Fire Starter

October 25, 2046; 8:14 am:

Waffles submerged in syrup, eggs and bacon finely fried... This smell, it's been ages. Mother would put a plate on the table, Zel coming in just for toast and dad kissing mom good morning, holding in his hand a small journal.

How surreal... I can see a time to claim happiness...

-In my thoughts, I hear a light knock on my door.

"Breakfast's done."

Grandma? When did she get back? -My feet take off to the door, way before I could wake up from nostalgia.

I open the door to a empty hall. -Grandma's way quicker than she says she is.

The door next to me, Vile's room door, opens. Ella steps out in in one of Vile's military tees, yawning in her hand. The shirt looks way lose on her than it would on him, nearly reaching her knees.

"M-Morning..." Did he fuck her again... Why? You have a girlfriend. And yet you still let him...

"...Dinner's ready?" Her eyes still shut; Ella makes her way to the stair way before me.

"Breakfast." Shutting my door, I'm still amazed in the fact she walks out of his room, speaking casual.

They tell me and Juna we're bad for each other...

-"Ah, right. It's morning."

You two are way worse.

Vile, that bastard steps out the room after she heads downstairs.

"You're back..." He looks way worse than me, bags forming under his eyes, shirtless in boxers.

"Did she break up with her?" You used to smile before...

"That's none of my business..." He's seeming more irritated than me, uncappable of looking me in the eyes as he follows her tracks downstairs.

Ella... Did you go to him yourself... Some people can't choose between what they used to have verses what they have.

Did saving me force you to do this? Did they do it because of me? Drove each other down because me? This... Is also my fault. That's the look he gave me.

Behind them both, I manage to bring myself downstairs instead of rushing back into my room, walking into the kitchen. Ella pours her a glass of orange juice near the dishes and Vile immediately puts his hand on grandma's shoulder kissing her on the cheek.

"Thanks grandma." She always has to be a suck up, get on her good side early in the morning.

Their eyes face me, a dreaded cloud that blocks the sunlight shimmering through the window. Times like this, I feel unwanted... Like I don't belong here... -I should've jumped. -Why did I come back here.

-"Sweetie, anything wrong? Your plates on the table, Zanya's specialty."

Zanya... Mom, I knew the smell was way too familiar.

I grab my plate, sitting in the chair close a empty one, arms reach away from Vile and Ella.

Grandma prays over her plate, so dose Vile, me and Ella wait, knife in her hand and fork in mines.

"Amen." Grandma cuts a piece of her waffle, Vile digging in right after.

I look at all three, poking my eggs with the fork. They're perfectly done, but the memory of nearly hitting the bottom of a skyscraper sullies the thought of taking a bite.

"June's... Not here." When I mutter that out, utensils stop clacking.

Ella's singled out, being the only one to continue looking at her plate as I stared up to two people focusing their gaze on to me.

"Eh... That's right. Juna. She's still at the hospital, is she not?" Grandma, she can't hide the fact she doesn't care.

She made us breakfast, maybe humming a song to herself in the process, where's Juna, never once crossing her mind. If I didn't bring it up...

"Why don't you, be quite and eat." Vile spits out, taking a sip out of his drink.

I glance over to the living room Tv, no longer caring what comes out my mouth.

"How about you stop fucking my cousin..."

- Rising up out of her seat, chair screeching back, "Zen!" Ella hand slams on the table, shaking Grandma, who mouth cracks open.

"My god... Ella, Vile..." Grandma, in disbelief, she locks her sight on me. Always so naive to what they do in her house.

Hell... Here I am ruining a great morning. "Grandma, I almost met mom."

Am I the only one smiling right now? Isn't this funny? Isn't this how I'm supposed to act? -I must be the most disgusting person at this table now. Hate me. Not her.

Vile's fist flies across the table, knocking me out my seat, plates crashing to the floor, turning the false sunshine into a raging color of melting black. This is what my world should look like... Not rainbows and waffles...

She's no longer here to stop me... -Shadows swirl around my arm once I stand, -Lighting sparks pass the table, Ella clenching to my shirt eyes gleaming bright yellow.

"Zen... Please, stop... Don't hut him!" Grandma cups her hands over her eyes in tears. She doesn't want to see what happens next.

Vile put his hand on Ella shoulder, surprising me. "Come on, stop it already. Grandma's crying."

-"Fuck off!" Bawling out herself, Ella face Vile, still holding onto me. "He's my cousin... You have no rights to lay your hands on him!"

