CHAPTER 12

I unlock the door and swing the handle up, I hear Tom and Grace coming down behind me. I pull open the door, it is much heavier than I expected. I have to push it with two hands once I get it out enough to hold it open. Tom comes from behind to help hold the door open. "C'mon, we have to find her quick," I say, letting the door go, Tom shifts, surprised I did.

"Are you going to at least wait up for us?"

"I've been freaking shot, I can't move as fast as you guys," Grace says. Tom helps her move along behind me, the door shuts behind them both and it eclipses the hallway into darkness.

"Can't they afford lighting in this stupid building?" I ask, slowing to wait for them.

"I don't know, but the generators should be this way. I mean I was headed there before that girl snuck up on me."

"And she would have filled you full of BBs if I didn't save your ass," I say.

"Looks like I am the unlucky one," Grace says. "But the bleeding I think has stopped."

"That's good."

"Yes, thank you Tom."

"Mmmm, I can smell the contempt from over here," I say.

"Yeah, you do."

I reach out my arm to feel the wall, it continues for another foot before expanding out.

"I think we're in a larger room, maybe we can find our way to the generator?" I ask.

"Okay, do you want to fan out?" Tom asks.

"That seems the best idea, we can call to each other if we get lost. Don't go too far in case there are other rooms or paths."

"Gotcha."

"How about I go straight, Tom goes right, and you go left, Gavin?"

"Sounds like a plan," I say.

I head to my left and brace my hand against the wall, sliding it as I go past slowly. I don't feel anything along my perimeter of the room, must be empty. I'd rather scope that out first before I leave the wall and risk-

"Gyahh!"

Tripping over something.

"You okay?" I call out.

It's Grace who answers, "Yeah, something was on the ground. Lemme see if I can find it. I think it's a..." she goes silent.

"A what?" Tom asks, he's a little bit further away.

"Guys..."

"What is it?"

"I think it's a skull," she says. "Here, come feel this and tell me that's not a skull!"

I walk over in her direction, I bump my arm against something metal and wince out in pain. I assume I hit the generator with the arm I fell on out of the ship. I hear a noise, I think I hit a button.

"BOOTING UP."

"Sonnuva," I whisper.

"Are you there?" she asks.

"Yeah, to your left," I say, grabbing at my arm.

"Okay, check this shit out," she says.

I reach out and find her hand, I move down a bit and she places something hard into my hands

An intense fire burns. A girl screams out loud it pierces my eardrums. I see the face of a young girl for a flash of a second, she looked like a young teenager, scared for her life as the fire consumes her. She is unknown to me. The fire wraps around her wrists and she screams out. I can feel the heat around my own wrist. It then spreads up her arms and webs around her face, erupting her pale skin into a bright orange. I feel the heat consume me and I scream out.

I toss the skull up as my hands burn hot, I'm breathing heavy as I hear the skull land somewhere behind me.

"You okay?" Grace asks.

"Yeah, I saw the owner of that skull as they were dying, I think."

"How...is that possible?"

"I don't know, ever since the girl touched my forehead back there I've been like, having these nasty hallucinations which are more like visions to be honest."

"And in that vision you saw..."

"It was a girl, burned alive."

"And you trust these?"

"I mean, I know hallucinations are a thing with me, I understand that, but like, I've never heard of someone hallucinating things about people he shouldn't know about like this. I think there's something more to it," I say.

"And you want to find that girl because she did this to you?"

"Correct, and now you're all caught up. Wait...where's Tom?"

"I'm over here!" He calls out. "I kept going and found what I thought was a generator. I tried to find any connection switch but then I found something odd. I found that what I thought was a generator was actually a bunch of smaller generators...and that they're not generators," Tom says.

"What?" I ask.

"I might be wrong, but the sign outside, it was faded, right?"

"Y-Yeah," I say.

"Fuck."

"What is it?" Grace asks.

"We need to get out of here now."

What could he be talking about? I mean, if it's not generators what could it—Fire. That girl burnt to death in here. Incinerator. It was never a generator room, the sign said "Danger: Incinerator Room"

Oh God.

