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Aha! Look at me! I finished another Trevaliant story, and need some people to read it for me and tell me if it's as good as the first one! Don't worry about the missing #2, they all stand alone. Thoughts? Typos? Gaps in logic that I completely missed? Thanks!
What Love Commences
(Trevaliant #3)
First Officer Kylee Scott
“First Officer on the bridge.”
The captain caught my eye and nodded. He didn't understand why I insisted on observing the formalities, but after telling me they weren't necessary the first two hundred times he'd given up. It was like a well paced fencing match—the captain's eccentricities versus my sense of order. Some of the crew thought we didn't like each other, but the opposite was in fact true. Without me the Trevaliant would quickly descend into anarchy and without the captain, well, life wouldn't be nearly as fun. We needed each other the way summer needs rain and, though we never talked about it, we both knew it.
“Did you have a productive day, Kylee?”
I raised one eyebrow, an ability I secretly enjoyed. “Very productive, thank you for asking, Captain.”
I glanced around the bridge. It was night time on Earth, and the ship ran on Greenwich time, so most of the crew were off duty, relaxing in their bunks or in the recreation room. Still, it was unusual not to see...
“Where's Conroy?” I blurted out. The psychic never seemed to sleep and he hung around the bridge perpetually, except for when he appeared mysteriously in other parts of the ship at the moment he was least wanted, like some kind of evil genie.
“Ah, he's not feeling well,” the captain said. “I sent him to the medical bay to get his head checked out.”
There were snorts of laughter from around the room. I didn't entirely understand the joke, but I let it slide.
“It's nothing serious, is it?” I asked, wrinkling my brow.
“I'm sure he'll be back to pester you around midnight,” the captain said. He stood and stretched, yawning loudly. “Good night, crew,” he announced. “Don't blow up my ship.”
“Good night, captain,” we responded automatically.
Then he was off the bridge. I waited ten seconds, and slipped into the captain's chair. I was on night shift which was usually long, boring, and full of opportunities for mischief. With Conroy out of the picture, though, it would probably be just long and boring. I checked the activity logs from the day, checked the scans for anything unusual, and pulled up an old French novel for some light reading.
So I like Victor Hugo. That doesn't make me incapable of commanding a small space vessel for a few hours.
“On the day when a woman as she passes before you emits light as she walks, you are lost, you love” Conroy swept onto the bridge quoting from Les Miserable, the exact paragraph I'd been reading a moment before. He clasped his hands to his chest dramatically, his recitation perfect. “But one thing remains for you to do: to think of her so intently that she is constrained to think of you. What love commences can be finished by God alone. True love is in despair and is enchanted over a glove lost or--”
“Enough, Conroy,” I snapped, annoyed at the interruption. I glanced at the clock and saw that it was twenty-three hundred hours. The battle of the timezones was just one of the ways that the Captain and I kept the crew on their toes.
“Oh come off it, Kylee,” he said, using my proper name. “How many times have you read that book?”
I opened my mouth to reply.
“Seven,” he said, before I could get a word out. “Once as a child, three times during college, and three times more since becoming the First Officer of this ship.”
“Mr. Conroy,” I started. It was as far as I got.
“Is it that you would prefer to live in that blood-thirsty revolutionary age?” Conroy mused, leaning back and putting his feet on the console. “Or is it that you savor the familiarity, the way Lt. Janine savors the familiarity of her stuffed rabbit? Or is it, perhaps, that you use it as a sort of therapy to--”
“Mr. Conroy,” I snapped, sharply enough that heads turned. “Please put your feet on the floor.”
He blinked at me, innocent surprise spread across his boyish face. “Why?”
“Because you're getting mud all over the console,” I explained. “It will damage the instruments.”
He picked up his foot and peered at it closely. “Nope,” he said. “Clean enough to lick. Do you want me to prove it? I'll--” he stuck out his tongue. In spite of myself I closed my eyes.
“Mr. Conroy,” I repeated. “Please do not lick your feet in public.”
“Why, First Officer Scott!” he exclaimed in mock horror. “I was simply proving a point! You wouldn't want people to just believe you without proof, would you? That's dictatorship! After all, you were the one who said my feet were muddy, when in fact, they are perfectly clean!”
There were snickers from the rest of the crew. I ignored them.