She's angry at him, not me...

"So, I'm the bad gut here... Fine. Act like that." He walks over to Grandma, grabbing hold of her, bringing his lips to her ear. "Come on granny, I'll take you to work."

She nods her head, whining louder than before, falling into Vile's arms. He takes her pass the both of us. When the door shuts, Ella let go, dropping me to my back.

"Why?" Her head lays low, clenching her fist nails poking into her palm. "What made you say all of that? Why couldn't you let it be?"

This bittersweet taste in my mouth... I hate it. Of course, it's guilt.

"Why did you let him have sex with you? You tell me to go home, just to come back to this? You and Vile are worse than me and Juna!"

-"You got it wrong!" She finally shows her face again, one scrunched up, steaming red, brain on fire wanting to use every ability she has to fight. "I forced him! He isn't some asshole!! -God, it's none of your business anyway! So, what if what I did is twisted, you didn't have to run your mouth to grandma!!"

Her fault... His fault... Is this really me trying to blame anyone? Why did I say those things... I smelled happiness and sought to snipe it out. I almost lost it. If I did here, their blood would have been on my clothes...

-instead of another hit I had to take, Ella arms fall over my shoulder. She holds me tight, crying into the side of my neck, taking away the thought of me almost killing them.

I hesitate, but hearing her cry behind my back, my arms fold over her, ducking my face into her neck. My own tears, they drop on their own. Only God knows why I'm crying.

My mother, my brother, my cousin, my current brother figure, the girl that I loved... I just... I want one of them to tell me,

Everything's... Going to be alright.

I let go of her, hearing her muffle cries turn to silence. "We should clean this mess up..."

Ella steps away from me, eyes dried, facing the damaged done at the table. "I... Can get the mop."

10:37 am:

For the rest of the hours, we cleaned the kitchen, neither of us speaking a word to each other, making it to our rooms without any other commotion.

-I fall flat into the bed, arms spread out, looking to the ceiling.

-Why did we say that? -What's wrong with me? -I should've stayed quiet... -Enjoyed the peace... -Just had to ruin it... -Should have kept you mouth close... -This is my fault...

-A little rest... Should block out the voices.

5: 45 pm:

-I wake up, feeling a hand rub across my hair. In my perception, Vile sits near my chest, looking to the photo of me and Zel. -Jumping up I put my hand on where he touches, freaked out that he was sitting in my room.

Unbothered, Vile picks up the photo. "Grandma... She pisses me off." He says, putting the photo back on the dresser, glancing to me. "Surprised?"

Is this some sort of test? He wants me to say yeah for he can go run to her, telling her I have no respect at all for her?

"No matter how hard I try..." He sits back in the bed, incapable of breaking his eyes off the photo in his hand, enchanted. "She tells me, this is your fault. You know that right? I'm a failure."

What... Is he talking about...

"Ha, so many adults showed me no slack the day I failed to save him. You were the oldest there.... Aren't you rank ten... -Fucking idiots, how about you try being in my shoes. The number five hero fought way harder than I did and still was no match for his father..."

Vile... He's finally talking to me about that day. You rarely hear him mention it, let along blame himself.

"And you know, grandma the same way. She expects me to do the impossible. To have complete control over you and Juna. But I just can't do it. I can't be Zel... I can't be Myune... Staying serious twenty-four seven... That isn't me. I was the laid back one, the guy who goofed off on missions the entire time, letting them handle all the hard work."

He faces me, a blank look on his face, "This morning," he puts a facade of a smile on his face. "What you said. Did you really try to end your life, Zen? Did I fail that badly?"

...It isn't his fault. "It's not your fault." It's mines-

-"It isn't yours..." He sits the photo back down, stepping out of the bed, doing his best to cancel out the thought of any of this being my fault. "You were a kid. I didn't pull my weight. Now you and Juna pays for it."

That isn't true... No matter what he thinks, no matter what he says, I still could've-

-"Juna let me in on everything that happened. I'm so insensitive. Juna... She's missing, isn't she? Your world must be crashing down, losing someone else again. I feel that."

He walks to the door. "Come downstairs, I've got something to show you."

Vile leaves out the door. Why won't he ever tell it to me straight? What do he mean he isn't Zel... No one asked you to be, but yourself. He can't come in here playing victim- But he wasn't playing victim. Was he blaming himself? Why wouldn't he let me say it's my fault.

