Inhuman: Lone Spark

(This is my first time publishing to the site, and this story is still a Work In Progress. I'm refining it at home on my typewriter but as new chapters are written, I'll be sure to post them here. Thanks in advance for the reviews!)

I woke up to the sound of my mom screaming my name at the top of her lungs. My eyes shot open just fast enough for me to see exactly how late I was for school. Only about two whole hours. “Great.” I thought to myself. “At least it’s Friday.” “CONNOR!” My mom screamed again. “I’m coming!” I hollered back, stretching and throwing on a shirt and jeans. I was a tall kid, and really skinny, so most of my clothes were either too short and the perfect width, or too baggy and the perfect length. This same theory applied to my pants, resulting in me looking like a “stretched out” version of my parents. Thankfully I had stopped growing at around six feet tall; I had my mom's brown hair and, unlike either of my parents, my eyes are hazel. Despite my height and weight, I never took a liking to any sports other than the occasional kickball game as a kid in gym class. I’ve always been a book person, usually reading whatever new series pops up long before anybody else that I know even hears about it. I spent the majority of my High School years with my other “geek” friends either playing video games or getting ourselves kicked out of stores.

I was shaken from my dreamy state of mind again by my mother so pleasantly screaming my name, as if I had forgotten what it was. I quickly brushed my teeth and dashed downstairs, just barely managing a feeble sidestep out of my Dad's way as he was getting ready to leave too. I ran into my office and grabbed my backpack, snatching my keys off of my desk next to my laptop and made a beeline for my car, desperate not to miss any more than I already had. Being sixteen I had the unbelievable privilege of having my own car. That car, however, happened to be a hand-me-down from a generous family member and was about as old as I was. Technically speaking it was a truck, but that only made it more than capable of bussing around me and my four best friends.

It was only a fifteen minute drive to my school, but with my foot on the gas and some expert driving I managed to cut it to about ten minutes. I must have showed up just as passing period started because I had the pleasure of bumping into my two mortal enemies, Ricky Florence and Valeria Foster. Ricky was my polar opposite in every aspect. Where I was tall and smart, Ricky resembled a vertically challenged cave man. This duo ran my High School like it was a monarchy. If they didn’t like you, then public opinion followed suite. Naturally the majority of my high school classmates saw these two as the pinnacle of popularity. I just saw an impish guy and his dumb blonde girlfriend. Not only did this opinion infuriate the two of them but it also incited a miniature rebellion of sorts. I became somewhat of a rallying point for all the nerds and people who failed to find a clique.

Upon noticing me, Ricky quickly converged on me, Valeria draped over him almost like a blond shawl. “You’re late Callaghan.” He noted. “What? Seriously?” I feigned sarcasm and put my hand to my forehead as if I had just noticed that I was two hours late to school. He snarled at me. “I bet he had to put that scrap heap of a car back together this morning.” Valeria joked, letting out a laugh that sounded more like an asthmatic goose than a teenage girl. Ricky smirked and kissed her on the cheek, making me happy I hadn’t had breakfast this morning because if I had, it would have came back up instantly. “Hey, at least I have enough functioning brain cells to be able to drive my car and not have my daddy hire a chauffeur.” I grinned and walked past them while Ricky explained what a “chauffeur” was.

I had about two minutes until the next period started and based on the current time my class would be Electronics. As luck would have it, that class was the closest to the front entrance so I would at least make it to class on time. Electronics was by far my favorite class. I practically understood the concepts by heart and the calculations were just common sense. Most of the time my teacher had to look up new projects on the internet for me to do because I finished all the other ones in less than a day. Mr. Peters, my Electronics teacher, always called me his star student because of how easy the class was for me.

I got to class with a minute to spare and took my seat. Since the classroom was used for other applied tech classes, we had tables with chairs instead of rows of desks and the tables only took up half the room. The other half was occupied by rows of computers and cabinets full of equipment. Considering the fact that it was a Friday, Mr. Peters decided to let us have a free day. That usually means that anyone who isn’t done with a project gets the day to finish it, and everybody who’s done gets to mess around on the computers.

I walked over to one of the computers and logged in, patiently waiting for the dinosaur of a PC to successfully log me in. As I waited, I managed to overhear a conversation on the other side of my computer. They were whispering, but not very well.

“Did you hear about that Inhuman kid who got lynched yesterday?” The first voice started. I think his name was Kevin. “Nah dude, I don’t follow that stuff.” Came the reply. The second voice sounded perpetually whiney. I knew his name was Oscar, he blew a fuse in class after he wired a project wrong and plugged it into a wall socket.

“Why not dude? You do realize they like, want to kill all the people who aren’t like them, right?” Kevin whispered. “Yeah right.” “No, for real! That’s why the Government is trying to pass that Bill to legalize them being arrested!” “Why are they so important?” “Because they all have these weird ass powers and go around killing people for fun!”

I finally had to speak up. “You sound like an idiot.” I spoke, peeking around my computer at them. “What do you mean?” Kevin replied, furrowing his eyebrows. He greatly resembled a ferret. “They don’t kill people for fun. They do it out of self-defense because people like you are misinformed and try to kill them.” I fumed. “Oh, got it.” Kevin replied unconvincingly before him and Oscar moved out of my range of hearing.

By now my computer had successfully logged in, giving me about forty-five minutes of free internet access. I quickly hopped onto a news website and sure enough, there it was in big bold letters. “12 Year Old Inhuman Found Lynched In Small Neighborhood.” I shook my head. “People are sick.” I thought to myself, scrolling through the story of how a group of adults killed a twelve year old kid after finding out he was Inhuman. It wasn’t the first time this happened though. Counting this new one, there had been a total of twenty Inhumans that were reported dead in the last year. The real number was more likely to be in the hundreds considering that the news never covers something as repetitive as this with much accuracy.

This all started about three months ago. I don’t remember exactly what day but it happened in March. Apparently a meteor started heading directly towards Earth. No meteorologists had any reason to believe it would happen until the day it appeared. It didn’t show up on any radars and no astronauts had reported any signs of debris coming into the atmosphere. It was as if it just materialized and made a collision course with the planet. It wasn’t big enough to warrant a lot of fear, but the fact that we had no warning put people on edge. As it got closer, it became clear that it was going to just barely make it through our atmosphere and would land in the Atlantic Ocean, causing minimal harm. The day it landed was normal enough. Since it landed so far from the coast and had shrunk considerably in size, nobody was able to get a good photo or video of it. It hit the water, instantly sunk and then nothing happened for about twenty minutes. By then, the news had stopped covering it and people had gone back to their daily lives. However, one guy on a boat decided to hang around the point of impact. About half an hour after it sunk, the man on the boat posted a video on social media of a bubble about the size of a small car floating up and popping on the surface of the water, directly above where the meteor had struck.

A few days later, the same guy posted a video on the internet of himself, showing a glowing red symbol that had appeared on the back of his hand in the shape of a small fireball. He then shows himself seeming to produce inch long jets of flame from the tips of his fingers, and using them to light a candle. He promises to keep his viewers updated and to post a video if he becomes able to do anything else. The next day he was reported to be murdered by a police officer after showing off his abilities to a friend in public. Weeks passed and all over the world people with different abilities popped up. The public began to refer to them as Inhumans. Soon after, the Inhumans sorted themselves into three Classes based on their abilities. The ones who took after the original Inhuman called themselves Cinders. Some developed water based abilities and called themselves Waves, and people who could manipulate earth and plants called themselves Terras.