Play with Fire: Chapter 1

Well guys... I wrote this story last year... Crow could remember the long time I took to re-write it from my notebook to the computer. But I only re-wrote the first chapter xD I have like for chapters.

Well this story is narrated from my point of view in this first chapters, it could change later though. Well, it's a story of me and some friends from the school, that we supposedly live in another world and attend something like an academy after getting powers and that stuff. I think it's fun, at least it was fun to write.

Soo.. I hope you guys enjoy it =)
_______________________________________________________________________

<<I can’t believe I’m losing this fight>> I thought. <<Luke should be weaker than me, I am bigger and tougher.>>

I used to be Luke’s friend years ago, but then we took different ways of thinking; he became a bully, teasing everyone and enjoying it, I, instead, took care of my friends, giving them and my family the best I could; now we’re enemies.

Four years ago, I went on a trip to Blue Lagoon, a lake in the middle of the jungle, with my classmates with the objective of exploring and find any sign of ancient civilizations. The lake was surrounded by big boulders, some of them perfectly round, others with sharp points and other that were totally irregular. The trees around the lake were mostly fruit trees, but there were also some gigantic trees that seemed to touch the sky. We had settled the tents in a clearing of these rocks, not far away from the shore. The girls had two tents while the boys had three, and there was a big tent where the parents and two teachers slept; the tents were arranged in a semi-circle that faced the lake. In the center of all the tents there was a huge awning that covered a series of tables; were we ate, were we cooked and where we sat when we had nothing to do.

So we started searching for any sign of an ancient civilization, for traits of old hieroglyphics or at least for a skull or bone. We split up in groups of three to explore the different sections around the lake. After days of searching, we found something in the opposite of the lake. It was a mossy and old squared rock with the carving of a bird stabbed by a knife; the carving had color and showed the red blood running from the bird. We gathered around the stone and debated about ideas we could use in this situation; the best one we came up with was to stab a bird with a knife and let the blood flow into the carving as a sacrifice. So we went to the tents to get materials to build a trap to catch a pigeon. We got some string, a rectangular box and some rice. We also looked for a stick, which we had to take from a tree.

We set the trap by putting some rice below the box and lifting one side with the stick, tied with the string, and waited behind some bushes of wild berries. Our first attempt failed; the pigeon ate the rice and when it saw that the string was moving, we had left the string too long, the bird followed the string with the eye and discovered us, so it flew away. We tried again, this time we tensed a little bit the string. When the pigeon came down from a tree to eat the rice, we pulled the string and it made the box fall trapping the pigeon inside.
One of the boys, I can’t remember who, lifted the box and rapidly caught the pigeon his right hand, closing his fist around it, he took it and started petting the animal while walking to the tent, where we got a knife. In the tent another one took the pigeon and we ran towards the other side of the lake, where the rock was. The one that was holding the bird, took the knife and was about to stab the bird when one of the girls stopped his hand and took the bird, who was very afraid, and gently cut one of the wings, making blood to run out from the wound, and flowed down the wing and dripped steadily into the carvings. Suddenly, the ground around there started to shake.
“Earthquake!” – Lots of the group yelled as they ran away in direction to the camping site.

Only some of us were left, about 5 persons. The ground opened up before our eyes as two symmetrical rectangles were forced up from the ground and opened like if they had hinges in one of the corners that remained fixed to an edge of the hard rock floor. With two blocks of stone in the sides, an underground staircase was revealed, which lead to the depths of the earth. We looked at each other, not knowing what to do, and we decided to go inside and explore the dungeon. None of us had flashlights, so when the stairs started to curve, we lost the dim light that was left from the surface; we kept walking down in total darkness. After some minutes of walking that seemed like hours, a bluish light started to illuminate the way and finally we got to a long room, of about 2 meters wide and 15 meters long. At the end of the room there was a pedestal where the source of the light rested, it as a blue ball of light. No one wanted to get near it, but I did. I felt some sort of attraction for that magical sphere, so I walked towards it, taking a look at the walls which had ancient paintings and writings. I was near the pedestal now, a pair of feet away and I had the orb floating in front of me, it attracted me, like a magnet, so I touched it.

The light got minuscule as it ran into my body, making my body shine, and I felt swelled, I felt dizzy, so I walked in direction to my friends, but everything went and I passed out.

