a curse.”
“Isn’t it?” Ethan asked, throwing his arms up. Angry, his voice was louder than he anticipated, but he couldn’t keep it down any longer, now that he had gotten started. “When your sister is living the life of your dreams flying through Ascension and you spend every night breaking rocks in a dark tunnel for a job that doesn’t even pay you enough to keep an apartment that should’ve been demolished in the seventies, what exactly would you call that, Raz?”
“That’s your life, Ethan!”
“It doesn’t have to be!” Ethan’s voice was stern, his face serious. “It won’t be, not after I get powers. I’ll become a Protector, we’ll move into an apartment in Ascension, and you’ll never step foot in the mines again, I promise.”
Raz shook his head. “You’re not doing this for me, and I’m not going to let you hurt yourself just because you feel bad that you kind-of-sort-of broke my leg.”
“And saved you from dying,” Ethan muttered.
“But now you’re trying to ‘make it up to me’ by throwing yourself into something dangerous, almost like…” Raz eyed the water on Ethan’s nightstand. He ambled over, then knocked the cup to the floor spilling the water.
“Hey, I was using that,” Ethan said. “Why are you making a mess?”
“Don’t worry, we’re not getting our deposit back, anyway. I’m pretty sure the landlord died a year ago considering he never raised our rent. Now, if I poured a quart of motor oil over the water, does that fix the carpet?”
Ethan sighed. “No, it just makes a bigger mess.”
“A worse mess,” Raz pointed out. “And that’s exactly what you’re trying to do. You think getting powers is going to solve everything that’s ‘wrong’ in your life, but really you’re just creating a bigger mess, never addressing the first one. Youve never invested in being happy, Ethan, and getting powers isn’t going to magically fix that.”
“Pour what you want on the floor,” Ethan spat, “I don’t care, because the Protector’s apartments in Ascenscion are hardwood.”
“You already ruined Alex’s,” Raz pointed out.
Ethan glared at him when, suddenly, his phone buzzed on his dresser, drawing his attention. He walked over and glanced down at the text, excitement buzzing in his stomach.
It read simply: Where?
His heart rate spiked. Suddenly, Ethan realized he was faced with two choices: spend the night in his room hoping Raz didn’t want to keep arguing, or at least try to gain powers and find a way to make it up to Raz later.
Without a second thought, he threw a jacket on and waited for Raz to move.
“Do you have nothing better to do than stand in doorways?” Ethan snarled.
Raz held up his keys. “If you’re going somewhere, I’m coming with you. You’re not hearing what I’m saying and I’m afraid you’re going to get hurt even worse than this afternoon. Someone needs to be there to call Alex again when you end up jumping headfirst into a sinkhole.”
Ethan rolled his eyes, then tried to snatch the keys out of Raz’s hand, only for him to pull them away.
“My leg’s broken, not my arm,” Raz chided him.
“Fine,” Ethan growled, holding his hand out for Raz, who handed him the keys. “But you’re not calling Alex. I already got an earful from both of you, any more emergency calls and she’s going to start charging me.”
“No promises,” Raz said, “unless you promise not to do anything stupid again.”
Ethan’s truck roared to life, a smile spreading across his lips.
“No promises.”
He texted Rainey back.
Stillrock mines. 20 minutes.
Without waiting for a reply, he hit the gas, leaving his apartment behind.