“Two minutes earlier,” said Sam, “a new record. Keep this up, and you’ll be right on time.”

I sat at the kitchen table and began my breakfast. Mom and Dad were nowhere to be seen. They must’ve got a head start on the day. On the table were leftover pancakes and bacon.

Good enough for me.

The mood at the table was tense. I guess everyone sensed I was in a mood mainly because I didn’t snap back at Sam. Mack was still acting odd and Jason looked as though he was exhausted. It was only Tuesday and already we were wishing it to be Friday.

At least I was.

Because now I had to face the kids at school over what happened yesterday. Mack was grabbing his things which signaled to us that it was time to go. I hadn’t touched my food. Between yesterday’s awkward first day and last night's weird dream, I wasn’t feeling up to the task of doing anything today, let alone eating.

After a quiet ride, we finally made it to the school. I entered the hallways and immediately regretted it as eyes locked onto me from all angles. My nerves grabbed hold of me. I needed to move.

I finally came to my locker and upon opening it, all I wanted to do was stuff my head inside. I grabbed my books for first period and slammed it shut.

“Hey,” it was Joss.

“Oh, hey,” I said, somewhat relieved, but mostly a bit skeptical.

“Man, that was sick what you did yesterday,” said Joss.

Not the response I was looking for but alright, I’ll allow it.

“I’ve never seen anything like that before.”

“You and everyone else.” I began on my way to class.“I didn’t know what I was doing, okay! It just happened.”

“What are you talking about?”

I stopped and turned to him with a serious look. “Did you notice anything weird about me yesterday?”

He was taken aback. “Weird how?”

“Just…ugh,” I couldn’t even explain it to him because I wasn’t even sure myself. “Nevermind!”

“I mean, your eyes were all weird and stuff…”

“Weird how?”

“Like, they might have been like…orange, but that could’ve been just the sun in my opinion.”

Great, he noticed.

Would people really fall for that? Green eyes suddenly turning orange in the sunlight?

“What else?”

“You did start to look hot. Some veins started to pop out, but dude, you were mad. Everyone gets mad and starts to turn red, and has that one bulging vein every once in a while.”

Okay, that made sense.

Maybe I was overthinking it. Sam made it sound like I had transformed into a fire demon or something. The way Joss just described everything put it all in a sort of perspective.

“There was one thing though,”

Here it comes. I knew it was too good to be true.

“I wanna say something was going on with your teeth…but I wasn’t really paying attention. I was too busy watching you kick ass.”

So, it wasn’t really that bad after all. If Joss could make these justifications maybe everyone else who watched what went down yesterday could too.

Only one could hope though.

We both continued our walk.

“Ma man, you okay?” he asked.

“I’m fine, I just don’t like the attention.”

“Dude this is high school. One day you're at the top of the rumor mill, next you’re yesterday’s news.”

“You think so?”

I wanted him to reassure me.

“Absolutely. Watch, there'll be some kid leaving the bathroom with toilet paper stuck to his shoe and then nobody will even remember you.”

He was probably right. I needed to lay low and not bring attention to myself.

As we turned the corner, it felt like simply lying low was going to be a bit easier said than done.

Walking towards me was TJ. Our eyes made contact and I was instinctively ready to turn around. His hand was wrapped and his face was extremely passive. Then, without warning, he just blew past me without saying anything.

I looked at Joss and he looked at me, bewildered.

We both turned around and saw TJ just walk away, turning a corner as he did. Disappearing from sight.

“Wh…what just happened?” My mind was in complete shambles.

“Um…I think you just dodged a bullet…”

Not sure if this was good or bad, but it was okay for me for now. Henceforth started day one of laying low.

The day was pretty bland after that. Like Joss said, everything seemed to die down. I was a nobody again and it felt great. The random stares and the awkward looks started to lessen throughout the day, and thus all was right with the universe again. The final bell of the day rang and I grabbed my bang and headed for my locker.

