Young Writers Society

A/N: I decided to split this into two because it got so long. I'm guessing that may become the standard if the chapters continue to be this length. Enjoy!

Flames licked the sides of Eli's face, peeling the skin from his cheeks. He shuddered as he plunged into black. He was blind, just like when he turned intangible, and familiar pain radiated through his whole body. He could sense a dark form looming in front of him, its presence heavy and boiling. It made a sharp gesture, and his chest opened. His ribs folded up and out like a flower blooming, exposing his still-beating heart to the open air.

The being wrenched Eli's heart from his chest, leaving him empty and cold. Eli gasped, but his lungs wouldn't expand, and then there were pills in his mouth, choking him. Around him, the world burned. He was suffocating, thrashing around until his limbs weakened and fell.

Then he died.

The dream shifted, and Eli's sight returned, and the being was gone, and there before him was Atlas. Whole, healthy, handsome Atlas, the version of him from before Eli had had found him curled and smoking in a parking lot. Atlas' brown skin glowed like an angel's.

"What are you going to do now, Eli?" Atlas asked him, his voice sifting through the flame and fog, hissing in Eli's mind. He drew closer, and Eli realized that his eyes were red pockets embedded in bone, glowing embers that sizzled and sparked.

"Who did this to you?" Eli gasped. He reeled, the smell of burning clogged his nose.

Atlas frowned, as if he couldn't recall. He looked down at his hands, at the worn palms and half-moon nails.

"Don't let it happen again," he said, instead of an answer, and stared at Eli with those horrible eyes.

"How?"

Atlas' form began to shiver into smoke, disintegrating into the wind. His red eyes burned holes in Eli's skull. His voice contorted into a scream, a plea.

"Don't let it happen again."

***

Eli lurched awake, his heart hammering in his chest. He sat up too quickly and promptly cracked his head into the bunk bed above him. He groaned and slumped back to his pillow, gripping his face in one hand. Sleep still hung over him, weighing down his limbs.

He lay still for a few moments, adrenaline bubbling through his veins, tried to ignore the new bruise rising on his forehead. Yesterday's events came rushing back to him, along with the physical reminders on his body. The burns, the plasma blast bruises, general exhaustion. God, he was a mess.

The dream reared up in his mind, and he flinched.

Last night was real. That dream... that dream was not, he tried to convince himself.

But dream Atlas' words hovered in the air like a decree.

Don't let it happen again.

Morning light fell in strips over the room, sifting through the shades and over the succulents and cacti perched on the windowsill. The sun was higher in the sky than Eli expected, and when he looked at his phone, he realized that it was nearly noon.

He tried to care that he'd missed two classes already, including that dreaded Anatomy test, but at the moment, schoolwork seemed to be the least important thing in the world. He rolled out of bed, wiping the back of his hand over his parched mouth. A glance at the empty bunk above him told him that Seb was gone. Maybe to class, maybe to process his own feelings elsewhere. And of course, Atlas was...

He shook his head, the guilt bubbling up in his stomach for the millionth time since last night. It made him sick, even in his sleep, and it wasn't helped by the not knowing. He still didn't know what had really happened, if they had found a heartbeat in the ambulance, if his friend was even still alive. Officer Anderson had told him that they'd keep him posted. Surely they would have told him by now if he'd... if he'd...

He spun on his heel and left the room, walked to the shared restroom a few rooms down. He was grateful for the silence on the third floor of Rosiello Hall. Everyone was either in class, or at lunch.

Eli leaned over the sink and splashed his face with water, the cold shocking him back to reality. He caught a glance of himself in the mirror, and cringed.

Purple bags carved valleys under his bloodshot eyes, and the cleft scar that ran from his nose to his lip shone red, raw from tears and from rubbing his nose. His lips were so chapped that they had cracked and scabbed over in the night. His jet-black hair was even wilder than usual, sticking up every which way, stiff with sweat and grease from the fight and following trauma. He tried to smooth it down with little avail, but a shower seemed out of the question at the moment.

He sighed, and returned to his room. Atlas' empty bed seemed to scream condemnation at him from the corner, so he turned his desk chair so that he couldn't see it, and sat down. He kept catching glimpses of fire at the edges of his vision.

We can't leave, Eli. We can't leave.

What had he meant? Had he been referring to the Program, or something else? Had someone attacked him, or had it been an isolated event, a random malfunction of his powers? How else could he have just stopped being fireproof?

Eli knew that these powers of theirs were man-made, far from natural. Maybe they were less reliable than the Program wanted them to believe. Maybe they were volatile.

Agent West would know.

Eli found his backpack where he'd left it, shoved under the paper-strewn desk. His Anatomy book sat before him, and he grimaced, pushing it to the side. He unearthed his Program watch from beneath the crumpled Rift uniform in the bottom of his bag.

Only now did he think to be grateful that the police hadn't requested to search his bag last night. What would he have done then?

"Oh, yes, sorry for that villain costume there. Just for casual dress-up. Nothing to see here."

He pulled out the smartwatch and cradled it in his hands. He half-expected to see a voicemail waiting for him already. After all, Atlas was, or had been, Agent West's responsibility too. Maybe he would have thought to call Eli to explain the current situation. He would know by now that Eli had been there, what he had seen. The Program owed Eli an explanation.

But no. The screen was blank. Big surprise.

"Command: Call Agent," he stated, ignoring how rough his voice sounded. He didn't remember when he'd managed to crawl into bed after telling Sebastián what had happened through the tears.

The screen glowed a light blue, the display showing a spinning icon as it processed the voice command.

"Unable to reach Agent West," an automated voice chirped happily back at him. "Would you like to leave a message?"

Eli sighed, rolled his eyes. "Cancel. Call again."

The icon spun. "Unable to reach Agent West. Would you like to--"

"Call again."

"Unable to--"

Eli groaned, sat back in his seat. Just like West. One of his villains turns up half-dead, the other a witness, and he couldn't even be bothered with a phone call to explain.

There was no point in leaving a message. West knew what Eli wanted.

His stomach twisted. Maybe West knew something, and was avoiding his calls on purpose. Maybe Atlas was dead. Maybe West knew who had been involved.

No. Speculating would do nothing for him, not now. He was just in the mood for casting blame. Maybe finding someone to fault other than himself would alleviate the awful weight in his chest.

A small chime echoed from the watch. Eli glanced down to see a text message scrolling out along the screen.

Keep calm and stay low. We're taking care of it. -West.

Eli clenched his jaw in frustration. His friend, roommate, and fellow villain was dying, and all his Agent could give him was "taking care of it"? Heat flushed up his neck, and then biting pain as his hands fizzed in and out of tangible existence. He took a deep breath to center himself before he dissipated through the floor.

He glanced at Atlas' empty bed, then at the wrinkled suit and flashing watch before him. An itching need to move surged up through his muscles. He couldn't stay here any longer.

He strapped the watch to his wrist, threw on a pair of pants and another hoodie, inwardly mourning the loss of his favorite from last night, and headed downstairs. He ducked out of a side door and started walking.

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