The three of us stood in the broken doorway, looking out at the carnage on the street. No monsters were in sight, but that didn't mean we could relax. The fires from the cars had died out, leaving wisps of smoke drifting into the air, haunting me with memories of how Mother had looked. I wondered if she was somehow able to see us wherever she was.
I took the first step into the snow covered ground. The frozen crystals crunched under my feet, my shoes barely keeping the moisture away. Last thing I needed was frozen shoes because water got in.
I heard Leo and Ryan following behind me, Leo wearing a pair of my dad's boots and Ryan wearing a pair of shoes that he'd snagged from my closet. It wasn't a perfect fit, them slightly snug, but he needed something over his feet, since the hospital still hadn't returned his shoes before everything fell apart.
A scream came from the distance, obviously not human, and the ground began to shake.
"Run!" I yelled and moved down the street at inhuman speed.
The earth grew in front of me, a pile of concrete growing into the form of a bubble, leaving me no doubt that this was one of Mothers creatures. Pale pink tentacles moved around the pile and a large gash in the stone, I assumed was supposed to be a mouth. Almost 2 stories tall, I had to fight back the scream that was trying to come out.
"What the fuck..." Ryan stood next to me, clearly afraid.
I couldn't move, terror freezing me in my tracks, as I remembered my dad being pulled away b a similar tentacle. It was this kind of creature that had pulled my dad into the crater. I just knew it. Images of the blood bath flashed through my head, and I felt like I was about to fall apart. Then I remember the expectations on me. I couldn't save anyone if fear took hold.
A tentacle swung at is and I pushed Leo and Ryan back, dropping the backpack. I felt it make contact with my side, strength wrapping around me and lifting me into the air.
"Kim!" Leo called in a panic.
I fought the hold of the tentacle, trying to free myself. My hands touched the slime and the creature let out a loud cry of pain. The tentacle froze under my hands and a plan formed in my head. The tentacle swing and I was thrown to the side, my back hitting the front of my neighbors house. The air burst from my lungs and the solid wall hitting my back with frosty pain. My head just barely missed the stone building, hitting a window instead. I fell from where I'd hit, prepared for the pain of hitting the ground.
I landed with a thump, feeling a chilly kind of warmth instead of frozen cement. Leo's shadow held me just a few feet off of the ground. Leo stood next to his shadow, and I saw his eyes were slightly moist and filled with fear. I coughed, my body stiff and my mind still reeling from the hit.
"Kim! Kim! Speak to me" he begged.
I saw past him, Ryan was shooting balls of light at the creature, somehow keeping it from moving.
"I...I have...and Idea" I hacked.
Leos shadow set me on the ground and Leo himself squatted in front of me. I gripped my chest, trying to force the air back into my lungs, feeling the cold easing and freezing on the back of my head.
"We have to get away. Not plans of attack, just running" Leo argued.
I shook my head, logic telling me that we'd never be able to get away.
'Give up, my child, do not fight' I heard Mothers voice.
I grabbed the railing of the stairs to the doorway, using all of my strength to get to my feet. My back felt like lead, pain urging me to sit back down. I stumbled into the street, feeling Leo at my side, prepared to catch me if I fell again.
I made it to where Ryan was angrily attacking the creature with light.
"Ryan" I gasped, hearing my voice crack "I need you to break that creatures stone shell."
"What?!" he paused between throws to look at me.
"Send your strongest attack at it. I need the stones out of the way."
He hesitated, then nodded.
He held his hands above his head, a painful expression cloaking his face as the light built between his hands. Gravel moved and the light grew painful to look at as it got larger. Then Ryan grunted and threw a giant streak of light.
An explosion erupted from the point of impact. The creature screeched and recoiled, the stone crumbling away from where Ryan had hit.
It was my turn now. I steadied myself, and formed a ball of ice in my hand. Leo watched me skeptically and I threw the ball. It landed just barely within the small opening. At first nothing happened, then the creature cried out again, and the pink tint started turning pale blue. The rest of the stone began to fall apart, exposing more freezing slime. I almost felt bad when the creature began to whimper, then I remembered the ice on the back of my head and the ache in my lower back.
