When the police arrive my vision blurs, the only thing left in my sight is the small flame extinguishing in my palm. The sirens are loud. People are yelling and running around but I suddenly dont have the strength to care. Everything goes cold.
I'm suddenly in a dream, a dark void surrounds me. I can't hear anything or see anything at all. My world is empty. But I can feel. I feel a warmth in my chest. I feel it spread through my body, slowly. It feels natural, like I've been missing it my whole life. Like I found something I had lost. One word come to my mind, burn. Burn. Burn. BURN. BURN!
Beep. Beep. Beep. All I heard now is this incessant beeping. I try to open my eyes but its bright. Slowly I adjust and look at my surrounding, Im hooked up to several machines. I'm alone in a hospital room. I try to sit up but to my surprise I'm strapped to the bed! I begin to struggle, as a nurse walks in the room.
She looks at me, her eyes go wide and she rushes to my side. "Hey it's ok, Did you just wake up?" she asks. I relax and nod. looking at her clipboard she takes some notes "What's the last thing you remember?" I think "There was a fire, and a man was stuck inside, what happened to him?" She smiles "Oh he's fine. In fact he would like to pay a visit soon if you dont mind." I sigh. She continues to ask me questions about my health, what I can remember, ect.
"Why am I strapped down?" I ask. "Oh, you were tossing and turning while you were asleep, we didnt want you to fall down and get hurt" She begins undoing the buckles. "Um, this might not be the best time, but I dont have insurance, is there some sort of payment plan I can get on for the bill?" I'm stressed at this point, I really dont have the financial stability to worry about something like this right now.
She shakes her head "You dont need to worry about that, the man you saved has offered to cover all your expenses." I sit there shocked. Medical bills are expensive, I can't let this man take such a debt for my sake. I'll need to talk to him about that later. "You said he would like to visit, is he here?" she shakes her head "He was released three days ago." Three days!?!?
"If he was released three days ago how long have I been here?" She tells me everything, I had been in a comatose state for the past week. The fire was put out and nobody else was harmed. The man I saved looked like he was in bad shape but he turned out alright with some minor sprains and burns. I'm astonished. Surely I'm going to be fired. I haven't been to work in so long.
She tells me they would like to keep me for another day for observation, and that I should expect some visitors soon. "Um, what happened to my clothes and my phone?" "Unfortunately they burned up in the fire, they weren't salvageable." She gets up and heads for the door. "Please try to rest now. I'll be back soon"
I sit up and look myself over, not a single burn or bruise. I look at my palms. What was that fire? Why am I unharmed, and why did I sleep so long? A million questions are running through my mind as a knock on the door grounds me back to reality.
"Come in!" The door opens and a few men in suits enter to my surprise, they look like bodyguards. "Leon?" One asks tentatively. I nod. "Who are you?" We are with the government, and to be frank we would like to ask you the same thing. Who, and what are you?" I'm confused. "What do you mean by that?" He pulls out a phone and plays a video, it's kinda shaky but I can tell what it is, it's the store!
Suddenly I see myself running to the scene! I burst through the door and moments later the building is engulfed in flames! I watch to the end. The puts it away. "This is what I mean." Am I in trouble? The thought crosses my mind. "I dont know. I'm just a regular guy, I work at the restaurant up the road. Nothing like this has ever happened to me before." He nods. "None of this has gone public, we dont really understand ourselves. There have been strange occurrences for the past few days and we would like to keep them isolated as possible"
"What do you mean by occurrences?" His eyes narrow. "Please sign this waiver stating you wont speak of what we tell you today" I read it over and sign. He gets straight to the point. Freak accidents have been happening all over the world. People with "Abilities" have been rising out of nowhere, almost always in a life or death situation. He explains that I'm somehow immune to fire, but that's all they could figure out.
They leave and I sit there mulling over the information I've been given. I look at my palm. Immunity to fire? That can't be all that was. I remember holding the flame, I remember the cool tingling feeling from it slipping through my fingers. FWOOSH! Flames rise from my hand as I imagined! Fire immunity? No this is something completely different!
Something clicked in my mind. When I pictured the fire it was identical to my imagination! I extinguish it and focus. I focus on a flame like a torch. A blue beam of plasma. It works! In the palm of my hand is a solitary stream of fire like a small jet! Suddenly my head hurts, the same feeling I had when I was outside the store comes back and everything fades back to darkness. Apparently this power comes with a price.