-Then it hits me... Whenever I did something, he never once screamed I hate you, he never once told me to die. The things I done, every time I lost control, I was on his watch.

That day... When I lost control, he had to report back to his mission specialist on my behalf. I never once had to face anyone. He took the scolding for me, acting as my older brother.

Grandma... He said she pisses him off. He holds the weight of the damage I caused...

-I shake my head, leaving out my room following him downstairs like he asked me too. There at the table, Vile leans over Ella shoulder, both shuffling through files of paper.

"What's this?" Ella is the first to pop her head up at my question.

Vile steps to the other seat, picking up the other file opening it to scatter more paper to the table.

"The day your school was attacked, it was orientation day, right, September eighteenth?"

A light bulb pops over Ella's head. "That was the same day those crooks robbed the bank." She shifts through paper too.

"What are you guys doing?' I gain a closer look, pulling up a chair to the table, joining the search.

I pick up a paper that has Meniko ID photo printed in the corner with words bold in red under her name; Missing.

"When Ella told me that Juna's dead, I had to do a bit more digging. A visited a friend of mines before coming here. This should be everything that happened the day you lost her."

Vile... Ella... They're searching for Juna.

-I reach for another paper, putting Meniko's back into the pile. This one read list of casualties. My eyes race down the entire thing, reading name for name, hitting the last number, one, forty-seven. Juna name wasn't on the list at all.

She... Isn't dead. -As if a cloud lift from over my head, a flicker of hope, turns me to go through the rest of the paper. -The list of missing, the list of saviors. That's all that matters to me now.

I freeze in place, spotting an image on the table, clear as day to both Ella and Vile as well.

"Zel?" Ella was the first to identify the boy who looks like the spitting image of my brother those years ago. On his paper it says, possible culprit.

What the hell could this all mean? Why is Zel photo here, for a culprit of all things... He's dead. So there couldn't be anyway-

-"The entire incident..." Vile looks at the paper in his hand. "The reason no one heard any of this... Son of a bitch!" -Vile rushes to the living room, grabbing his coat off the coat rack, twisting the doorknob.

-The ceiling cracks down, trembling the entire house, busting the lights and scattering paper into the air, those same green flames from that day igniting both the enemy's arms.

-The figure turns, hair swaying in the motion, eyes gleaming light blue. He faces me, wearing an Oni mask. -This is him. The man that attacked us that day at school.

-Lifting his arm, he fires a thin metal wire, knocked off projectile by a flying coat covered in purple energy, that tears right through it.

I look at vile, who is feet away from the broken table, arm throwed out in a pant, reacting quicker than the rest of us.

-The wire shakes like a separate being, the man quickly turning -Stopping another attack, Ella flings her fist out in a burst of lighting, contacting the metal plate on his stomach, not even flinching, knocking him through the staircase wall, his body flying pass me.

-Ella takes off outside to finish the fight, as I sat here in shock, far out of my league.

"Ella..." Vile, realizing she went to finish the fight, scarry outside the hole that now leads to the back yard. I dash after him.

As soon as I step out, another wire fires out towards me. -Ella rams into the man, knocking the wire off course, causing it to only slightly scratch my cheek.

-"What the hell are you doing! Head back inside!" Vile grit his teeth at me, waving out his arm, somehow, me becoming a bystander instead of a hero.

Everything's happening so quickly, where do I fit in?

-Flexible, the one bearing an Oni mask, fires the wire out of his slick armored suite again, hitting the roof of the house, kicking Ella off of him, hurling back into the building on the top floor of my room.

I reach out my hand, -Ella speed up the wall, going into the building on her own.

-This image... The sight of green, emerald flames, clashing to bright yellow lighting... It's the same as that night. Zel flames...

The sound of the floor crumbling down, fires our feet to rush back inside.

-Ella, the man in the Oni mask holds her neck, pinning her down on the destroyed sofa, carpet and walls, crackling, crisping in the fire he started.

-Vile takes off, fist glowing purple -But the man in the Oni mask, tangles his wire around his wrist, pulling him to the floor.

He let go of Ella's neck, stepping over to Vile, opening his hand. -However, he couldn't fire the final blow. Me in his sight, the man freezes, gaping at me, nostalgia drowning his blue gleaming eyes.

He recognized me. And I... I seem to familiarize him.

-His other hand grabs hold of his arm, changing the incoming hit towards Vile to the ceiling, bursting the entire roof in a blast of flames.