“Mr. Conroy,” I tried again. I didn't get further as an alarm sounded, causing everyone to snap to attention. Conroy sat bolt upright, feet on the floor. If he'd had rabbit ears they would have been sticking straight up.
“What is it, Eddy?” I asked. In times of stress I sometimes forgot to be formal.
“Something's on a collision course,” the navigation officer said.
“I know that,” I snapped. “Kindly tell me what?”
I pulled up the display readings even as I said it, looking for myself to see what the disturbance could be. We realized it at the same time.
“It's a ship,” Conroy said first.
So of course we all looked at him. He opened his eyes, then blinked a few times when he saw us staring.
“It's a ship,” he said. “It's disabled. We need to help it.”
“Life signs?” I asked.
“None,” Conroy said. I glared at him.
The science officer, a mousy girl named Gaia, of all things, looked up at me and shook her head.
“Just some floating space debris, sir,” she said. “It's been out there for sometime. The hull appears to be mostly intact but--”
“Licensed trader vessel Samantha,” Conroy interrupted. “Lost thruster power on Star Date 2616-12-7. Crew and cargo were rescued by passing surveryor-class vessel Starbound. Hull was damaged by passing meteoroids, and the ship was deemed not worth the price of salvage.”
We spent a few more seconds staring. Conroy had not even seen the ship, and couldn't use his mental abilities on computers. There was no way for him to have that kind of information. I nodded at Gaia and she quickly check, turning back to me and nodding that Conroy was correct.
He sensed my thoughts and smirked. “They don't call me Ship's Advisor for nothing, Officer Scott,” he said, somehow managing to make my proper title sound like an insult.
“Correct course and file a report with the Salvage Corp,” I ordered, leaning back in the chair.
“No,” Conroy said vehemently. “We have to help!”
“Help what?” I asked patiently. “You just said that the crew was rescued, and that was four years ago!”
“Please,” he repeated. “Please.”
I sighed. “Mr. Kessinger?”
“Yes, Officer?”
“How much of a delay would it be for us to send down a party for thirty minutes to scout out the situation?”
“None worth speaking of, Officer,” he said. “We're just on a supply run. We could take a whole day and no one would miss us.”
I knew very well what we were doing. I had our schedule for an entire month memorized.
“Would you like to beam over and have a look?” I offered Conroy.
He instantly shook his head, then nodded.
“Well?” I asked. “Which one?”
“I hate teleportation,” he said. “It's like dying.”
“Have you ever died, Mr. Conroy?” I asked.
Without answering, he fled the bridge.
“Mr. Kessinger,” I said, “How long before we're out of transportation range for the vessel?”
“About an hour, Officer.”
I decided to relax. If Conroy really wanted to take a trip through space he'd make up his mind on his own before then.
I had almost finished my chapter when Lt. Janine came onto the bridge. She was our security officer, and we never saw eye to eye on anything, least of all Ship's Advisor Conroy. I saw him as simply another member of the crew and treated him accordingly. Lt. Janine alternated between hating him beyond all reason and coddling him like a toddler. Today she apparently felt the latter.
“You can't possibly be allowing Conroy to beam over to that derelict vessel,” she snapped at me. “It's far too dangerous and he's too valuable to be allowed to run amuck in such a manner.”
I frowned. “What are you talking about?” I asked. “Conroy hasn't said yet whether or not he wishes to go. I haven't given my permission for anything.”
“That's not what he says,” Janine said. “He's down there preparing right now.”
“Preparing what?” I asked. “And where?”
“How should I know?” she said. “He's in the transporter room now. They called security because they hadn't received any authorization for transport.”
I closed my eyes briefly, and sent a prayer for patience to Saint Monica for patience. I'd prayed to Saint Monica a lot since my appointment to the Trevaliant.
“Why are you opposed to Mr. Conroy visiting the abandoned ship?” I asked.
I didn't particularly want to know, but as the risk assessment officer on board as well as head of security it was my job to listen to her opinion whether I wanted it or not.
“It's an unnecessary risk of a valuable asset,” Lt. Janine said stiffly. “There is nothing to be gained by the trip, and Mr. Conroy could be serious hurt or lost altogether.”
“Good heavens, Angela, I wouldn't send him alone!”
That was the second time in one night I'd used a crew member's first name. I was going to turn into the captain at the rate this was going.
Before Janine could protest, I opened a communication channel. “Bridge to the Transporter room,” I said.
