Chapter 2: Reminisce

Tom remembers his past as he heads towards the future.

In the plane on the way to each of our missions, I would often reminisce about the life I had led up until I joined the resistance. I would remember the few friends I had made; it all seemed so far away. I had a picture of the four us with me wherever I went, and I would pull it out to look at it. Alex was on the far left, my arm around her shoulder.

Alex always seemed like an innocent girl, but anyone who told her that to her face would quickly be reminded otherwise. She was incredibly loyal, and would defend her friends until the day she died. She used a bow as if it was an extension of herself, since had been learning to use one since she could hold one. It saved my life more than a few times..

I remember once, we were on a camping trip and our parents had gone down to the beach. A big, muscular black bear came into the camp, smelling the scent of fresh salmon. It charged me almost instantly and bowled me over. Alex rushed into the tent, trying to find her bow and arrow. I was fighting a four hundred pound bear with a four inch fillet knife. Needless to say, I was losing. Badly. The several fillets of fish were hardly a distraction. I had cuts, bruises and gashes almost everywhere on my body. My dark brown hair was matted against my forehead, a mixture of sweat and blood plastering it into place. In one quick motion, the bear roared and reared up onto it's hind legs, preparing to fall down onto me with its massive paws. On it’s hind legs, it must have been at least ten feet tall; compared to that, I was a dwarf. I was sure I was dead.

All of a sudden three arrows sprouted from the bear’s mouth. Then one from each eye. Then six from his back, which made a smiley face. The bear was dead. It laid before me, a furry mess of it's blood, and mine. "Screw the fish," I told to whoever was listening, panting between each word. "We're havin' bear tonight!"

Of course, I got hospital food, but Alex saved some for me. She was there to back me up when I needed her the most, and has been ever since. We're comrades till the end, me and her. The cold, bitter end.

I was next in the picture, then izzy stood by my side, tightly pressed against me as I held my arm around her waist.

The quote “The worst things happen to the best people,” couldn't be more true for Izzy. She was abused by her dad as a child, a victim of his drunken rage. I can't count how many times I had fought him off of her. As the years passed on, with the Equinox takeover in full-swing, Izzy began to suffer from overexposure to the Equinox's radioactive mercury bombs; T-X6 bombs. They were the most powerful explosive, gram for gram, ever created. The radiation it dispersed was known in rare instance to mutate the human genome, making people’s skin less flammable, or enhancing their lungs to breathe longer underwater; seemingly giving people “superpowers”. The equinox would find and capture these people, often causing much violence to the family, and force them into the Equinox’s elite military corps. When Izzy’s overexposure grew, she began to show a mutation. Her stem cells grew incredibly quickly, replacing many of the cells in her body. She could heal any injury, except those resulting in amputation or instant death, within a matter of minutes. When her parents found out about her symptoms, rather than trying to keep her safe, they disowned her and kicked her out of the house.

I immediately invited her to come live with me until she could find somewhere to live. She never did, but I didn't mind. Every time I got sick, or hurt myself (which was a lot), she would help. She's the main reason I didn't die after that bear fight. In a way, she was like my guardian angel. She liked when I called her that. Even though she may not have been a strong fighter, she was strong-willed. She was my inspiration to do what's right, my motivation. I wanted to create a better world. For her.

My eyes finished scanning the picture. Will was standing a little away from the group on the right, his arms folded as he refused to look at the camera.

It was always weird to think about Will in the past. He didn’t talk about his life much, and we only met at the end of high school, so I had only known him for about a year. I suspected that he had developed a mutation as well, and had transferred to our school to try to avoid detection and protect his family. Of course, that was always just an assumption. I had no idea where his power came from, so I just assumed it was that.

The only he would ever say about it was that he didn’t want to talk about it; it was apparently a traumatic experience. He could generate a lot of heat from his hands, even igniting the hydrogen in the air to make fire. He had an amazing control over the flames; he was able to move the fire through the air however he pleased. I never pried; if will wanted to keep his secrets, I would let him.

I sighed, slipping the photo back into my pocket. It was almost time to get to work.

Author's Note

We are currently editing the first part of Gigalist so if there are grammatical mistakes just know that they will all be fixed very soon! Thanks for bearing with us!