"Tom's right, we need to move. We're in an incinerator room."

"Wait, like...how that girl...?"

"Yes."

She doesn't seem to need any further incentive to move, I hear her running. To where, I don't know. I can't see anything.

"I don't know if Leto has this rigged up to go off on a timer or what, so please don't touch anything else," Tom says.

"Okay, I don't-"

A mechanical noise whirrs to life, "BOOTING COMPLETED. INCINERATION BEGIN."

"What. Did. I. Just. Say." Tom mutters.

"I didn't touch any...oh...whoops." I say, remembering bumping into a switch of some sort. Without another second I'm running off to my left. I map out the dark room in my mind and pray that there is an exit in the back.

I see light spilling into the room as a door opens, Grace made it to the other side. Just then the darkness is scared away by the flames that spill out of jets protruding out of the floor diagonally upwards. They illuminate the room, it's a hard metal that must somehow be heat-resistant.

Tom is running behind me as the flames encircle the ceiling and bend down to the floor below. I hop over a railing that I would have fallen over had it remained dark as Grace rushes us, waving her hands madly.

I clear the distance as I feel my back heating up quickly. My shirt begins to stick to my sweaty back and I jump through the open door and I think if I was in there any longer it might have burnt off. Tom runs in right behind me and Grace closes the heavy-set door by herself.

She's stronger than I originally thought.

I am breathing heavy, sweating all down my face and I look around. We're in a small space about ten feet across. There's the door that leads to literal hell, us, and on the other side is an elevator shaft, but no elevator.

"So, I was going to suggest we turn back and go down the stairs, but I don't want to do that anymore," Grace says in-between breaths.

"Well, we know one thing," Tom begins. "We know that girl, Leto for all we know, is still ahead. When the room lit up I saw no other exits from that incinerator room," Tom says.

"You think she's Leto?" I ask.

"It would make sense. At first I thought she might have been like us, but the fact that Leto would need to keep a close eye on us and how she "woke up" separate to us," Tom explains.

"Yeah, I guess so. I mean, knowing that doesn't really change anything. We're still going to find her and get some answers."

"I feel good, like, we'll actually get out."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, I have some hope," Tom says, smiling.

Hope. I hope his hope is on the mark.

Whenever I think of fire I think back to The Exploding Man. You see, Hal Valhart wasn't like any of our Presidents back during World War II or anything like that. He didn't serve terms, he served until the Queen saw it fit he didn't any longer. Lucky for us, he was pity to our problem, so he worked out really well. I liked the guy, no particular issues. Others did, and that's when we got into the sorry state we're in now as a nation. Back then there was an assassination attempt on Mr. Valhart and his entire close cabinet, even containing members of the royal family of the Queen. It was successful.

What's strange wasn't the fact that there was an attempt, because Valhart did have his share of naysayers, people who couldn't adjust from the old times. (Personally I think they were just making the transition harder on themselves.) What was weird about it was the method used. A single man, (nobody has come forth with his name, hence the name "The Exploding Man") walked in on a meeting with the group of gentleman while they were discussing the new economic breaks for the working poor.

(Get that? Valhart was killed while trying to help the people, that's a big reason why I liked him.)

The man, if you couldn't guess, exploded, killing everybody in the room. Valhart and two grandsons of the Queen were killed in the blast, and all Thirteen of Valhart's personal guard. So much life taken with one blast.

What's weird about that is there were no traces of residue on the scene from any explosive substance. There wasn't even a body of the man, only a shadow forever marked where he died. Popular theory is he rigged up some nuclear sort of blast that vaporized him completely.

Once this happened the Queen wasn't too happy with us. She basically removed all stations of support and left us like a dying animal. We turned into scavengers, mostly. Some places are lucky, still have their support in place for some reason or another and are doing just fine. I hear they're trying to install a new president—some bumfuck official from Britain. That's going to be absolutely great let me tell you. One Brit goes up in flames so obviously you just throw as many at the problem as you can afford. That solves all the world's problems. At least...wait, oh, I'm sorry...Anyway, I got off track.

That's the tale of The Exploding Man. Now, where was I?