-In fear the attack could kill us all, walls burning and roof tearing in, I move on my own accord this time. -I let out a huge vortex of my powers, devouring the entire house in a black tornado of storms, putting out the flames and vanishing most of the pieces, for the first time, controlling the raging storm.

Most of the house, some of the grass beneath our feet, they're no longer here. The only remains is the four of us, torn clothes, cotton and wood chips spread across the ground, the moon peeking down over our heads.

I cleared it all... I protected them... I did it.

-I throw out my hand, containing the man in place in with his shadow, before he could move another muscle, running towards him, dark energy consuming my entire left side, eyes gleaming purple, landing a hit on the side of his mask.

...His head slightly shifts, Oni mask first cracking, shattering like glass a few seconds after... The wind takes his hair in a breeze, revealing a scar less terrifying than the one behind the mask.

Infront of me... Alive and well... -I crush the photo of Zel beneath my bare feet, looking the real one, eye to eye.

-The shadows that contained him, disperses. I step back... To get away from him... -This can't be him... This isn't him...

-Juna gets up in shock, Vile puzzled on his knees.

Each of us gape at him in silence, all thinking the same name. Zel... There was no other thought. He has the same features, even when his face is scorn, hair to the length of his neck.

-Taking nothing from our silent awes, Zel, the man we believed to be him sends out a wave of bursting flames, pushing me back to shield my face, heat rising, causing a slight burning sensation on my skin. -Lost in thought, a hand appears, rushing for my face.

-"Zen!" Vile calls out for me.

-Ella slams into Zel's side, a little fight left in her.

"Why!!" She shouts at him, dragging him to the floor. "Why do you have his face!"

Vile's shaking, paralyzed by what he thinks is a ghost.

-"E... Ella..." -I dart my eyes back to what I believe came out of that man's mouth. Her name.

-Ella grabs hold of both his shoulders, smacking him down into the grass. "Don't you dare say that name!!- With that face!!"

"Ella, wait." Vile holds his hand out to her, leaning over to my side with the thought of him being the actual Zel. "What if... He's actually Zel-

"Zeldrick's dead!! I saw it with my own eyes... -You died...! -You died...! -You died...! -You died...! -You died...!" Ella slams her fist on his chest, repeatedly. She couldn't accept that the one in front of her is Zel.

I... Can't accept it...

-The figure grabs Ella neck, choking her. Vile's froze in place, watching it happen. Ella, she doesn't attempt to put up a fight against him, her hands unfolding at her thigh, looking to the stars in a lost.

-"Zel!" I gain his attention.

Zel drops Ella body out of his hold, hands stretching out to the moon. -"Zen...ith... Zenith... His... Voice... Why... Ella... Vile..."

-Ella rolls over to the ground. Zel stands, squatting, cracking his neck to me, eyes widen, lost in chaos.

-The suite he wears breaks down, flames bursting through the cracks of the thin lines in the armor. He stands, pacing his steps towards me, pulling himself back the closer her gets. Fighting something. -Fighting himself.

He's closing in on me. -To hurt me? -To fall in my arms?

-I have to act... If Ella couldn't take him down, then I have to. -I step up, feet pattering quicker than his, stomping through grass fist balled up. -Near his face, I'm stopped in place by flashes. His grinning teeth, his laughter, the face of my older brother. I can't... Just like Ella, I can't bring myself to throw the punch.

My brother... -I can't do this... I can't...

-hand rising above my head, lit in green flames, I shut my eyes, to my incoming death.

Who could've imaging... This is how I go... By the hand of my brother, who I thought was dead for the longest... Mom... Will I be alone after this?

-The sound of glass crushing beneath Zel's feet, pulls me out of death, Zel hand froze in place, his eyes piercing to the photo he crushed. The photo of him and mom, together under the tree dad kept dearly to his heart.

-"Mom..." Zel, he falls to his knees, focus glued to that photo. "I promised... Protect him... Zen...ith... I'm sorry... I'm sorry...."

He remembers her... Mom. The man I believed was a shallow machine, he's the real Zel...

His eyes are so shallow, a complete opposite of the one who was recognized to all as a top hero. Here, he's empty, a ghost of himself.

-Zel, holding the photo of him and mom, he falls on his side, slapping the grass, blacking out, overloaded.

The night falls quite -A swirl of black feathers, scatter near the broken-down fence line, behind me, forming into a portal. Once we thought the fight was finally over, four other mysterious figures steps onto the field, shadows amid the moon...