We all watched the pink fluid freeze, solidifying in a way that looked painful even to me. Then the ice began to crack, chunks falling and shattering. We had to move back to avoid being crushed. I felt almost a thrill of adrenaline at the sight of my power in action, and understood for just a moment the enjoyment that Leo felt with his shadow. But I held onto my logical mind. I couldn't risk losing control.
"Did you know that would happen?" Leo asked, never removing his eyes from where the creature had once stood in full length.
"I had a theory when I saw how the slimy arm made contact with my hands. It was fluid, which naturally means that I could freeze it. And ice is painful to even the most solid of creatures.' I explained.
Adrenaline stopped in my veins and I collapsed backwards, landing on my backside.
Leo yelled my name and Ryan quickly knelt in front of my, holding my head and using a small beam of light to examine my eyes as if he were a doctor. It was almost amusing hearing them panic over something other than monsters and Mother.
"I-I'm alright" I barely spoke above a whisper. "It just hurts a little."
I weakly moved my hand to the back of my head and wrestled the ice away from my hair. My whole body throbbed and the looks of concern never left Leo or Ryan. I laid into the snow, looking up as the fluff came down from who knew where anymore. I felt like everything I had known was gone, the science that I'd always believed in no longer made sense. All I knew now was that I was a walking ice sculpture that hid behind human skin. Fantasy had somehow become reality and I honestly didn't know how to handle it. I had resolved myself to fight, and to win, but the pain almost made me want to listen to Mother, and to give up. The image of my father barely even registering in my mind.
"Kim? Are you okay?" Leo asked softly.
He leaned over me and I looked at him, afraid that he would try making a move.
I smiled brightly, the snow actually numbing my already cold skin.
"I'm fine. I just hurt a little."
I closed my eyes and relaxed with the feeling of snow acting as a cushion. I listened to the crunching steps of the others, then a quiet thump and felt the warmth of someone on my right. They felt warm, so I guessed it was Ryan. He just laid next to me in silence, and Leo took the place to my left. If I thought hard enough, I could imagine that it was a recess of my childhood, where I could play in the snow and mess around with friends as if there wasn't a care in the world. I even thought back on the years I spent training with my mom, or practicing with chemicals with my dad. Those days now felt happy instead of stressful. I no longer needed to be the perfect child, no longer had to act content in a life I had never truly felt comfortable in. Maybe I had always known that I wasn't normal. Those parasites had infected us for a reason. They could have picked anyone else, but they chose us. I could only assume it was because of something in our DNA. No other reason than the thought that we were somehow special. Something inside of us that made us compatible with the infection.
I didn't know how much time passed. When I opened my eyes again, light was rising in the sky, dimmed by the murky clouds. I didn't feel either Leo or Ryan by my sides, and a jacket was covering me. I didn't fully comprehend where I was, until I looked to my side, at the remains of a taxi car. I wanted to go back to the blissful ignorance.
I groaned as I got into a sitting position, letting the jacket fall into my lap. I held back tears as I recognized my dad's winter jacket. Leo had worn it out of the house. The black material was stiff from snow that had landed on it and frozen.
"Kim?" I heard Leo speak from the stairway that I remembered falling toward the night before.
I realized that I was only mildly stiff, with no real pain. I had some serious healing abilities.
"What time is it?" I looked around, the haze of sleep fading.
"The clock in this guys place says 10:30. Who knew anybody used old coo-coo clocks anymore" he laughed quietly.
I pressed my fingers into the black faux fur inside of the jacket. I felt stiff and cold.
"Hope you don't mind" Ryan ran out of a door in a house to my right "we found some more food. We thought you would be hungry when you woke up."
He held up a box of those uncooked, prepackaged burgers. My stomach grumbled in response, and I finally realized how little I'd actually eaten. A small chunk of meat was enough to keep me going, but not entirely satisfying.
I stood up, bringing the jacket with me, then tossed it to Leo. I smiled at him, then looked to Ryan as he ripped the plastic open.
"Good. I'm famished."
My body moved with ease, the cold barely fazing me. My clothes crinkled with the motion, but I didn't care.
He held out a patty to me, the chunk slightly squishing when I grabbed it.
"I can't thaw it like you can, but I think I did a decent job of it."
"Dude, don't leave me out of this" Leo called, running across the slush and ice.