I took the books I would need for homework and was ready to go.

“Hi,” said a voice. When I turned around all I saw were these beautiful hazel eyes and her miraculous smile.

I died.

Yeah that’s it.

I was dead.

Because there was no way she was here, right now, talking to me.

Na uh.

Not after having a giant ketchup stain on my shirt yesterday.

Impossible.

I just stood there with no words and all of a sudden I found myself staring awkwardly at her.

That must’ve been my default mode.

The Stare Creeper.

“Are you okay?” She asked

“I’m…I’m…I’m….just fine.” I stuttered.

“Okay, well,” she said awkwardly. “I’m Jenny.”

“I know…”

Creep factor alert.

Do I introduce myself as Dye or as Theodore?

She waited for me to say something. I needed to make a decision five second ago.

“My name is Theodore but everyone calls me Dye because when I was a kid I tried to dye the carpet in my room and my parents almost had a cow but then my brothers started calling me Dye as a way to tease me, and then my parents started calling me that and then all of my friends and now everyone calls me that. You can call me that if you’d like, or just Theodore, or whatever you want. I don’t care.”

Did I say all that with one breath?

“Uh…huh,” she said. I could see she was getting uncomfortable, her eyes wandering about. She was second guessing her move. I just knew it. “I just wanted to say sorry for yesterday.”

S…Sorry? For what?”

“I should’ve helped you up yesterday. My friends could be a bit pushy sometimes.”

“Oh, no that’s okay.”

“I saw you protect your brother yesterday. That was really brave of you.”

She thinks I’m brave.

“Oh that? That was nothing. Just me being me.”

She giggled. Did I just make her laugh? Do I add that to my scoreboard?

“Well, nice meeting you. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

She turned and flowed away and I say flowed because it was as though she was gliding along the floors. Or maybe that was just me high on her perfume. Either way, that was the best thirty seconds of my life.

Maybe this high school thing wasn't as bad as I thought.

Then again, this was only day two.

The walk home was peaceful and how could it not. Everything was starting to fall back into place. I was yesterday’s news, or at least that's what it felt like. A pretty girl talked to me and I made a friend. Not bad for my first two days of highschool.

But then there was still the mystery that was me. What exactly happened yesterday? Why was I having all these weird dreams about doomsday and golden armored people?

Was Sam making any headway on his theories or was I supposed to just figure this out on my own?

Lost in my own thoughts, the blaring sounds of a fire engine roared past me. Its loud engine and overbearing sirens nearly gave me a heart attack. Above the horizon, there was a plume of smoke rising into the sky.

It was close.

I could smell the fire from here.

It wouldn’t hurt going to check out what all the commotion was about. It wasn’t everyday you saw firefighters putting out a fire.

There was an apartment building that was blazing. The second, third and fourth floors had fire just gushing out of the windows. It was a few block’s walk and when I arrived, I stood well away from the crowd of people gathering. I watched as the firefighters quickly assembled their fire hose.

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It was impressive to see them get it done so quickly.

The high-pressure water shot onto the burning building, doing its best to try and put out the flames, but to no avail. It didn’t look like it was effective. That building was coming down and there was no stopping it.

A woman wailed.

“Ma’am!” I heard the firefighter say, “You can’t go in there. The building is going to come down any moment now.”

I heard her weep louder.

“Please! Please, my two children are in there.”

“I’m sorry, Ma’am, but the foundation is unstable!”

Burning wood fell to the ground.

Were there really kids in there?

The thought was painful to even think that two kids were still stuck in there. Was it possible for them to even still be alive?

A silly thought, but could I somehow withstand the heat long enough to find them and get them out? I mean, I got really hot yesterday. Was I hotter than these flames?

Oh man. I wanted to see, but mainly, if there were two kids trapped in there somebody had to get in there and make sure. I could still hear the sobs of the woman. She was sure they were still trapped inside.

I hype myself up.

