Chapter 1, Prologue

CHAPTER 1

 

 

We knew what we had to do. Pinned in the corner of the flaming Russian battleground, I told her we had to leap and make a run for it. We just couldn’t hold that many projectiles with merely the two of us, our powers just weren’t that strong yet. She looked at me worryingly.

“With our luck, it’ll f**k up.”

It was at that moment when I stopped, turned my head and told her.

“We make our own luck.”

I must admit, it was mostly false confidence, I wasn’t sure we could do it but I took the risk, it was our only way out. She looked at me and gasped. Her golden eyes glistened. She grabbed my hand as if she’d never see me again.

“I love you.”

She kissed me like she somehow knew it would be our last.

I looked deep into her terrified eyes. “Gu bràth”

We leapt over the wall quickly, yet gracefully into the hailstorm of firing bullets and bolted towards the way out. We were sprinting through the car park like two bubbles in a tsunami of bullets, floating round walls and jumping over hedges. It really looked like we were going to make it, but time slowed as I heard a scream I never wanted to hear. Red blood staining her purple hair.

The echoing war silenced around me, I could feel the colours draining from my surroundings. Me and her, alone together in blackness. Things start to get hazy from that point, I do remember dashing towards her as the bullets began to halt for a second, like the bullet that pierced the centre of her torso. Osiris. The girl I loved. Half the reason I became Aries. She was dead because of my cowardice.

I held her limp body in my arms, there was a hole torn through her jacket, about half the size of the one in my heart. Looking at her, she was trembling. I could tell she was scared and I knew I failed her. She was dying in my arms, trying to cough out one last word. I leaned in closer.

“What is it?”

“Don’t. Stop.” Blood dripped from her lips and mixed with the puddles of rainwater as her cold hand collapsed to the floor. Her golden eyes faded to a pale dirt colour. I closed her eyelids over, the stare was haunting me.

And that was it. Raine Everest was gone. A memory blowing through the winds. I lay her on the ground and I screamed. Lightning burst from my hands into the ground sending eight men, head to toe in black armour with large guns flying into the air. They plummeted to the ground, still breathing but barely. I was in shock, excuse the pun. She was gone and I’d never done anything like that before. Telekinesis grew electrokinesis. I now had the power to bend energy, I wondered if that meant I would soon be able to do more? Pyrokinesis? Hydrokinesis? It was too much for me. I looked at Osiris and I lay my hands on her. I hit her with a charge. Nothing. I done it again, still nothing. She was too far gone, and I was alone again. The rest of our team had already left, and now Osiris, the love of my life, was dead.

The funeral was, well, it was a funeral. She was buried next to her family. Clouds blanketed the sky as the rain belted into the ground. Everything just seemed grey. She had a parade in her memory through Glasgow, her hometown. People attended with flags, toys, some in costume. So many people devastated by the loss of such a strong woman, just none of them felt the same heartbreak as me. The darkest October was one nobody could really move on from, not for a while at least.

Four months passed, I was still doing the same thing. Saving lives, catching criminals, helping old women across the street - It all seemed unimportant when she was taken from me.

A statue stood in the centre of the town in her memory, made from a quartz and accented with a beautiful black marble. The sign read “In your sacrifice, may your love Raine in death.” - I thought it was kind of cute. In a way, I’d rather that story ended there but obviously, it didn’t. Osiris was reborn, like a phoenix in fire. Just her fire was very literal, everything left in her wake was ash. She’d gained the ability to throw fire from merely her hands, much like I can now with lightning.

The first time I saw her again, I couldn’t believe it. Her hair was brown and matted, jacket torn and her mask was gone. Her face was pale and burned. I could only assume she went through a similar rebirth to that of Pyrogiest, but something went horribly wrong. I can’t even remember what I was doing that day, but she was angry at me. She charged at me in the sky followed by a trail of red flames. We fell for each other almost year ago, and now we were falling in a different way. Punches were thrown into me like I was her worst enemy. I couldn’t fight back, I was stunned by her incinerated face. There was no emotion in her pale eyes. Raine was gone. I was beginning to pass out as we hit the ground but I snapped out of my trance. I grabbed her arm and threw her into a nearby parked car, before flying off faster than I’d ever done before.