It wasn’t then and there when I realized that I had obtained some kind of special ability, I woke up in the tent and everyone started to ask questions, but we decided to keep secret what had happened. It was only two years ago when I noticed them.
My friend Mario’s father invited me to a trip with Mario and his brother Mark. We were going to go to the coast to a place where you can rent boats. So we drove all the way to there, took a yacht after paying for it and sailed to open sea. The sun was shining and there were scarce clouds that looked like white, fluffy sheep. The trip went ok, and very silent except for me and Mario’s dad, because Mario and Mark were awfully seasick, green and unable to talk. Mario’s dad was the first one to notice something wasn’t alright: There was a shark’s fin! But it was only one, so we didn’t worry too much, at least until we took count of how many shark dorsal fins were around us. There wasn’t only one shark, there were hundreds! The sharks jumped out of the water and dived back, creating a whirlpool. We had tripped with a shoal of the most dangerous sharks in these waters: the whirlpool sharks. The whirlpools produced by these sharks alter the normal water currents and cause boats to be unable to navigate away from them.

So we were stuck.

We were too afraid to do anything, we didn’t even scream, but we turned pale because of the fear. The sharks started attacking the yacht, tearing pieces of it apart and leaving dents in the hull. We jumped in the water, afraid of the sharks, really something stupid because there were more sharks in the water, but all the sharks were busy bumping the remains of the boat, choking the metal bars and eating the food we had there. Suddenly, I felt an indescribable pain in the stomach; I had a cramp in my belly. So I started moaning in pain, and I started to sink, after the last breath of air. I couldn’t hold my breath anymore, but the pain was getting dimmer now that I had flexed and exercised my leg a little bit. But I ran out of air, and I had to breathe, I couldn’t hold my breath anymore. So I breath, and my lungs filled of water kept breathing, absorbing oxygen from the water, nothing had occurred. I was breathing water! This didn’t feel any different from air. Now, with the cramp completely disappeared I swam back to the surface and started breathing air normally after exhaling all the water I had left in the lungs. I saw Mario and his family looking at me wide eyed and with jaw dropped open.

“I am ok! Don’t worry!” –I told them. - “But, I can breathe water!”

“We thought you had died…” –Mario said concerned. –“We saw the bubbles coming up, but you didn’t.”

“I think I have some kind of weird water powers.” –I stated with a thinking face. –“If it’s that I could also control water right?”

“Well, probably.” –Mario’s dad confirmed. –“There are people that have powers, but the majority are adults, you see hardly any teenager with powers. In fact you’re the first one I see.”

A shark bumped me.

“Darn! The sharks are going to attack US now.” –I pointed. –“We should board a big plank or something to be in a saf-”

I couldn’t finish the sentence because a shark bit my t-shirt and dragged me down. I calmly breathed water and started kicking the shark that was dragging me down. This sent him flying away a few meters. I was very deep in the sea and I looked up seeing all the sharks going round and round over me, they started to swim towards me like arrows.

I was scared, very scared
.
The sharks were coming nearer from all directions, even from below. I found out what was attracting them, when the shark had bit my t-shirt he had also done a wound in my side, the wound was bleeding and attracting all the sharks.
I screamed in panic, I could do nothing, I was desperate. I started yelling and when the sharks were about to tear me apart, I exploded. There was a cutting, guttural yell that seemed not to come from my body that exploded in the water and pushed all the sharks away, at least one kilometer away from myself.

I floated back to the surface shaking.

“What happened down there?”- Mario shouted at me from one of the big planks that remained from the ship at me. –“We saw a shade, that was you I think, and all the sharks started to swim towards you, but then there was a kind of mini-explosion of sound and all the sharks were tossed far away, I lost sight of them… How did you do it?”

“I don’t know what happened down there. The sharks were getting nearer and nearer and I, well, you can say I exploded and there was this yell that caused an expansive wave… I think it was my water powers or something like that…” –I reflected. –“I was about to die…”

I swam slowly to board one of the planks; Mario’s dad came to help me by giving me his hand. I stepped on the water as if it was solid floor and climbed getting on the remains of the hull.

“So…” –Mark said. - “Do you guys have any idea of how we are going to get back to land?”

“Uh…”

I had to try my powers for a while and I managed to make a current that pushed us in direction to land, luckily we found a compass in the debris. Half the way to land, we were picked up by a cargo ship that was returning to the country. We explained what had happened to the boat renting company and they didn’t make us pay for the yacht, because it had insurance for accident of that type.

And that is how I got my special “talent” to control water.

But I didn’t want to use it on Luke, because it wouldn’t be a fair fight. Luke was in a normal height for his age, 14 years old, had brown eyes, black messy hair, a big nose and, usually, a face of mock. Lots of people were watching and I didn’t want to have to explain everyone about it. I double kicked Luke, but he blocked both kicks, he first weak and the second strong with his two arms. All the people around looked at me, some of them laughed, others gave me worried looks, some whispered to each other in the ear.

