A Beast with a Smile

Being clinically dead for three minutes isn’t the best thing to think about when you’re only fourteen. I didn’t see my life flash before my eyes like everyone says. I got to see storm clouds rolling over the town I was imprisoned in for my entire life. I watched as lightning cracked buildings in half, tornadoes form from small gusts of hurricane winds, and worst of all, the ice cream shop flooding the streets with coffee flavored ice cream.

I can deal with bolts of energy ripping apart the horrid prison but, god why coffee flavored ice cream. Not even the road deserves that horrible burden.

I had stood in the town square watching the whole town disappear; I would try to run, only to return to the same spot in the same dull, god forsaken, brainwashed town.

I was still shocked that I had escaped. Although my personal prison was one that only exists in nightmares, I have returned every night since Archy found out how to sneak into the control center of Paradise Valley to use the shadow machine.

“The events that led to our escape only raised the tension between Atom and Tyler. Scavenger had a change in heart about how things were being run. I didn’t know the exact details, but I knew it started years back when Scavenger went out on a mission alone. He was supposed to find some escaped chromo-enhanced humans and terminate them. He came back with two kids, twins, the boy Clark and the girl Elizabeth. They are the first of their kind, a new species of human beings, children conceived from two genetically enhanced people. Tyler thought the children to be abominations and that they should be put down like a sick dog. Scavenger nearly killed Tyler when he tried. I kind of hoped he would, the little brat deserves it,” I explained the details of my past to Scarlett.

“Elly, you don’t really mean, that do you?” Scarlett asked.

We were walking down the ramp from The Mother of Time’s office. Archy and Chris were trailing behind because I asked if I could have a talk with Scarlett to thank her for Frankensteining me.

“He killed me, Scarlett. If it wasn’t for you, I’d be on the same cold table that my friends shared after bumping heads with that monster. If anyone deserves to die it would be that spoiled brat.”

“I won’t tell you he’s not a monster, but no one deserves to die. Guilt can work in both ways, Elly. I can’t tell you what to think but know that morals remind you of your actions. He will have to live in defeat for the rest of his life for what he’s done, but if you kill him you live with those sins and he’s free of the burden,” she suggested.

“Can we change the subject please? Don’t want you to think I’m an axe murderer or something.”

“Why would you need an axe if you can fry people with your fingertips?” she asked.

It was hard to not smile around Scarlett. She had a way of bringing life into any situation, no matter the danger. She brought me back from the dead with tears of love when she barely even knew me. Her tears of life could save the world one day. That’s why The Mother of Time showed her the images of her family; we needed a sample of her tears.

“Elly? Yoo-hoo? Are you even listening?” she said waved her hand in front of my eyes.

“Sorry, I was lost in my own head. What were you saying?” I said trying to hide my rosy red cheeks.

“Tell me about yourself. I know The Mother of Time’s past, and I would like to know everyone else’s.”

“Well I like long walks on the beach, destroying things with my bunny, Tiny. Uh oh… I completely forgot about Tiny,” I said, sprinting towards the barn house.

Scarlett followed after me shouting, “Archy said Hanzo got him.”

“That’s what I’m worried about,” I shouted back at her.

“Where are we going now? We are supposed to be getting power Elly,” Archy screamed from the back of the group.

“Zitto fugate, we follow the beautiful women, even to the gates of hell.”

People were still unprepared for Scarlett’s arrival and the shock could be heard from miles away. When we got close they split, making a cavern in the crowd that avoided Scarlett’s touch at all cost. One guy even jumped out of the way because her hand swung near his chest. I noticed Scarlett’s face seemed uncomfortable and filled with sorrow. She felt like a monstrosity in a sea of mutants. The farther we got, the more she felt like an outcast. When we reached the gates to the barn on the opposite end of Paradise Valley we had formed an invisible border through the refuges.

“Don’t let them bother you, Scarlett. They are just scared of what they don’t understand. You have to understand what Atom did to us…. them… they have a hard time trusting outsider,” I said, trying to comfort her

“I understand it’s just… I’ve never felt like an outcast before. Scavenger was treated like an outcast when we were growing up. People would smile and wave as he walked by, but the second his back was turned their knives were unsheathed faster than eyes can blink. They would stare, snicker, bicker, and conspire on how to dispose of the demon child of Harrison,” her eyes began to drip as she tried to hold back her emotion.

A tear fell on the dirt in front of her and sparked a flashing white light. When the black spots in my eyes faded I saw a perfect red rose sitting in the tears place. Everyone who saw gasped at the flower made from tears. Archy and Chris were dumbfounded and at a complete loss of words. I’m a sympathetic crier I’m not supposed to be put in these kinds of situations.

The audience was not helping her mood as she grew an entire vegetable garden on Hanzo’s front porch. She tried to wipe them away, but the tears were flung towards our mob of spectators. Some grew full on tree’s that carried hot dog carts and food trucks towards the perfect blue sky.

