Inciting Events

Chapter 5

He tried to turn his ears back on to listen to her speak.

“Now, let’s talk about Braineigh. This smart flying super called for evacuation at the El Toro Hotel in New York City the night that it was unfortunately attacked. Luckily, no one was hurt. During an interview afterward, Braineigh mentioned a boy who had tipped her off about something dangerous happening that night. Although this seems fine, people are curious. Some say that this boy was part of the attack itself, but others present another theory. Is this mysterious boy a possible romantic interest for the young hero or hidden comrade. Believe what you want, but many love the idea of a hidden love story happening.”

Cyrus flicked the television off. He loved seeing his sister, but he did not love hearing about what had happened at the El Toro Hotel. It had already been a week. Why were people still talking about it? He sighed, knowing he needed to get his mind off things. Besides, he had been putting something off.

Cyrus reached down into the crack of the couch until his fingers brushed something smooth and cold. He glanced towards the door once again, just to make sure no one was coming. After that, he pulled out the cell phone. He may have done some shady things to get it without Tempest knowing, and he had just gotten it three days ago. He was really nervous about using it and wasn’t even quite sure how to use it. All he had done so far was download flappy bird and play for a couple of minutes.

But he had seen something about Instagram on the news and wanted to see it. He wasn’t sure if anyone he used to know had it, but he still thought it was worth the look. Even if he was slightly scared at the prospect of it all. But he still went to the app store, typed in Instagram, and hit download. Waiting for the button to say open.

And it eventually did. He made an account, his account was ‘total-science-nerdio-768 ’, he wasn’t sure what to put there, and every time he had tried something else, it had said someone else had already taken that username So that had been what he eventually chose.

He reached his finger up to the search bar and shakily typed in ‘Monica Anders’. He saw many different profiles show up, and he clicked on each one, hoping to see his mother and always disappointed by a different woman’s face. But, the eleventh one down turned out to be his mother.

Monica Anders

@/MonicaScience

117k followers

56 following

Scientist and mother of three.

Fly high Cyrus, my baby boy, 

    July 11th, 2006 - September 9th, 2019

Cyrus almost cried when he saw the last two lines of her bio. But he wiped the tears from his eyes and instead looked at her following list. She was following various science accounts and corporations. But three accounts stood out to him. One was @/ James Official, his father, another was @/Holiday(Mitski’s_Version), his sister, and the final one was @/I_am_totally_mermaid. He found that odd until he looked at the profile picture and saw his little sister Birdie. Chuckling, he went back to his mom’s account, and he would look at the other’s later. He saw that most of her posts had various things to do with science experiments or teaching. Sometimes, there would be a video about Birdie or Holiday, but not usually. There was one from not too long ago, a picture of his grave with the caption ‘Gone from us too soon. Fly high Cyrus, my smart boy. 🕊🕊 #fouryears’. He looked away from that one.

Instead, he focused on the newest post from her account. It was a couple of photos. One was her on a stage shaking someone’s hand, the next she was on the same stage holding a plaque, and the final one the same plaque on a while with his entire family except him standing in front of it.

He recognized it as a really important science award, and he wondered what she had done to win that. Cyrus was saddened by the fact he wasn’t there to celebrate with her, but he was happy for her. He knew logically that he should just smile and hide the phone again, but he thought that one comment couldn’t hurt. Really, how would she ever know that it was him. To her, he would just be someone random who liked science.

So, he typed on his little keyboard, ‘So awesome! Love your account!’. He hit the little button that put his comment up there and smiled. He hoped it cheered his mom up, but he was just one positive comment out of millions. She probably wouldn’t even see his, which was a good thing, too.

Suddenly, the phone ripped out of his hand and smashed on the floor, his eyes traveled up to see a pissed off Tempest. Oh no, this would really be the end of him.

“Really kid! After everything I’ve done for you! I give you food an amazing lab to work in, fucking state of the art! And this is how you repay me?! I am sick and tired of your shit! I give you chance after chance and this is what I get! Why do you think that you are so fucking great, huh?!” Tempest pushed Cyrus off the couch. He punched the boy while continuing to yell curses at him. Cyrus heard a sickening crunch sound when a particularly hard hit was issued to his nose and he felt tears trickle down his cheeks as blood gushed from there. He muttered apologies through the sobs.

Tempest had gotten angry before, he had definitely pushed Cyrus around when he was mad, but it had never been this bad before. The worst that had happened in the past was when Tempest had slapped him on the cheek and even then he had begrudgingly apologized. But this was different, and Cyrus wasn’t sure why now was the time that he became violent. Cyrus had pulled stunts like this before, but he had never felt as helpless as he did now.

Writhing in pain as more blows came his way again and again. But the real point where Cyrus started panicking was when Tempest stopped hitting him. He had been relentless for a little while and then he just suddenly stopped, it was only for a few seconds, but Cyrus still wondered why he did. Then Tempest climbed on top of him and started to pull at his shirt and a bit at his pants. That was when Cyrus started begging. He was screaming apologies at the top of his lungs, trying anything to get Tempest off him. But at the end of the day, Cyrus knew he was weaker and smaller than the man on top of him was. But that didn’t stop him as his voice became hoarse from screaming and crying when his shirt was ripped at the bottom and his belt was off.

Finally, Tempest got tired of Cyrus’s resistance and screamed at the boy, finishing it off with grabbing the nearest object and banging it against Cyrus’s skull. Cyrus never did find out what that object was, but he did know that after that, the whole world went dark.

(Okay, so here's what happened in the chapter. Cyrus was working on a project but couldn't focus so he went to watch the news. There was a new section added to the news about superheroes, his sister was reporting on this. Then it's revealed that Cyrus has a hidden phone, and he searched his mom on Instagram. He found her account and commented on a post where she won a big science award. Tempest found out and beat him up. Cyrus ended up passing out.)

(Sorry for always making Cyrus's chapters so dark.)