“Engineer Salvora here,” said an unfamiliar voice.
“Is Mr. Conroy with you?” I asked.
“Yes ma'am. He's finishing his preparations.”
“What preparations?”
“He has three candles, some kind of ignition device, a couple of transparent jars that appear to be made of glass, and an oxygen tent--and he's attempting to tie them up in a blanket.”
Eddy Kessinger looked at his console-mate and grinned. I ignored them.
“Could you please ask Mr. Conroy to return to the bridge for a few minutes?”
“Yes ma'am.”
There was a muffled conversation. Then Conroy clearly said: “There's no time! If I don't help them they'll die!”
“Conroy,” I said. “What are the candles for?”
“So I can see! It's dark over there!”
“Wouldn't a flashlight work just as well?”
“No. Too much light. It would hurt them.”
He sounded panicky, which was bad. It was impossible to say how much of what he was saying was believable. As a general rule, Conroy didn't lie. He didn't need to. But sometimes he could be mistaken or, even more likely, misunderstood.
“Who are they, Conroy?” I asked.
“Who do you think?” he snapped. “They're aliens.”
“I think we should wake the captain,” Lt. Janine said. “Clearly he's out of control.”
“I don't need to disturb the captain just to take care of that,” I said. “Bridge to engineering.”
“Engineering. Luther here.”
“Is Pete available?” I asked.
Every time I had to ask it I wondered what Pete's surname was. No one seemed to know, and I kept forgetting to look it up. An odd oversight. I wasn't accustomed to such lapses in attention.
“Just a moment,” Engineer Luther said.
It took a moment. Then Pete came on the line, his familiar, grizzled old voice a relief to hear. “Where's he at?” he asked.
“Transporter room,” I said. “Try to get what sense you can out of him. He might be right.”
“He usually is,” Pete said cryptically.
I closed the communication. Lt. Janine was still glaring at me.
“Gaia,” I said. “Please recheck your readings.”
“I already have,” she said nervously. “I'm reading no life forms.”
“Could there be something blocking our scanners?” I asked.
She looked again. “Nothing I've seen before,” she said. “I mean, anything is possible but...”
She let the thought trail off.
“Who would do that?” Janine demanded. “They're probably pirates.”
“They probably are,” I agreed.
“We shouldn't let Conroy go,” she said. “It's too dangerous.”
“If they're just pirates,” I countered, “Then what is it he wants to rescue?”
That should have shut her up, but it didn't. “He's been known to be unreliable before,” she said.
I didn't answer her. There was no point in arguing.
A few minutes later Pete entered the bridge. He didn't bother announcing himself.
“Well?” I asked. “How is he?”
Pete hesitated. “He's in a lot of pain,” he said.
In spite of myself he was alarmed. “Is he alright?” I asked, standing. “Captain sent him to the medbay earlier. Is there something wrong with him?”
Pete was shaking his head, and smiling as if amused at something. “The pain is not his own,” he said. “He's experiencing whatever it is those aliens are experiencing.”
“So there are aliens!” I said in surprise. “What kind of pain?”
“Anguish, grief,” Pete said instantly. “He's crying, Officer Scott.”
No one smiled at that. Conroy cried like a child who'd lost his parents, and sometimes it seemed his telepathic powers reversed, causing everyone else to feel pain with him.
“Pete,” I said. “These people...”
“Despite what everyone on this bridge seems to think, Conroy does not tell fictions,” Pete said sharply. “If he says these people need our help, then there are people who need our help. That is all I know. Now, with your permission...”
He didn't wait for my answer before leaving the bridge.
“Lieutenant,” I said,. “Please alert the captain and give him a full report as soon as we're gone.”
“You're going with?” she exclaimed. “As the senior officer on board I don't think--”
“I am not the senior officer,” I said patiently. “Because you're going to wake the captain and he's going to resume control of the vessel.”
“Why not simply wait for him then?”
“Conroy wants to go now,” I said simply. “So we're going now.”
As a general rule, one did not argue with psychics on such matter. Janine said nothing further and I left the bridge at as close to a run as was possible without appearing undignified. Once in the transporter room I ordered pressurized space suits for all of us, and requisitioned the two stun guns we kept on board in case of encountering large hostile mammals by surprise.
Conroy was rubbing his eyes, which were suspiciously red, but if he had been crying as Pete reported he seemed to have recovered from it.