“Well, they always wanted higher revenue,” I said as a sad attempt to break the awkward silence.

Archy was unamused unlike Chris, who had lost himself in a mirror that hung near the barn door and refused to look away, his eyes trapped on every little scar.

“I thought I destroyed the last of these,” he said, touching the mirror that hung from a nail pinned in the side of the barn.

I don’t think he even realizes the chaos ensuing around us.

“Scarlett, please stop crying! You’re starting to freak people out even more,” Archy insisted.

I insisted that he shut his mouth with a small shock to his back delivered by my fist.

“Ahhhhhh!” he screamed.

“She’s killing him,” a young girl’s voice from deep inside the horde shouted.

At first, I thought they meant me, but they thought Scarlett had brought Archy so much pain. Scarlett also realized this, and I could only imagine the oasis that was about to grow at my feet. Scarlett would grow the grass and I would supply the pond with my own tears. My eyes began to water as I tried to comfort her. Archy realized this and rolled his eyes.

“Not you too. I have an idea.”

He held out his hands and activated his lightspeed construction. When the light faded a white baby, wolf was held up in his hands.

“Ta-da. Good bye tears,” he said proudly.

Scarlett’s face froze with shock, but slowly drifted to a smile.

“She’s so cute. Oh, is she mine?” she asked with childlike excitement.

“Yes, but with one condition. You have to stop growing plants and destroying my favorite food trucks.”

She nodded her head yes and he handed the pup to her.

“Archy, you know you aren’t supposed to create organisms with your abilities. Do you not remember what happened the last time?” I told him.

He rolled his eyes again and looked at me.

“How was I supposed to know a kimono dragon isn’t a species of dragon?”

“That’s just a name of a lizard thing that lives in Asia, dumb-dumb. Why would it be a dragon species? Dragons were never real. They don’t have species!”

“Guess what? They are real. I created one,” he gloated, sticking his tongue out.

“Yeah and I remember our little Jurassic Park fiasco ending with your creation eating two guards and eating through his steel cage.”

“That I also built,” he interrupted.

“And then he busted through the concrete wall and escaped into the woods.”

“Still made a freaking dragon!” he shouted.

I rolled my eyes and looked back towards Scarlett who was making funny faces at the wolf and laughing like a child. Something seemed off with her. As if she was reading my thoughts, The Mother of Time’s voice popped into my head.

“Elly, Scarlett is experiencing side effects from her mind reading earlier. She experienced a lot of feelings all at once. Her body doesn’t know how to deal with it. Her emotions will be a little bipolar for the next few hours.”

“Archy did you hear that?” I asked.

He looked at me and nodded with an uneasy expression on his face.

“I hate when she does that. It sounds like my head is the inside of a bullhorn,” he said, rubbing the back of his head.

“Why don’t you build a volume switch?” I said with a smug smile.

His grumpy face returned and said, “The lights aren’t going to turn themselves back on.”

“Yeah, yeah one second. Let me see how my pet is doing,” I said, walking towards Hanzo’s door.

I walked up the stairs and knocked on the door. I heard a stumble on the stairs and a hard plop on the top step. I spun around to see Scarlett’s hand pressed down on the last step. She had stumbled and tried to catch herself but destroyed the step instead. Her arm and hand were not remotely injured; they didn’t have a spec of dirt on them. She looked at what she had done and developed a grin the size of Kansas.

“Oh my god! Did you see that? I’m so strong!” she screamed with the strength of a gladiator after battle.

“Look. Look. Look. Look,” she held up her hand pointing at the center of it.

“Splinters fear ME” she screamed.

My own smile jumped out with such a force that my teeth exploded through my lips.

“Not even a scratch. There should be at least half a dozen nails in there,” Archy said amazed.

The wolf pup began to squirm in her arm, terrified of the wooden massacre.

“The beautiful girl may have no injures, but I unfortunately do not share the same fate,” Chris said, finally breaking his attention away from the mirror.

He stood on the other side of the wood railing with his glass armor cracked. A nail had taken an awkward bounce into Chris’s mirror-like armor. He must have summoned it before the nail hit.

“Chris, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. It was an accident…. this is all my fault,” Scarlett switched into mother mode.

“No, no, beautiful. The fault is mine, but you know what they say about love. To stand in the way of it is to stand in the way of death,” he looked down uncomfortably at his ruined side mirror.

He was disappointed, but he was too much of a flirt to show his frustration. Somehow the shock returned Scarlett’s adult emotions.

“I can fix it, Chris. Don’t worry,” Archy said.

“He’s lucky that it didn’t impale his gut,” Hanzo said, standing at attention in the doorway.

His voice nearly separated the skin from my body as my hairs shot for the moon. Scarlett shared the same start element, but her goosebumps pushed her over the railing. The pup popped out and landed gently in Hanzo’s arms. Scarlett landed on her head next to Chris’s feet and mumbled angrily as she rose from the dirt. She brushed herself off and looked at Hanzo.

