Routine

"Heat, Heat, where are you?"

Supido, Aquila and Ursus searched through the multitude outside the school; it was a chaotic atmosphere. There were students crying, a few were bleeding and some had minor injuries, but most were unharmed. What got to most students was the shock. None of them had experienced this kind of situation before and very few had heard of such an incident in Zion.

In the midst of the noise a voice shouted, "He's here but he's out cold."

"Heya, ya the girl Heat spoke to this morning, right?" Ursus asked.

"Yes," she replied. "His pulse is very faint."

Within a few minutes of the explosion, the fire personnel drove up with some police, ambulance and a bomb squad.

Supido picked Heat up and rushed to one of the arriving ambulances.

"Please, he needs help."

Meanwhile, in the forest across the school, three males watched the events unfold. One continuously hit his mask with his finger, something he only does when confused—a rare situation for him.

"Are you a hundred percent sure that you didn't accidentally ask someone to do it?" the youngest of them asked.

"I do not forget."

"Then someone else must have figured it out."

"But have they? Have they figured it out or are they being misled?"

"I don't know, but the bottom-line is that someone else has set things in motion, not us."

Heat opened his eyes, he was back in the sea of flames, facing the giant serpent. He could not move, he couldn't even scream—he was frozen to the bone. All that was in motion was his respiratory system, breathing in and out much faster than he was supposed to. The creature opened its gigantic mouth and Heat found himself being enclosed in the huge, dark enclosing. When the creature finally closed its mouth again, Heat's body jerked up—he was sitting upright inside an ambulance. Two paramedics looked at him in shock

"How did you? I thought you said he—what is going on?" One of the paramedics found it hard to contain it.

"I was pretty certain he suffered head injury," the other said. "Maybe I was wrong."

A confused Heat buried his face in his hands, panting.

"Ffffffff-friggin' stressful week!" After calming down, he continued, "There was a bomb, and some students, and I was in the building, and…"

"And?"

Not entirely sure if he should talk about being in the building when the explosion went off or seeing a massive black snake, he chose silence instead.

"Nothing, never mind. Can I go home?"

Rather than send him home, the ambulance took Heat to the hospital to make sure everything was fine with him and he was questioned by the police, who dropped him at home after.

Heat's home was a thing of beauty; the land was incredibly large. His front yard alone was large enough to contain a small estate. The main building itself resembled a palace; beautiful, large and expensive. The flora and fauna spread all over the compound was diverse enough to convince a passerby that there was a conservation center in the home. The downside to having a home that large was the long journey from the gate to the main building.

When he entered the living room, two children scurried across the floor, trying to maintain balance and shoving each other into sofas before jumping into his arms. The kids looked alike but looked nothing like Heat. They both had brown hair and bright yellow eyes—traits Heat did not possess. Most obviously, they were white and he was black. Heat always explained this by pointing out his dad was black and his mom was white and that his siblings took more from his mom and him, the father— he looked nothing like his father though. People just ended up concluding his siblings were very light-skinned, unlike him.

Heat was surprised at his siblings' joy.

"Okay, what's with this new-found love?"

"Look!"

Dan, the little boy, pointed at the TV.

On the television, there was a reporter talking about the explosion in his school. When Heat spoke to the police, he left out that he heard voices through the ground, because he didn't want to sound crazy. There were no bomb fragments found and the police were lost. The explosion however, was not what was on Heat's mind; it was how he survived unscathed despite being inside when the explosion went off.

There was a sudden loud music playing in the home; it forced Heat out of his thoughts. The TV speakers blasted throughout the home. Heat quickly turned it off.

"Ouch."

"Oops. Sorry," Deborah, the little girl, apologized. "It was Dan."

"Don't worry; I know that already."

Heat headed to the kitchen.

"I'm gonna get something for you guys to eat."

While in the kitchen, the house phone rang. Heat picked up.

"Hello, am I speaking to a Mr. Reiko Fury?"

"Crap!" Heat whispered to himself.

"Just a moment."

He pretended to hand the phone over and spoke in an entirely different voice. It was the school; they called to let him know that Heat was in an incident but was now safe.

After hanging up the phone, Dan, who was listening on the phone in the living room shouted to ask his brother, "Who is Reiko Fury?"

"Daniel, the next time you pick up the phone will be your last."

"So I get to do it again? Sweet!"

Unlike her brother, Debbie walked to Heat in the kitchen and asked with innocent curiosity, "Is there another Fury?"

He placed his hand on her head and looked her in the eye.

"I'm sorry, Deb, it's just the three of us."

"Oh…ok."

The disappointed child trekked back to the living room.

The truth was that the three of them were on their own in a huge mansion, and Heat made sure they were almost always happy, but not today. Today, he had problems of his own.

In bed that night, Heat couldn't bring himself to sleep or just remain idle. When he shut his eyes, he saw himself in the sea of flames with the snake, and when he remained idle, memories of his younger years ravaged his mind.

Heat sat still, calm as the most silent of seas but on the inside, as unstable as the most boisterous of seas. He slithered into the corner of his room, his hands over his head and slowly broke down into tears. Then, a minute later, he started to breathe slowly, shut his eyes and rose to his feet. He took a deep sigh.

"Man, I hate this stage of existence."

He picked a pair of headsets from his table and blasted music out loud in his ears. Right next to his room was a private workout space filled with an assortment of weapons, mannequins, gym equipment and more. Heat walked in, cracked his knuckles and started to do the one thing he could always rely on to keep his mind free—training.