A human torch. That was the best way to describe the current situation. A young man was visibly emitting high levels of heat. There were no flames or smoke. Just pure concentrated heat bending the air. It started in the last hour of bio. He felt hot. Kind of like a fever. He asked to be excused and five minutes later he felt woozy and dizzy. Running didn't cool him down. The cool breeze of the air only seemed to make it worse. He was covered in ants that were biting him. Every five seconds there would be a serious bite that sent him crashing down. He struggled to get up. Put one palm down, then another and used both to life himself up. His legs were wobbly but he pressed on. The interval shortened by a second five minutes later. It took longer and longer to get to his destination. He tried a sprint to make up for the increased frequency but that only shortened the interval. Unable to stand the pain, he made a mad dash.
A full hour. It took him a full hour to reach the bathroom. He turned on the faucet and put his head into the cool flowing water. The pain intensified by a factor of three but he kept his head in the water. The situation got worse second by second, minute by minute. Fifteen minutes in the bathroom and the mirror was beginning to crack from the heat. Twenty five hundred degrees fahrenheit. That was the melting point of glass. It was extremely hot but he did not feel the corresponding pain. Did he conflate the heat with pain? In fact, the heat did not feel that bad. He imagined himself wearing a thick coat on a hot summer day. He looked up and saw what had been happening.
Something was circulating through his arteries. It was bulging like a huge obstacle forcing its way inside. When it passed along his arms, he punched at the wall. That wasn't his intent but a strong desire he had to address. There was no anger or resentment driving it but excitement. He was excited at what would happen. He didn't care about the damage. The school could fix it. It was better and cheaper to fix something that wasn't alive. He clenched his fists to avoid going through with it. He was hot blooded right now but not necessarily irrational. He remembered Megan and what would happen if he lost his sanity when they made love. He did not want that to happen. He wanted their relationship to continue and develop. That would be harder and maybe impossible if she was injured. He seriously doubted that he would actually kill her.
He took deep and thorough breaths. Inhale. Pause. Exhale. Think. Inhale. Exhale. Think. Think. Was his experiment causing this? But they were duds. Was one of them actually real? Did it affect the rest? It did circulate through his blood. If they weren't duds then he really didn't know what would happen. Well, he did, technically. One was actually a super concentrated protein bar. The other was a really low-profile steroid. Another was a protein drink. He just altered the formula and did some fancy things with it. The base effect was never changed. Just slightly edited. It seemed now that he may have under assumed some things.
It was all theoretical and thus not based on hard science. The only fact at the moment was that he was capable of storing super concentrated heat and it didn't affect him. Now the tiles on the wall were melting but the crack on the window didn't change. He focused on other parts of the bathroom and wherever he looked, the damage intensified in that area and disappeared from another. He saw how to control it. Turn it on and off? Closing his eyes didn't work. Only lessened the intensity.
Then he remembered the actual theories instead of just the idea behind the theory. The inverse of dulling senses. The inverse of diminishing returns. Ten words and two sentences. Henry Ruthless never shied away from a fight. Never started one for no real reason. Never even started one for an actual reason. He tried to reason with everyone. When that didn't work or he dealt with an idiot, he would let the fists fly. But he wasn't superhuman. He was just a normal guy. Eventually died from exhaustion. Henry wondered if he could have ever saved the real Henry, because each season ended with Henry almost dying. The screen would cut to black and then Henry would return the next season perfectly fine. The recap said a few months had passed between seasons.
He opened his eyes when a breeze tickled his skin. The heat was gone and when he tried to focus again, didn't appear. It was just gone. All he had done was focus on the tactical nature of his dilemma. A different kind of focus. Not on him but his street awareness. The smart thing to do rather than the best thing or the most efficient or optimal. He stretched his fingers. Noticed the hand felt heaver. The arm felt sturdier. The shoulders felt more solid. The same three fourths he used yesterday would compound the force and burst the head open like a watermelon instead of just rattling the organs to death through force.
He looked around. No one had come in yet. Checked the time. It had been five minutes since he came into the restroom. Figured that even if someone saw him rush like a madman that they would not go in immediately. People sometimes waited up until fifteen minutes. He had ten then. Wondered if anyone saw what had happened to him or if they just noticed a crazy boy running through campus. Most likely to his next class. He put his fingers on the mirror and pressed down. Could feel it bend underneath his pressure. Did the tiles next. It didn't bend as much but it still bent considerably.
A crazy idea came to him. He didn't even need to throw punches anymore. He could catch em and break the guy down psychologically. Maybe a slap to push the punch aside or set a few teeth loose. They tried. He wasn't. Yet he pounded them. The emotional damage he could inflict would be amazing.