I didn’t know what to think, a million emotions were flying through my head. I wanted to do what she would have wanted but I couldn’t figure out what that was. I just needed to get home. I flew to my door and threw off my uniform to find a note on the inside of a pocket. I unfolded the paper. The writing was smudged in what seemed to be blood. I could barely make out the words;

   “Ray. I’m...”

What a teaser. Everything else was completely illegible, the rest of the paper was torn off.

I turned on the TV, I hoped maybe a movie could lighten my mood, I was wrong. The news was airing on every network.

“Osiris is back-”

I switched channel.

“Raine Everest alive-”

Nope.

“Dead hero attacks innocents-”

I couldn’t take it anymore. I screamed. My glass of Coke exploded into a million shards mimicking my mind, I could feel electricity licking out of me. I calmed myself and cleaned up the glass before I broke my TV. I can afford to break a glass but not a whole television, heroism doesn’t have a great pay check.

I picked up my phone, maybe some music would cheer me up. “I’m alive” blasts into my ears - What kind of torture was I facing? I charged through to my bedroom. My phone lit up with a million news apps. Osiris back from the dead. from The Guardian, The Independent, The BBC, The National. I turned it over and lay in bed.

I remember having a dream that night. Before I had powers, me and Raine had fallen out for a solid two years. It wasn’t until we were both granted our abilities, we started talking again, purely by coincidence. Heroism saved us, for the six months she lived to be Osiris. April fifth to October third. When we learned each other’s identities, the real names behind Aries and Osiris, we worked our issues out for the betterment of society.

This dream made that different though, we remained whatever we were two years ago for much longer. We never gained any powers and she was alive. We’d moved to San Francisco, I was a writer and an actor, she painted and took photographs of weddings and things. We lead a peaceful life, one filled with joy and energy. But that tranquillity we found ourselves in was destroyed as she turned to me, she was different. Her eyes bled black tears that bubbled, her chest covered in blood, skin on her arms peeling off.

She screamed at me “Traitor. Traitor. Traitor!”

I woke up and jumped out of my bed to find it hovering two feet in the air, I lifted it in my sleep. I returned it to the ground gently in an effort not to wake the neighbours. I stumbled through to my Livingroom, it was early January so the Christmas tree was still up. I noticed a flickering red hue outside my window so I rushed to get a look at what was happening. The park across the road from my Livingroom was ablaze with her emblem.

The eye burned next to my house, where my Mum slept. I sprinted through to my room and threw on my uniform and snuck out the back so nobody nearby would see that was where Aries lived. I flew over the roof of my flat and landed at the park, I lifted some of the old snow and rain and threw it over the fire, extinguishing it. In the centre, pinned to a wooden post through an arrowhead, there was another letter. “Meet me where we first ever met” - We met at a bar, Whisper’s Reach, I first met her on purpose at the local town centre, at the Mr. Dennis’ fast food restaurant. The first time Dark Osiris attacked me was above Edinburgh castle.

I didn’t know where to look so I started with Whisper’s Reach but she was nowhere to be seen, inside or out. I walked from table to table, people looking up from their meals at me, taking pictures and whispering to one another, made me think of how aptly the place was named. I flew to the shopping mall but there was no hovering shell of the girl I once loved in sight, so I knew where she’d be. I followed the train lines towards the city, but I was distracted. A child on the lines. I stopped down to lift him but something strange happened, the boy looked at me with pitch black eyes and told me something so chilling, I paused.

“She can feel everything you do. She loves your loss.”

His eyes turned normal and I carried him to his family that were screaming on the side, they’d just found him. They told me something horrible too. She made this boy tell them my name. My real name. Ray Andrews. They ensured me my secret was safe with them, which was a massive relief indeed. I knew I had to stop her. I thanked the family and made my way to what I had nightmares about for a long time.

There she was. This was my first sign that the woman hovering before me was not the Raine that I had lost. She told me to meet her where we’d first ever met, but this is where we first met post-death.

I could feel the hope being torn from my heart again.