Luke punched me in the stomach and caught me off guard, giving me a clean hit in the stomach and causing me to lose my breath and become paralyzed for some seconds, he took advantage of that and hit me again, this time in the face with a clean “tah” sound in my cheek. I fell back and saw the horrified faces of more than half of the spectators. Hopefully the fist had hit my cheek and not my nose or my eyes, sensible parts.

“Hey! Rodrigo! Stand up!”-Someone yelled to me from the crowd; I turned my head to see who it was. It was Mario. - “Are you going to give up just like that? Stand up and fight like a man!”

I looked at him and smiled, then stood up confidently. Luke tried to punch me again but I held his fist in the air tightly, stopping it and twisting it and with my other arm, made an arm lock to him. I pushed his arm and he felt down to his knees. I kicked his face with my right leg and with a “crack”, blood started running from his nose. Then I used my whole body to do another type of lock to him in which each of his arms and legs were immobilized the corresponding of mines.

He was totally immobilized, he couldn’t move now. I had won, or so I thought.

“Crocodile Spines!” –Luke screamed and spines came out of his back, piercing my chest, I let him free when I jumped off, with wounds in the chest, luckily they were only superficial.

“OOOH” –the people that were watching screamed when they saw the spines. –“That’s dirty!”-someone said.

I put my hand in my chest; water ran from my hand into the wounds and slowly regenerated the skin. <<What the… I didn’t ever suspect that he had powers or something like that. >> -I thought with a quizzical face. - <<If he attacks me with his power again, I’m going to use mine to protect myself. >>

Luke prepared to attack me again.

“Crocodile fang punch!”- He said as he punched me with a fist that looked like an open skull showing the teeth so it could stab.

“Aqua Barrier!” –I said as I lifted both arms lifting a screen of water that stopped his punch.

He stood frozen solid by the revelation of my power. I felt something weird.

“Wha-, what? You have powers too?” –Luke said wide eyes and shaking a little bit. –“I never suspected it…”

“Well, neither did I suspect that you could turn into… a crocodile, but… with spines?”

“It’s a kind of mutation.” –he answered.

“I see…”

The feeling was getting stronger, could feel it coming from a direction.

“Well, I think that we should continue this fight later, I don’t want to have any problems with the government or stuff like that.”

“Or someone could get hurt…”- I pointed.

“Like if I’d care…”- he commented sufficiently.

“Well... then… I guess we’ll continue this fight someday in the future…”

“What!?!?” – Mario demanded as all the people dispersed and walked away complaining about the fight not going on. –“Are you letting him go just like that? He’s a chicken! He doesn’t want to fight you because he now knows that you have powers too!”

The feeling now was even stronger than before, it was like a radiation.

“No, Mario.” –I cut him. –“He’s right. I could get in the trouble and more important, someone could get hurt because of us, even you or Joyce or Gabriela or Alex.”

I turned everywhere, looking for the source of the waves and I saw Luke walking away.

“Until the next time!”- he laughed.

“Yeah, whatever.” –I said and then turned to Mario. –“Hey, Mario…”

“Yes?”

“I don’t feel ok, I feel something coming from I don’t-know-where”- I said.-“but I think I know how to get to that place.”

“So you want me to go and investigate with you?” –Mario inquired.

“Yes, if you can.” –I continued. –“School is over for today so we don’t have to go to any lesson.”

“Yes, let’s go.”

We quickly walked towards the school’s gate, crossing the fields running to avoid the flying balls of a soccer matches that were going on. The school was a big place. It had big brick building painted blue of 3 floors of height, full of rooms where students and teachers spent their days studying. It also had some green areas where there were soccer courts and other things, some cement clearing that had the volleyball courts and others. The school was surrounded by tall walls, it seemed more like a prison than a school, but teachers were friendly and made you have good days if you are a good student. When we got to the gate we found Joyce, Gabriela and Alexandra talking about the fight.

“Hi girls” – I said happily.

“Hey”- Joyce said.

Joyce is a cheerful and sometimes clumsy girl who draws really well and hates summer and the sun (she might be a vampire). It is really easy to hurt her feelings, and when she gets mad at you, she will ignore you to the point of making you crazy. Joyce has slightly wavy brown hair that grows down to her shoulders, a very white skin full of freckles, courtesy of the full days she spends in her house drawing and reading romance books. She possesses a pair of happy brown eyes, a small nose and thin lips. She is 1.69 meters tall.