“You broke my step,” he said while looking at Scarlett with a grumpy glare.

“I apologize. It was an accident. I’ll fix it.”

“Humph. Let the boy who can create the board out of thin air fix it,” he said with a glance towards Archy.

“Hi, Hanzo. Just as grumpy as always, I assume,” I stated.

“It was a long night. Had to chase down your neglected pet,” he scolded.

“Well you see...being dead makes you forget about the little things. You know, material possessions vs the freedom of my soul.”

He looked at me with the same grumpy glare.

“Follow me,” he grunted, petting the wolf pup.

He looked at the broken step, then to Archy, signaling for him to fix it. He then turned around and returned through the open door. Archy pressed his thumbs against his temples and stuck out his tongue towards the open door.

“Get to work boy. Mocking me will not fix my step,” his voice echoed from somewhere inside the house.

The pup made a puppy sized howl, enforcing Hanzo’s wishes. Archy rolled his eyes but complied with Hanzo’s demands. He held the broken wood where it was, before the karate kid split it like sand. He closed his eyes and light flowed from his hands onto the board, duplicating and building on to what was broken. The step was quickly new. There was always this sense of mystical bewilderment whenever he created. I won’t ever tell him that, he’d never let me hear the end of it.

“So now you’re a repair man too? What happened to master inventor?” Scarlett asked, smiling.

He didn’t turn around to meet her eyes. He stared at a splintered piece of wood, rolling it around in his fingers.

“My mom used to always say that when you hold a fragment of your past, you are holding the first stepping stone of your future. The more stones you collect, the easier it is to cross the river,” Archy said, twiddling with the splintered wood.

He rose from his knees and faced Scarlett, holding out the splintered wood.

“Take it,” he demanded.

Scarlett slowly held out her hand looking confused and distrustful of Archy’s gift.

“Take it so you remember how strong you are when you need to break through the strongest door ever made. Treat it like you treated this step.”

She smiled and took the piece, “Thank you Archy. I’m sorry about the step.”

Chris loudly cleared his throat.

“Oh, and for Chris’s crystal armor.”

“I like the sound of crystal armor. Makes me sound hard as a rock,” Chris acknowledged while puffing out his chest and standing in the generic superhero pose.

“I can fix the armor quickly. It’s just a small break, but I need some…”

A loud crash slammed down next me. Chris stood over the mirror, with his hands still raised to the sky.

“Oh, no. My apologies. I thought I had it in my hands a lot tighter. I apologize, beautiful girl, for the startle. Archy, will this be enough to fix my armor?”

Chris played off with a false sense of innocence.

“Chris, I was going to say I needed time to work on it. Repairing these aren’t as easy as fixing small boards on a house. They take lots of time and there’s never a guarantee that they will work perfectly.”

“Don’t you remember the first time he made one? The fire was so big I was sure the town would have been nothing but ash,” I teased.

Archy’s face grew a shade of red that I had never seen before. It wasn’t furry, but embarrassment. All my life I’d never seen Archy blush before. I wondered if the fool was in love.

“Turns scarlet for Scarlett,” I laughed to myself and unknowingly outload.

“You try building the most advanced suit known to man and get it right on the first try!” he huffed and puffed as he walked up the stairs and into Hanzo’s house.

“What’s his problem?” Scarlett asked, following in a slow pursuit up the newly repaired step.

“He doesn’t know how to accept failure. When we bring up anything he’s done wrong he…”

“Throws a tantrum like a four-year-old baby,” Chris yapped, following Scarlett up the stairs.

“Shut up, Chris. You don’t know the first thing about what Atom did to him.”

“And you do, Frizzy?”

The name shot up my spine, leaving a trail of tensed muscles and hatred. I could feel the storm in my eyes unleashing bolts powerful enough to split mountains. The lights around me began to flicker and bounce between bright and hellish dark. I was draining too much power. I need to calm down.

I closed my eyes, “Happy place, happy place, happy place...ok...ok lighting storms splitting trees, so they can see their better half, monsoon rains giving people a reason to invest in boats, hurricanes rocking the ocean to sleep, twisters giving man the ability to fly.”

I took a deep breath and opened my eyes to see Scarlett’s concerned green eyes meeting my grey stormy eyes.

“You ok?” she asked.

I nodded and forced out a smile. I turned to Chris, trying to keep every emotion down, refusing to let them anywhere near the surface.

“Can we please go inside?”

“I go where the beautiful girl goes,” he smirked at Scarlett.

“Well, I’m going inside. You two are welcome to join me,” she replied and walked through the door.

Chris followed like a lost puppy wanting to be chained. I stayed back for a second longer to make sure I was completely in control.

I looked up at the perfect blue sky whose only flaw was the hot dog carts and food trucks suspended in air by a girl who might save us all one day.

The blue flickered black, a sign that reality was about to come crashing down on us. We needed power and I was the only one who could do it.

At least I’ll finally be able to get rid of the storm inside me.