“Okay, Dye, this is a crazy idea. You’re an idiot for trying it!”

Sam said he was going to wait and observe.

So my logic was, if something truly did happen to us that night, then this was my opportunity to test the limits of that theory.

If I was wrong, maybe I would just heal.

If I was right, even more questions.

What a lovely trade off.

“Okay, here I go…”

This was crazy, but it could be the best solution I had to possibly save two lives.

I took off into a sprint. I pumped my arms as fast as I could with the intention of forcing my way through the crowd, through the barricade, and into the building. This was going to suck, but there was no turning back now. I started to move faster, and as I picked up speed, everything around me started to blur. The sensation of moving really fast took me by surprise.

Something was happening.

I felt cold, metal begin creeping up my legs. On my fingers, I saw the gold metal spreading out across my hands and down my arms to my shoulders. It traveled up my torso and covered every inch of me. The clips of metal crawled up my head and the armor closed on my face, giving me this weird symbol that I was able to see out of.

SHIT!

The crowd was coming up too fast. I made a last minute decision and leaped over them, but it was a bit more than a leap. I literally vaulted over everyone and everything that was in my way. I saw all the bystanders look up at me, mouths dropped and eyes wide, as they watched me crash through the third floor window. I tumbled to a stop, my armor sliding across the floor. I stood up, the floor beginning to collapse beneath my feet. I jumped over to the nearest platform as the one I was on collapsed.

The good news was I couldn’t feel the heat.

The bad news, I didn’t see any children.

“HELLO!” I cried.

I went to move and my body accelerated, plowing me through a wall. I rolled to the ground and stopped myself. I needed to figure that out, but not right now.

“HELLO! ANYBODY IN HERE?”

“HELP US!”

I heard it. It came from behind me. I moved again and everything around me blurred and within seconds, I was in another room.

“YOU IN HERE?”

“HELP US, PLEASE!”

The voices were coming from behind a closed door I saw over to my right. I went over to it to open it and it just fell off its hinges.

There they were. Two little kids. A boy and a girl.

They had black smudges on their faces and were sweaty from the heat but they were alive.

“Okay, kiddos, time to go.”

As I stepped through to grab them, the floor beneath us collapsed. We were falling three stories and like before, my instincts kicked in and I reacted. I grabbed the little boy and secured him in my arms. I kicked off a wall and propelled myself towards the girl and grabbed her. With both of them under each arm, I landed. I looked up and fiery debris was falling. I secured the kids beneath me and threw myself over them, using my armored body as a shield as it all came crashing down.

The debris fell on top of me. Bricks, pieces of wood, pipes, you name, all of it buried me. None of it mattered though because strangely enough, the weight didn’t increase, even with chunks of cement and metal piling up on top of me.

The kids were safe. That’s all I really cared about. They huddled together underneath me, whimpering.

“It’s okay kids,” I said reassuringly. “I’m going to get you out of here. I promise.

Okay Dye, let’s do this.

I pushed against the fallen apartment building lying on top of me. Everything started to shift as I felt my body being able to break free. The kids shrieked as dust and ash fell on their faces. I got my feet planted flat and all of the debris slid off me, bringing with it the sense of freedom. The sunlight hit the kids' faces as they finally realized they were safe. As I emerged, I shrugged a slab of concrete off me and it toppled over and broke. I can imagine how cool I looked doing it.

“THERE THEY ARE!” cried one of the first responders, hiking over to me through the rubble. I stepped aside and allowed them to tend to the children. They placed oxygen masks on them as their mother came frantically running over, despite the hazardous rubble.

“Are they going to be okay?” I asked.

The firefighter looked at me and I had forgotten that I was wearing armor because he was stunned.

“Um…yeah…”he replied.

The mother looked at me with tears.

“Thank you!” she clasped her hands together. “Thank you so much.”

“Oh…yeah…um…It was nothing,” not sure that was the right thing to say but

She was very grateful.