“Hi Mario and Rodrigo” –Gabriela greeted us.

Gabriela is a very lazy person, but being lazy doesn’t mean she’s wimpy. In fact, she is a pretty dangerous person and will even hit us, her friends, if we bother her too much. Gabriela is a very good friend and has a high amount of topics to talk in a conversation. She draws beautifully, especially in the manga style. She has a mid-length wavy black hair, dark brown eyes and has a normal height for a girl of her age, about 167 centimeters.

“Hi guys” –Alex welcomed us.

Alexandra is a very weird girl. She has that look of bewilderment on the face that gives the idea that she is up to something. She likes people that don’t think that someone is better for their origins or way of life; she doesn’t care much about what people think of her. Alexandra has straight, short, brown hair, big dark brown eyes, raised cheekbones and a radiant smile. She owns a cute and shy Siamese cat.

“Hey girls” –Mario and I said in unison.

“Your fight was very rough” –Joyce commented. - “It was very dirty of him to use his powers on you, but well, we know that Luke is always that way –she sighed-.”

“Yeah…” –Gabriela said. –“So… Where are you guys going?”

“Rodrigo sensed something weird that he can detect being emitted from somewhere.” –Mario answered for me. –“And we’re going to go and explore.”

“Oh, oh, oh can we go too?”- Joyce begged us. - “Please…”

“Well, I don’t see a problem with that.” –I said and thought about it. –“Yeah, I suppose that you girls can come with us”-I said with a smile.

“Yay!”- Joyce giggled.

“So where are we going?”- Alex inquired.

“I really don’t know, you’ll have to follow me.” -I confessed.

“Alright, we’ll follow your instincts.”

We walked out of the school chatting and joking, but I asked for silence so I could concentrate on where the radiation was coming from. We walked down the street past the stand of an old lady that sold “raspadillas” and orange juice we walked three blocks more and then I turned right in a street full of shops and people buying vegetables, meat, and other things to cook. Then to the left in a street full of antiquaries, right again, left, then right, then left again… and we continued walking and turning until we got to a desolate street, a full block was occupied by the old power plant, which was closed by the government some years ago when they found out that the company that owned the plant was using dangerous chemicals and radioactives to increase the energy output of the plant.

“This is it!”- I exclaimed.

“What a weird place.” –Gabriela commented.-“But no wonder that you felt something coming from here, there could be some reactions going on inside because of the radioactive liquids used in the past.”

“Well, let’s go and take a look.” – Mario proposed.

We got near to the entrance, but it was locked and we couldn’t go in.

“What now?” –Alex asked.

“We could find something like a hole or something to go in.”- Joyce pointed.

“Exactly” –I said.

We inspected the façade of the imposing building it had an old and rusty silver color, squared windows placed one after another high in the construction and in the bottom right corner of the wall the metal was extremely rusted, leaving some small holes through where you could see the inside of the factory, This corner was covered by boxes, metal things, and other stuff.

“I propose to move all that stuff there to see if there is a hole big enough for us to go through.” –I said.

Everyone agreed, so we moved the boxes and stuff and found a big hole, but still not big enough so we picked up some stuff from what we had moved to make the whole bigger: Mario and me picked up metal bars because they were heavy and we were stronger, Gabriela and Joyce got wooden sticks from the boxes and Alex had to take a metal pipe from an old lavatory that was left abandoned here. We took turns to hit the hole and we managed to open it more than we expected, I helped taking the pieces of metallic debris that were left hanging from the hole too.

So we went in through our “generic” entrance. Inside the factory was just as I imagined it: a gigantic place, dark place that was only illuminated by the light that came in through the windows. The place was full of lustrous shiny machines, something unusual for a closed power plant, of all kinds: some of them looked like pumps, others looked like containers and they were all connected by spiraled metal tubes. From where we had got into the power plant we walked to the main entrance, noticing that there were two that lead between the machines.

“Let’s form two groups and go explore”-Mario suggested pointing at the ways. –“I think I will go with you Rodrigo and… Joyce.”

“But I wanted to go with Gabriela!”- Joyce complained with a doleful face.

“OK, ok you go with them Joyce, but remember that I am the one who has water powers.” – I reminded her.

“Meh” –Joyce said with a sardonic smile.

“We’ll take the path on the left, you girls take the other one” –Mario indicated.

“OK see you later guys” –Joyce waved her hand at us.

“If any of us finds out something important or has trouble, let’s shout so we can locate each other ok?” –Gabriela proposed.

-“OK, see ya later, girls.”- Mario said.

