Running On Empty

ORIGIN STORY (Write to Rank 2023 Round 5)

The bastards had his sister. They had Miranda.

Thomas ran as fast as his short legs could carry him. One of the kidnappers was on foot as well, and while he knew the second man who had pulled Miranda into his car might not be going to the same place, Thomas couldn't think of anything else to do. The police would be too slow.

He was slow, so much slower than the grown man.

Panting and nearly ready to faint, Thomas spied a metal ladder extending up the side of the nearest brick building. He could hear the man's footsteps somewhere beyond. He scaled the ladder, his skinny sixteen-year-old arms shaking, and ran across the roof.

He saw the man entering the cathedral, the one they walked past on their way to school. It was the most well-lit building in the dark neighborhood, and probably deserted this time of night. 

He shuddered, thinking of what they might do to her, and in a church.

Thomas shimmied back down the ladder and trotted to the cathedral. He paced at the bottom of the steps, gathering his courage, and ran to the double doors.

He had no idea what he was going to do.

The vestibule inside the doors was dark. To one side sat a statue of the Virgin Mary, on the other a stone angel with a basin of holy water. Thomas and his sister weren't Catholic, but he dipped his hand in the holy water anyway. It certainly couldn't hurt.

He heard Miranda sobbing. 

He crept into the church and saw her kneeling near the altar. His thirteen-year-old sister looked so tiny and alone in the shadowy lighting, but she was alive.

"Miranda!" Thomas ran toward her.

"No!" she cried out.

A gunshot rang out.

Something punched him in the chest, like a kick from a horse. Thomas didn't feel pain at first. The air burned in his throat and lungs as he sank to his knees, then to the worn carpet of the aisle. Now he saw the man, the one he had been chasing on foot, standing in the shadows behind her. He heard his laughter.

Miranda screamed. She ran down the aisle to her brother, kneeling beside him as he managed to roll to his side. Blood seeped through his jacket and onto the carpet. There was so much blood.

"I'm sorry," Thomas whispered through nearly-still lips. "...let you down..." The light left his eyes, and his chest fell one last time. The smell of blood was overpowering.

Miranda's vision blurred and she threw herself on him, weeping into her brother's shoulder. "I always believed in you," she sobbed. "I still do." She raised her head. She glared through her tears at the paintings of saints and saviors, and the stained glass windows above them. "Why did you let this happen? Why?"

A drop of something landed on the back of her hand, where it rested on Thomas's shoulder. Miranda wiped her face. She saw that clear liquid had begun dripping from one of the paintings on the ceiling: the one with the female saint holding a white lamb, the one the cathedral was named after. It was coming from the painted eyes.

It hadn't been raining that night.

Miranda tugged at Thomas's shoulder, but she was unable to move him. More drops of water splashed onto his face as his body rolled bonelessly to his back.

And then his chest lifted.

Miranda let out a short cry, of both fear and relief. "Thomas!"

From the vestibule, the sound of the doors crashing open echoed through the cathedral.

The driver marched in, laughing. "All set, dearie." He strolled up the aisle between the pews. "No one else is coming to save you. Best just to come along for the ride."

He seized her arm and dragged her away from Thomas. The other man trotted up to them. Neither seemed to notice that the boy's chest rose and fell in slow tides.

"No!" Miranda screamed. "No! Thomas! Get up! I know you can!"

The driver laughed even harder. "Your brother's dead as that saint up there. Might as well—"

Thomas sat up.

"You've got to be kidding me," the driver groaned. He shoved Miranda to his friend, who grabbed both her arms.

Thomas rose to his feet, shaking. His face was blank and staring, sort of like when he'd just woken up in the morning. Color flushed back into his cheeks. As if still in that sleep trance, he looked down the collar of his bloody shirt. His forehead wrinkled gently.

"Shouldn't use the gun again," the running man warned. "Too loud."

"I guess you're right." The driver pulled a knife and lunged.

The boy, still gazing down his shirt, raised a trembling hand as though reaching for the man. His face smoothed and relaxed, as if he'd just had a realization of minor importance.

"No!" Miranda shrieked.

The man raised his knife.

"No," Thomas said softly, and clenched his fist.

The driver halted, stopped as if by an invisible brick wall. The knife fell to the carpet as his hands flew to his chest. His face blanched and contorted into a rictus of terror. 

"Heart," he gasped, his knees buckling. He scrabbled at his jacket. "Heart—"

Then he fell forward, his body spasming before it fell still.

Thomas looked up, his eyes clearing as he saw his sister. His voice was deeper than before. "Let her go."

The other man swore. He locked his arm around the screaming girl's neck. "Back off, freak, or I'll—"

Thomas's hand lashed out into thin air. 

The man's words were cut off, and his face grew red, then purple. He let go of Miranda and pawed at his own throat, falling backward and writhing for long seconds. Then he, too, was still.

Weeping in shocked relief, Miranda stumbled to her brother. "You're alive," she sobbed. "Thank god you're alive."

"The saint," Thomas said as she threw her arms around him, unheeding of the blood soaking his shirt. "She spoke to me. She said, 'I give you power through my tears, because of your sister's faith in you.'"

They held each other for a few moments, then Miranda stepped away, sniffling. "How did you...?"

"I could feel his heart beating in my hand. I...I crushed it in my fist. I don't know how I knew how to do it. The other one, I collapsed his lungs." Thomas's expression was half wonder, half revulsion.

"You had to." Her face shone with wonder. "What...what should we do now?"

"First we should, you know, get rid of our fingerprints. Did you touch anything?"

"No, I don't think so."

"Just the door for me." Thomas took her hand, and they started for the vestibule. "Let's go home and get cleaned up. We'll talk about it tomorrow."

"Are...are you all right?"

He grinned at her. "I feel fine. There's not even a wound."

But there would be a scar, he felt sure. He felt heat in his chest, not pain but...power. With every heartbeat, the power rushed into his hands. He could do it again. Just like a superhero.

A thought flashed across his mind and was gone.

But what if...what if I'm the villain?