1 The Awakening

A boy was running, running away from a decimated town that once had thirty thousand people living in it and now only three quarters remained. Nobody knew how it all happened but him. He did not dare look back least he start remembering what had happened. All he wanted to remember was his name, Henry Rivers.

Henry was born to a loving family of two gay women. His mothers were very happy to receive him in this world and gave him all the care and attention. It was okay for the most part of his early life till kids started teasing him about how he did not have a daddy and that he might one day marry a boy like his mothers married each other. He responded by beating the snot out of the speakers then their collaborators.

Soon, he was a mini kingpin in the block. For some reason, he looked like a ten year old while he was just five. He was also stronger than most twelve year olds. He started recruiting kids into his little club house soon, he was running almost every show there was. If a girl scout wanted to sell cookies, he was there to receive a box of it and no one would dare take the cookies from her. He also led his gang into sports and he was crowned the undisputed captain in the junior football club. To the pre ten year olds, he hit like a truck and was as fast as a Ferrari.

His mothers were proud of him that they started making him do all kinds of exercises his body could hold which proved to be like all of them excluding weight lifting. They were marvelled by his body so they took his to runs, doing yoga and many others. When he was ten, he was the fastest, most flexible, tallest kid in the class and middle school. He was the backbone of the school's football team. He had also started dating and with two women to tell him what and what not to do, he was a young Johnny Depp.

When he was thirteen, it was when it started becoming clear that he was unwell. It started with headaches and eyeaches for one month. It was unbearable and to make it once, he started hallucinating about skeleton people or skinless people waking near or past him. From there, his body underwent excruciating pain for the next two months and a sudden craving for milk and fruits. The doctors corrected that and gave him the minerals and nutrients that his body was craving for. They sweatdropped when he almost tapped the whole town dry when they had to go with milk and fruits when the treatment was not enough to satiate his hunger. Now his mothers were in such a huge debt they didn't know how to start paying.

He got better though and he went back to school. He felt he had grown stronger too and soon, he caught the football opponents like a wild bear out of hibernation. This went on for two months and then, his previous symptoms returned at the same time. It was during a biology class and both his parents were out on a business trip. They had to pull overtime if they wanted to have a chance to pay the hospital bill. He thought it would pass but with each passing moment, he felt the pain increase.

Henry excused himself and ran to the boy's locker room. He felt his body heat up so he got into the shower with his clothes and turned it on. The cold water managed to cool him down for a minute before the heat and pain came back like a thousand times more painful. Henry could not hold in his screams of pain so he shouted out. He was muddleheaded enough not to notice that his screams created sound waves heavy enough to be seen by the naked eyes. The sound waves obliterated everything they came into and the more he screamt, the more destruction happened.

Soon, the school was no more but he had not stopped screaming. In fact, his screams had grown even more sharper. The sound waves continued on their path of destruction, nothing was safe in their way. Handy suddenly felt a great power swelling up inside him and that if he couldn't release it in time he might suffer the consequences. So, he just let instincts act it out and suddenly, a shockwave came out of his body, spreading all over at a faster rate than his sound waves. Henry then felt his consciousness slipping and he fell onto the ruined ground, unconscious.

It was hours before he woke up. He felt something was wrong the moment he opened his eyes. He looked around and all he could see was rubble. With a frown on his face, he searched around to get information of where he was and that's when he saw the broken sign, Theodore Falls Middle School! He felt like his heart would lurch out of his mind. Quickly, he started going through the rubble, unconsciously lifting things that he couldn't have before. He found bodies burried in the rubble and they seemed to have bleed from every hole they had in their bodies. He finally found the person he was looking for, his girlfriend, Ashley Adams. But just like everyone else, she had died in the same fashion.

"No no no no, Ashley, baby, please be alive. Please, don't do this to me. Please breath," he said and then remembered a first aid instructor showing the class how to do chest compressions. He quickly put he into position then pressed hard on her chest. But the intended did not happen; instead, his palms broke through her ribcage like they were made of paper and out of her body by crushing the spine. It took him a few moments to realize what had happened and he scrambled away from her with a cry of terror then he looked at his hands before looking around.

"This was caused by me? But, why would this happen? Why did I gain power in turn of all my friends and neighbours?" he shouted out to they sky, causing more destructive sound waves. He quickly covered his mouth with his hands as he looked around to see if anyone had seen him. But it reminded him once again that he was the cause of all this destruction and it was not likely that anyone was alive here.

With nothing to do and afraid he would cause more harm to Ashley if he touched her, he ran back to his home. Along the way, he came to see how far his path of destruction had spread. He could also see some people alive but gravely injured. No building was still standing in the whole town. He also came to know of how faster he was now. He arrived at the rubber that he once called home then started rummaging through. He found fresh pair of clothes though a bit dusty. He wore the new clothes then went to his secret stash. Good thing the tincan was not squashed and in it was four thousand grand, all his life savings. That done, he packed a bag full of clothes and he ran off. He wanted to be as far away from this place as he could. He remembered his mothers were two towns away so he ran to that direction and the more he ran, the faster he became till he was nothing but a black blur to any speed cameras.

He tried not to think about the town and chanted a mantra, 'Out of sight, out of mind'. It did not work for long but by then, he had arrived in the town. He was amazed by how fast he really was. With a sigh, he started to look around for anyone he would borrow a phone from. He finally saw a woman who was tickling her baby who was in a baby carriage.

"Excuse me, ma'am, can I borrow your phone to call my mother? I am extremely lost and it is my first time being here," he asked her.

"Sure thing, honey, here," she said and gave him her phone. Henry sighed in relief as he took it then failed his birth mother's number and called. As if she was waiting for the call, the line was picked up almost immediately it rang.

"Henry? Is that you, baby?" she asked, anxiously.

"Mom, I'm scared. Please come and get me," he said as tears started swelling in his eyes.

"Don't worry, baby, mommy is on her way to come get you," she said as she tried to hide her shaky voice.

"I am in Geo Town. I would have come to your hotel room but I don't know where the hotel was," he said. His mother on the other side gasped and wondered how he got there so fast. But she did not delay for too long.

"Ask around for the park, I will find you there with your mother," she told him before ending the call with a kiss. Henry returned the kiss then gave the phone to the woman who was looking at him sympathetically.

"Can I take you to where your parents are?" she asked him.

"No, but you can tell me where the park is," he answered her. She nodded, not noticing his tone because her motherly instincts crowded her judgement. She gave him the directions and he went away immediately.

"Poor kid, I hope he gets back to his parents," she said then turned back to her child who had somehow fallen back asleep.

Henry sat in a bench and waited. He tried his best not to recall the nasty business back in their hometown but he suddenly ended up puking his guys out and started crying. Soon, his face was covered in snot, tears and saliva.

"Henry!" he heard a familiar voice call out to him. He looked up and saw his parents coming. He found strength to get up and they crashed into him, though he felt nothing, as if a leaf just slammed into him.

"You're okay, baby, mommies are here," one of them said as she kissed his face repeatedly, not minding what he had on it.

"C'mon, let's go back to our hotel and you tell us how you got here,"