“Bye” Alex said.

Mario and I took the path on the left and started exploring the creepy factory. We stopped to check the machines and to see how they were connected with the tubes. Every time that we or the girls on the other side accidentally bumped a machine, a flock of bats came out of the machines flying and making a lot of noise, occasionally some rats ran by our feet. Occasionally we heard cries of fear that sounded like Joyce and Alex, probably the rats.

“I guess radioactives were transported from machine to machine through these pipes.” –Mario said with a quizzical face looking at the tubes.

“Or maybe the electricity”- I pointed out.

“Or maybe both”-Mario said laughing a little bit.

We kept walking and inspecting the machines. Behind a machine that had a lot of metal tubes around it there was a skeleton, the view was grotesque.

“That’s horrible!”- Mario exclaimed.-“They didn’t even take the corpse out.”

“Maybe we’re right and the electricity and the chemicals were transported through those tubes, but there wasn’t a good security and people got electrocuted.” –I said scratching my chin with my hand. –“Should we call the girls?”

“No, they will be creeped out by it.” –Mario remembered me.

“Yes, you are right” –I agreed.

We kept walking and the two tracks got nearer to each other, now there were only one or two machines of distance between them. Finally they became a single way that lead into a central clearing, in this place there was a giant metal cauldron from where all the metal tubes came from which border was surrounded by a platform that was hanging from the high ceiling, the cauldron emitted a gorgeous greenish light that also changed color in the center. There was also a metal staircase that seemed obsolete, this lead up to the platform.

“Did you find out anything?” – I asked Gabriela.

“No, and you?” –she responded.

“We just found a skeleton of someone who died.” –I told her. - “We think that the electricity and the chemicals were passed through those pipes, he could’ve died by getting electrocuted with them, and he was very near to those.”

“We should go and see inside the cauldron” –Mario suggested. –“There could be something inside there.”

We all nodded to what Mario had said. We walked towards the ladder that lead up to the platform, chatting. We climbed it, skipping the steps that missed and jumping a gap of 3 or 4 missing stairs with the help of my water powers, I lifted them with water when jumping so they could jump a longer distance. When we got to the cauldron we all exclaimed:

“Wow”

“It is gorgeous” –Joyce said.

Inside the cauldron there was a green liquid that gave out a green light and floating, below what looked like a peninsula of the platform that was built inside the cauldron, lifted above it by metal strings that seemed rusted, there was a rainbow colored big orb of light. In the peninsula there were some keyboards, controls, levers and many buttons.

“It looks very similar to the light sphere I touched in that underground dungeon in Blue Lagoon.”- I recalled.

“I’m going to try and touch it”-Mario said as he confidently walked into the platform peninsula.

“No, Mario!” –I shouted at him and walked towards him, holding by the arm. –“It could be dangerous!”

“It doesn’t matter.” –he said. –“Let… me… go.” –he gasped and he took his arm from my hands with a drastic movement.

Alex, Joyce and Gabriela had walked around the platform to see what was happening better. Mario stepped on the platform and it produced a “crack” and the bridge was lowered a little bit into the cauldron. I jumped to hold Mario and there was a screeching sound. At the same time I ran and jumped into the platform the peninsula broke from the platform and fell into the green liquid, pushing the ball of light into the radioactive too. Where the ball had fallen there was an explosion and a pillar of energy was released, making a very big hole in the ceiling, we could now see the sky; how much time had passed? It was already night. Then there was another explosion that pushed all of us in different directions. As the cauldron exploded, all the metal tubes turned green and gave out light, like the liquid inside the cauldron.

“Aqua Barrier Bubble!”- yelled as I produced an aquatic shield, but could only protect myself, if I extended it, it would pop. The explosion sent me flying away but didn’t touch me directly thanks to my shield.

Mario was sent flying and ended up in then now working spiraled pipes, which electrocuted him. Joyce was pushed to the side of the cauldron, not taking much damage, but there was another explosion just where she had fell which sent her flying again. Alex was sent flying through the hole in the ceiling and with a “pum” sound, hit the roof, staying in the outside. Gabriela fell inside of the cauldron, but luckily all the liquid inside was consumed by the explosion soon after she fell inside. Blocking the explosion had left me exhausted because it was a very strong thing to stop, so my shield faded and I hit a machine, fainting.

Epilogue
The five friends survived to the explosion and their respective terrible accidents. The firemen came soon after the explosion and took them to the city’s hospital, where they stayed in coma. Will they wake up from the coma? Or will they stay in coma until their deaths.
Find out in the next chapter.