“I've ordered our speed reduced,” I said, “but even so we won't have very long to check out the wreckage. No dawdling, okay?”
Conroy nodded, sniffed, and then said “Yes ma'am,” out loud, which startled me because he'd never actually shown me respect before.
We gathered on the transporter pad, Pete on one side and me on the other with Conroy between us. At the last possible moment before transport he reached out and grabbed hold of both our hands as if he were a frightened child and we were his parents. Before I could react or even say anything the transportation activated.
When Conroy said that transporting was like dying he wasn't being melodramatic. Even though I'd teased him for it, I secretly felt the same way. Transporters disassembled whatever was put into them down to their individual molecular components and then reassembled them at the other end. For those few seconds without a physical form, the conscious mind was left to drift alone among the stars. It was unknown how the mind returned into the body, how it was sure to get the right one, or what would happen if there was no body to return to. Would you die? Or was that state of existing outside of physical space already the same as death?
This time, however, the sensation of being alone was not the same. As our physical forms disintegrated as surely as if we'd been struck by a disintegration beam the sensation of holding hands remained. I could feel Conroy next to me and Pete on the other side of him. Around us the stars swirled in their imitation of timelessness and eternity but before I could process what was happening or direct an inquiry to on Conroy next to me the transport was complete.
We landed on a metal deck, in complete darkness. Suit sensors showed no atmosphere. I dropped Conroy's hand and reached out to flick on the suits external lamps but he grabbed my wrist and hissed a warning through the comm system.
“What do we do?” I demanded.
“Shhh,” was all he said. He dropped down into a crouch and fumbled with the blanket-wrapped supply kit he'd brought with him. He was clumsy with it, so I knelt down next to him and helped, trusting Pete to keep an eye out. The knots came undone and Conroy snatched at a few objects that were barely discernible to me in the starlight. He hugged them to his chest and tried to set up the oxygen tent with only one hand, which of course couldn't be done.
There was only room in the tent for two, so I communicated to Pete to keep watch while I set it up for him. The white material enveloped us, and pumps activated and began to fill it with atmosphere. Oxygen tents weren't designed to operate in a vacuum, although it could be done. They were designed to offer air pressure and a breathable atmosphere on planets were the air was thin or poisonous to humans. I watched apprehensively as Conroy removed first the gloves on his suit, and then the helmet. When he didn't die right away I did the same, and watched in fascination as he lit the three small candles he'd brought with. Real fire was rare on a space ship, as it consumed valuable oxygen and provided a fire risk higher than was reasonable given the very little benefit of a candle. How Conroy had come by them I didn't even know. I didn't know of anyone on board who would be carrying such a thing.
“Conroy, where did you--” I started but he shushed me at once.
There was an almost immediate reaction to the light. Little pinpoints pricked in the darkness. I blinked a few times, thinking I'd imagined them, but even in that tiny moment they'd multiplied, or grown brighter, or possibly both. Within seconds the air was full of them, tiny pink and golden glows, darting down to the candles and away again, almost as if drinking in the flame. They danced and spun around us in a pink and golden cloud and I could see Conroy smiling by their light, the amazement in his eyes evident as he watched. I wasn't sure how they'd got through the supposedly impermeable material of the oxygen tent, but I supposed it didn't really matter.
“Are these them?” I asked, keeping my voice muted. “The aliens you came to rescue?”
He nodded a few times in ecstasy, but offered no explanation.
“What...” I hesitated not wanting to cause offense, but curiosity was stronger than etiquette in this case, as it always seemed to be with me. “What are they?”
“Mindsparks,” he murmured. “Pure consciousness. Whispers of thought and pieces of dreams that escape in the night...they feed on light,” he added, waving at the candles. “They need light and warmth to survive. Alone in the dark they'll die.”
I reached out to them hesitantly, and my fingers moved through them as if nothing was there.
“You can hear them,” I guessed. “That's how you knew, back on the ship. They told you.”
“They amplify emotion,” Conroy said. “I guess that carries information, after a fashion. It's...it's difficult to explain.”
He didn't have to explain—the glow that radiated off of him was obvious, even to me. I felt a pang then, at the loss of something I didn't even know.
“Let's gather them up and get back to the ship then,” I said. “Trevaliant won't wait for us forever.”
