Black smoke draped the ceiling of the darkened hallway as the orange glow of fire bled out from beneath every doorway. The air was unbreathable and barely anything could be seen, but somehow his powers let him manage. That wasn’t going to be the case for the people he was trying to rescue.

Jake closed his eyes and viewed the world through a sixth sense. His powers reached beyond the corridor’s walls, painting an image of each residence in his mind. Empty rooms and the corpses of the dead were all that he found on this floor of the building. He focused his vision above then below. There had to be someone left alive in this building. She had told him so.

He found them two stories down in an apartment on the building’s third floor. It was a mother and child passed out by a crib. Jake opened his eyes and charged. He fell through two floors as if they were air. He ran through two walls, untouched. Once he arrived by the mother and child’s side, he swept his hand over them and made them disappear. Without delay, he ran through one final wall and fell three full stories onto the streets below.

He looked up and down the road. Car or building, it didn’t matter, everything was on fire. The city was burning. Its heat assaulted him from all directions. His breath was heavy. The scorching dry air scratched at the inside of his throat and stole its moisture.

With one focused breath, he chilled the air around him, freeing his mind and body from the heat. He summoned the mother and her child on the road in front of him. Another wave of his hand was all it took to cleanse them of the poisons they had inhaled. He didn’t know if it was enough or how much damage had already been done, but at the very least the two of them were still breathing.

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Thank goodness, he thought, sighing in relief. He leaned back onto his hands, but felt a sharp pain through one of his arms. It was the arm that had been cursed. From palm to elbow the limb was blackened like the darkest ash. Black as the band upon his wrist. The one that had brought him both power and pain.

“Come on,” he muttered through gritted teeth. This wasn’t any time for him to be faltering. Slowly, he pushed himself back up. Despite placing his weight on his good arm, it was still a shaky process. 

As he rose, a voice rang clear through the roar of the flames. “Well done,” she said, applauding him. “Who would have thought you’d turn out to be such a hero?”

Jake looked over his shoulder. Walking down the middle of the road along the painted lines, a hooded woman approached.

“Is this what you wanted?” he asked. The aggression in his tone was lost to his growing exhaustion.

“As always, a means to an end,” she said, unbothered, a smile resting upon her beautiful features. “The mean is you, the end is her.”

She paused. Though she was still facing him, Jake could tell that her attention had been drawn by another's presence. “She’s coming,” she said. “I can feel it.”