Brightstar

Chapter One: Don't Be a Hero

Don't be a hero.

That's what was going through Callum Hayes' mind as he watched his best friend's house go up in flames, his sister's mantra piercing through his thirteen-year-old brain as the police held him back. Firemen rushed in, and a second explosion from the machine in the basement all but assured Callum that Ezekiel was dead. And it was all his fault.

"LET ME GO!" Callum screamed as his injured body fruitlessly tried to escape the stern police officer's hold. Paramedics rushed over to Callum and tried to examine his burned skin, but he was in too much shock and anger to be properly checked.

The house started to collapse as the firefighters ran out, the entire building roaring with a hellish arrogance to force the kid to see the results of his hubris.

***

"Are you sure this is going to be alright?" Ezekiel asked as he shut the basement door behind them. Callum smiled and waved his arms over his contraption, a gleeful sound escaping him.

"Oh, absolutely. All it's going to do is zap you with a little bit of electricity to get the soup working, and then you should be able to freely absorb energy, like a battery! And then I'll do it, and we..." Callum took a deep breath, realizing he was beginning to get ahead of himself. "We'll both be superheroes, like her."

"I mean, are you sure it's safe?" Ezekiel carefully approached the machine. It was constructed out of a torn-apart-and-put-back-together-junk MRI machine and pieces of a hyperbaric chamber that he didn't dare to ask how Callum, an actual child, got his hands on. Tubes and wires protruded from it and originated from a massive lever constructed out of an old stick shift from some ancient car.

"I ran the calculations, and if anything does happen, just tug that lever and the whole thing will die out. All the AI simulations say it'll work."

Ezekiel looked at the purple potion that Callum had prepared two doses of. "And that isn't poison?"

Callum playfully scoffed. "Of course not! I am a gourmet chef of the finest mad scientist variety." He paused as he saw the worried look on Ezekiel's face. "You trust me, right, Zeke?"

Ezekiel swallowed his fear and nodded. "Absolutely."

"You don't have to do this if you don't want to..." Callum assured him.

"I want to. We're going to superheroes, right? Just like Retrograde." Ezekiel grabbed one of the potions and downed it, surprised at the pleasant concoction. This was supposed to infuse his DNA with the ability to turn his cells into a rechargeable battery for all types of energy, something Callum had been extensively 'researching' via deep Internet dives.

"Just like Retrograde." Callum smiled, opening the cobbled-together machine that no one else knew about. As far as Ezekiel's parents knew, they were simply working on a school project that required a lot of tools and work, fitting for their position in a special private school for the technically inclined.

Ezekiel hopped in and gave a goofy thumbs-up to his closest friend, his stomach starting to bubble. "Hey, by the way, what was in the potion?"

"Grape juice, a pinch of salt, and a lot of Tylenol." Callum closed the pod.

Ezekiel chuckled as Callum leaped up to close the pod fully, his height not quite up to par. The younger of the two pulled out a tablet and ran over to turn the garage light off, his olive skin suddenly cast in darkness. His deep blue eyes scanned over the dim screen as he entered a few commands into a program, and he dashed back to the machine.

"Everything all right, doc?" Ezekiel joked, his serious gaze and pale skin contrasting his warmth.

"Yeah. Ready?" Callum positioned his finger over a large button, his black wavy hair blending into the darkness.