“Who are you?” asked one of the paramedics.

This was the part where I gave a fancy superhero name and made my grand exit. Just one problem.

I didn’t have one.

“Um…just your friendly neighborhood….” don’t say spiderman. “....armored guy.”

The paramedic just stared at me.

Way to go, Dye.

Real smooth.

All the credibility you just had saving a couple of children just went out the window.

Well done.

“Uh…got to go now…” I said.

I ran across the rubble but there was no superspeed.

And now the grand exit was an epic fail.

I saw the bystanders behind the barricade whip out their phones. They aimed their cameras at me, getting me, whatever I was, on tape.

“Okay, I gotta get outta here.”

How did I do that super speed thing? Come on, work already.

I tried running again and in an instant everything blurred. There it was. I was running through the streets of Beach Shores blinding fast. As quickly as it started I stopped, nearly tripping over myself and tumbling to the ground.

“Okay, figured that out, I guess. Now how do I get this armor off?”

I ended up in an alleyway, but what I really wanted to do was just go home. But I couldn’t until I figured out how to get this armor off. Did I have to take it off manually? I reached for my metal head to see if this helmet would slide off.

No luck.

I tried to slide the metal off my arms.

Nothing. It was like it was bonded to my skin. In fact, it felt like it was my skin. I needed to get this off and fast.

“Okay Dye, just relax, calm down.”

How did I even get this on? My superspeed thing came and the next thing I knew this armor was covering my body.

But that couldn’t be it. I just ran again and the armor didn’t disappear.

It must’ve responded to how I felt at the time. I wanted to save the kids. That was my primary focus and then the armor arrived.

Power…

I remembered from a faint voice.

That was it.

Power Only Comes To Those Who Need It.

I needed something extra to save those kids, so whatever was happening to me must have responded to my need, that need, and it gave me more power.

Hence the armor.

So now I think all I had to do was not need the power anymore. I concentrated on that idea. The kids were safe, they were alive. I didn’t need this armor.

A cyclone of fire surrounded me. My body was returning to normal as I felt the armored helmet disappear around my face. The fire stopped, and there I was. Me again.

“That was wild. But I think I could get used to this.”

I was finally home. Everything that happened today was absolutely insane and wild but crazy and invigorating.

I was a superhero.

Me.

Everytime I said it to myself I got chills. I sat there in the living room just going over all of it in my head. I ran so fast that everything around me blurred in an instant. I wore armor that made me feel invincible. I rescued two kids from a burning building and it collapsed on top of me, and here I was, not a scratch.

“Bro, did you see this video? It’s wild.”

There was Jason, somehow home first again, walking out of the kitchen eating a stick of cheese.

“Dude, do you ever go to school?”

“On occasion,” he replied, “But seriously though, you gotta see this!”

He had his phone and whatever he was looking at didn’t even allow him to take his eyes away for a second. I don’t think he even looked at me once. He gave me his phone and there I was.

My golden body was standing up from the debris and throwing the slab of concrete from my back.

I looked cooler seeing myself do it than actually doing it.

“So this dude just ran out of nowhere, right? Straight into a burning building and rescued these two kids and it didn’t even phase him.”

“Jason…”

“I mean, I’ve seen some pretty insane stuff before but nothing like this.”

“....Jason…”

“I mean, even though I've done some rad things before, this takes the cake, man.”

“JASON!!”

“Do you get it, bro? We have superhero heroes now.”

He looked at me with a bit too much excitement.

“Jason….it was me.” his face changed. He narrowed his eyes suspiciously.

“What do you mean it was you?”

I had to prove it to him. I wondered if I could do my speed thing and not trash the house. He looked at me and waited.

I turned my head to the top of the stairs and focused. As though I was about to sprint, my body accelerated and I stopped immediately at the top of the climb; the table with a flower vase rocking. I grabbed it quickly before it toppled.

Jason looked around frantically for me.

“Hey, dopey, up here!”