Conroy carefully unscrewed the lid on the first jar and placed a candle, still burning, inside of it. Instantly the Mindsparks darted into it, filling it up, and he replaced the lid, repeating the process with the next one. When he finished he had three jars of glowing pink cloud and to my amazement they all fit, without a single spark left behind. I helped him back into his helmet and gloves and he clumsily wrapped the blanket back around the jars. I resealed my own suit and took down the oxygen tent, signaling to Pete that we were finished. He transmitted back to Trevaliant that we were ready to beam up, and I began to understand why Conroy liked him so much. He didn't ask unnecessary questions—didn't ask any questions at all, in fact. He seemed content to simply...be.
I didn't have time to ponder the question further, as the transporter locked onto us and we were wisked back to the ship. With his arms full of jars full of alien consciousnesses or whatever they were, Conroy didn't try to hold anyone's hands again and the trip back to the ship was uneventful.
The Captain met us in the transporter room, along with all the crew who weren't asleep or on duty. Conroy beamed like a five year old who had been catching fireflies which, I suppose after a fasion, he was. We reported our mission, got back underway, and life onboard resumed as normal.
Except that it didn't. Apparently Conroy's assessment that his “Mindsparks” amplified emotion was not inaccurate. Conroy quickly discovered the pranking possibilities as placing a few under the table of two people known to be fond of each other could lead quickly to a make-out session, or releasing some near an argument could cause a simple disagreement to escalate into blows. Over time it became harder and harder to notice that either Conroy excluded me alone on the entire ship from his pranks, or that I was superhumanly immune to emotional suggestion.
After Conroy planted some on the Captain during an argument with the admiral of the fleet that almost resulted in Trevaliant being hauled off for scrap he ordered Conroy to keep his “bugs” in their jars or in his room at all time or he'd have the entire lot of them sent to a laboratory for study. Conroy, who would rather loose his right hand then his pets, took the threat seriously and there were no more pranks.
But for me it was too late.
One night I got off duty and found myself standing inexplicably in front of Conroy's quarters. It was late, I told myself. I should just go to bed.
Instead I knocked.
Conroy opened the door instantly as if he knew I was there. Which he probably did, I realized. His hair was tousled from sleep and he blinked against the light of the corridor but as I stammered over my apologies he stepped back and said: “Come in.”
The lights in his cabin came up to provide a dim glow as I blurted out:
“The reason I read Les Mis over and over is because I'm trying to understand it,” I blurted out finally. “I love the idea of love—it's fascinating and appealing to me, but also completely alien.” I took a deep breath and confessed: “I was born with a brain anomaly that represses my emotions. There is no known cure.”
What I meant, of course, is that there was no cure known that didn't end up with the subject in an insane asylum or medical research facility for the rest of his or her life.
Conroy nodded, accepting this admission as if it came as no surprise to him. Perhaps it didn't. Anomalies of all kinds were becoming more common and more varied as the human race spread out, experimented more, and exposed themselves to increasingly harsh conditions.
The crew had to have at least wondered if that was the reason for my analytical detachment. I was careful to conduct myself as an officer would at all times, but understood that itself was unusual.
“I'm a mindreader,” Conroy corrected, although I'd spoken nothing aloud. He grinned wickedly and I realized I must have been gaping.
It suddenly dawned on me that we had grossly misjudged Conroy. All those nights he'd spent tormenting me on the bridge and humiliating me in front of my crew he had known—and said nothing.
“I sometimes wonder,” I stumbled on, “What it would be like to feel as Marius did for Cosette. I wonder, sometimes, if it's really worth it...”
I broke off because Conroy had taken my hands and pulled me close to him. Before I could protest he moved his hands to either side of my face and pulled my lips down to his.
I exploded at his touch, and it wasn't just the kiss. My heart was beating wildly in my chest, so hard that I could hear the blood pounding through my ears, and my breath came quickly in shallow, ragged breaths. I felt the stars spinning as they had during transport but they were different somehow, more alive—filled with desire.
Not the logical desire of a naval officer's daughter to succeed, but a mindless drive that defied all reason, that made me want to shed my blood on a barricade for a pointless cause, that made me want to wrap myself in the arms of the stupid boy who had shown me this wonder and drag him down with me. I felt closer to Conroy in that instant than I ever have to any human being in my life, and when he pulled away I was weeping with the ache of it, the pain in my head overwhelming at last the lingering sense of wonder.
“Take it away,” I said, my voice sounding strange in my ears. “I can't handle this, Conroy. Please...”