I couldn't help but laugh when he managed to step just wrong in the street and his foot slid out from under him. He landed roughly on his backside. Something no teenager could truly ignore. Ryan's laugh the first time I'd even seen that kind of reaction from him. Strange as it was, I almost wished this moment could last forever.
"You guys don't have to laugh so much" Leo growled.
He got up and walked to where me and Ryan stood. I was already eating, savoring the taste that almost matched a cooked burger. It didn't make sense for it to taste so good, but, then again, nothing made sense anymore. Now was the time of survival, and we would do anything we had to in order to do that.
We ate in peaceful silence, the damage barely even fazing me anymore. It was scary how quickly I was getting used to everything.
"By the way..." Ryan looked at me sheepishly. He held up the backpack. "The box is fine, but it looks like your iPod broke when you dropped your backpack."
I bit back a groan. I had grabbed the iPod for the possibility of not being able to sleep. Now I just had to deal with the nights the annoying way. Though it was probably for the best.
"It's fin" I lied "I just brought it along if I wanted to listen to music while relaxing. But I doubt we'll have much relaxing time."
"Yeah" Leo grumbled around his last handful of beef "we gotta find the others and kill Mother."
"You don't need to sound so eager to kill someone" Ryan looked shocked.
"Hey, she's the one who wants us to eat people. I think she deserves to die."
"Guys, now isn't the time to argue" I interrupted before a fight broke out. "We have to find the others like us before anything else. Mother will come later."
Ryan nodded, looking at me like I'd just won a noble-peace-prize. Like the leader I had become.
"So what first? Where do we looked?" Leo asked, practically glaring at Ryan.
I thought for a moment, then said "Well, the creatures seem to dislike the light, so we should probably look underground, where it's dark.
"The sewer?" Ryan grimaced.
"I hope they aren't in the sewer" I laughed softly "I meant the subway."
He let out an exaggerated sigh which got even Leo laughing. I took my backpack back from Ryan and stood up. My clothes cracked with the frost as I moved, but I figured that it was something I would have to get used to.
"The nearest subways as just about a mile away. You guys up for a walk?" I smiled at each of them.
"I'm all set." Ryan smiled back.
"Oh man, I was hoping to eat some more."
I held back a laugh and looked at Leo.
He looked around pathetically, as if by looking he'd find an all you can eat buffet.
"We can't eat too much. We'll get tired faster. We eat what's necessary until all of this is over." I stated smoothly.
Leo stepped next to me, a pleading look on his face.
"Don't worry, we'll get this out of the way and then we'll eat as much as we can" I assured him.
"I'm holding you to that" he nodded.
I started walking down the road, fighting the doubt that plagued my mind. I couldn't exactly let them see me falter, since I was supposed to be the leader of this, but it wasn't easy holding up the front of complete control.
It took about 30 minutes to get to the subway, including the stops we all needed for bathroom breaks. We broke the doors of 2 houses and I went into one while the guys went into the other. Since I had a tendency of freezing the water, we didn't have much choice but to go to different places.
Ryan managed to keep Leo from taking forever in the house and I met up with them outside.
"You guys are way too serious" Leo grumbled and I ignored the urge to slap him for being too careless.
Again, silence returned as we walked, and we were at the subway before we had even realized it. I hesitated, looking down into the darkness that had been filled with at least 50 people at this time of day.
"What do you think we can expect down there?" Ryan stood to my right, looking as insecure as I felt.
"There's nothing by the stairs" Leo spoke quietly.
I looked at him in surprise "You can see down there?"
"Hm?" He looked at me "yeah, you can't?"
"No, all I see is darkness."
"Really? Then I guess you'll have to cling to me" he winked and I felt the embarrassment rising in me, wanting me to pull away.
"Real smooth" Ryan teased.
He lifted his hand in front of him and a ball of light appeared instantly. He threw the ball into the darkness and the whole entrance lit up.
"Seriously, man? I was totally trying to work my charm there" Leo growled.
I ignored him, knowing that he didn't understand the danger we were in. We couldn't spend the entire time with him flirting and not paying attention to what was around him.
I stepped down the stairs, the snow barely even registering in my mind, while Leo and Ryan held onto the railings on either side of me.