He turned to the top of the stairs and saw me there. “Bro, how did you even…” his hands went to his head like his brain just exploded. “THAT’S WILD, MY DUDE!”

I sped down and plopped on the couch.

“Dude, you gotta show me the armor…”

“Um…” thinking about what happens when I summon that thing. “I would rather not unless you want me to burn down the house.”

“Okay, bro, don’t freak but…” Jason rubbed his hands together and prepared himself. What was he doing? “You ready?” He closed his eyes, and right before me, I started to see right through him.

Now I knew what it felt like to see something out of this world. My eyes widened as Jason’s body started to disappear right in front of me. He faded away and soon he was nowhere to be seen.

“Dude!”

“DUDE!!” I could still hear him.

“DUDE!” I chanted with excitement.

“I KNOW RIGHT?” he came back into view.

“What–how the–what just–when did you?” I had so many questions.

“Bro, I can tell you, ditching school has never been so easy.” So that’s how he’s been doing it. That’s how he’s always home first. He probably just ditches the moment we get to school. “Not to mention instant access to the girl’s locker room.”

“You perv!”

“Oh come on, like you wouldn’t.”

I probably would.

“But how did you figure it out?”

He plopped down into the recliner and took another bite of his cheese stick. “Dude, I just wanted to go surfing. I got a tip that Calico Point was going to be the place to be and the first day of school is only intros anyway. I remember really wanting to just get out of there. Next thing I knew, nobody could see me. I didn’t even think twice. I just bounced.”

“I save kids from a burning building, you ditch class.”

He smiled at me, taking another bite of his cheese.

“So what does this all mean?” I ask.

“Bro, call me crazy, but I don’t think that dream we had was a dream at all. I think it actually happened.”

“Yeah me, too.”

“Me three!”

The front closed and there was Sam. He set his bag down and sat on the couch. “The whole school is already talking about some golden person saving kids from a burning building.”

Great. Well at least the good part was they didn’t know it was me. Then I looked at Sam. “Wait…you know it was me, don’t you.”

He nodded. He never misses a beat.

“From all the weird things that’s been happening to us since we got back, it makes sense. Couldn’t have been Jason because…well, he’s Jason.”

“Sitting right in front of you, my dude.”

“Wasn’t me because I haven’t done anything special since healing. Dye, you’ve displayed the most unusual abilities since we’ve been back. It all just comes together when you think about it.”

I look at Sam and then crane my neck over to Jason. “So what now? What happened to us?”

Sam was quiet.

“Maybe our bodies got possessed by some weird animal spirits and now we have super powers. Dye has armor which is super dope.” Jason leaned forward. “Whoa, wait…you don’t think we get armor too, do you?”

“I don’t know, maybe…” I replied.

“Now, that would be rad, my dude.”

Sam was quiet. He wasn’t doing his calculation trance thing. Instead, he looked like he was disappointed. Not sure why though. In the last two days, he got more displays of unusual things we could do that would help solidify his theories. Instead, he just sulked on the couch.

“Dye, how did you do that?”

“I can tell you, all I wanted to do was ditch class.” Jason jumped in.

Sam looked at Jason. “You too?”

“Oh, yeah, he can go invisible…” I point at Jason over my shoulder with my thumb.

“No armor though,” Jason said, sticking his neck out to look around me and at Sam. “At least not yet.”

Sam brooded even more.

Why?

“To answer your question, I don’t know, I wanted to do something, and whatever this is it responded. It happened twice with TJ and again with the armor.”

“Hmmm…I see.” Sam got to his feet.

“What are you thinking?” I ask.

“I’m going to try some things and see if I can’t figure this out.”

Sam picked up his bag and headed up the stairs. We heard a door close and that was it.

“Dude,” said Jason, breaking the silence. “We’re going to be superheroes.”

“We? You don’t have any armor.”

He took another bite of his cheese. “I don’t have armor…yet.”