But even as I begged him I felt it fading, the sensation lost when he stopped touching me. The loss of it pained me and I wondered at that, because grief was an emotion too.
“Your mind is blocked off from receiving emotions,” Conroy said without my asking. “The Mindsparks can amplify all they want but it's still not getting through. It doesn't mean, however, that you don't have them. Some shadow gets through, I think, but it's like a seed falling into a desert. You don't even know what to do with a feeling if you do have one.”
“What did you...” I tried to speak and my voice came out harsh and broken. I felt like crying, and I didn't even know why.
“I'm an empath,” he explained. “Under certain circumstances that ability...reverses.”
Like when he cried. I didn't say it aloud, but he smiled when I thought it.
“I brought some rain into the desert,” he said. “That is all. It's up to you what to do with it.”
I knew what I wanted to do with it. I wanted to kiss Conroy again, forever if possible. The rational part of my brain was already asserting itself, though, and pointing out that it was a natural reaction to the adrenaline which was a reaction to the strong emotion I'd experienced—the first of its kind.
“When my parents noticed my...behavioral tendencies, they took me to a psych specialist.”
Conroy spoke softly into the emptiness broken only by my ragged breathing, and his words came haltingly as if he were unsure of himself. I took time out from my mental turmoil to listen.
“They were anxious to know if I would have a normal life.”
He laughed at the phrase, at himself, and his voice was filled with bitterness. I held my breath, waiting.
“What they were told was that I would be lucky if I could relate to humans at all. That if my....abilities...developed as projected I would never understand emotional attachment of any kind, that despite my heightened empathic abilities, I wouldn't even be able to tell right from wrong. If things went very badly I wouldn't even be able to handle being around humans at all and live out my life in a solitary habitat somewhere, or even be mercifully euthanized.”
I had never heard Conroy speak so many coherent words in a row—I don't think anyone had. Only Captain Fellheart had seen his file, and he hated to speak about myself.
“And?” I was almost afraid for the answer.
“Contrary to popular opinion, I am not amoral,” Conroy snapped. “And unlike yourself, I am no stranger to emotion. But this...”
He cupped my cheek softly and kissed me again, for only a moment. My heart leapt at his touch, although I could not have explained the response.
He stepped back and shrugged. “I feel nothing.”
That surprised me. Even without the ability to feel love, I understood and experienced sexual desire. I expected that one day I would choose a mate for his stability and position, as well as desirable genetic traits, and that we would have children together. And if the union was not a blissfully happy one, at least it would be satisfying to us both.
Conroy smiled and shook his head.
“Kylee, Kylee,” he said, some of his mocking tone returning at last. “Haven't you heard what they say about me? There had to be some price for all of this--” he waved his hand in the general direction of his head. “I'm the little boy who never grew up.”
Too late I realized, of course the human brain can only handle so much information, so much ability. To handle Conroy's not insignificant psychic powers something had to be scarified...maturity, good judgment, and the hormones that providing the drive most young men his age experienced.
I blushed at my thoughts, for I realized he could hear them as clearly as if I spoke them out loud. He waved a hand negligently.
“I have sorely misjudged you,” I admitted.
“I'm sure I deserved it,” he said. “Are you going to your own bed then?”
I realized that I'd been overcome with exhaustion while I stood there lost in thought, and was wavering on my own two feet.
“Yes, of course,” I said. “Sorry to keep you so late.”
He yawned. “No matter,” he said. “See you on the bridge tomorrow.”
“Thank you,” I said, showing myself out.
“Kylee,” he called me back. I turned and saw him already sitting in bed, the covers drawn up to his chin.
“What love commences can be finished by God alone,” he said.
I knew what he was quoting, for I'd read it myself only a few days earlier.
“You understand?” he asked, watching me carefully.
I did. He didn't want me waking him up in the middle of the night anymore, and he didn't want me falling in love with him despite his warnings.
“I understand,” I said, smiling softly in spite of myself. “Good night, Conroy.”
I closed the door behind me as I left.
_________________
Floyd was frozen where he stood. He struggled to breathe, but the air smelled of blood and death and guilt. He tried to formulate a name, to ask, but language was meaningless, and words would not come. He tried to scream but the sound got stuck in his heart, shattered into a million pieces, and scattered to the wind.
In a world without superheroes, who will stand against the forces of evil?
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