I love sleep. It's peaceful, it lets you dream of a better time, and it even lets you forget your hunger for a while. For that reason, the whirring of sirens in the early morning quickly became my least favorite thing in the whole world. Especially when it almost always preceded the bangs outside. It was especially bad that day. Possibly because the end times were upon us.
"I get it! The bombs are dropping! But the bombs are always dropping, so let me sleep!" I yelled at nobody in particular, immensely frustrated by the noise ripping me back to reality.
After a minute, I'd managed to calm myself. I was up, and the sirens wouldn't stop for at least the next several minutes, so there was no point in trying to go back to sleep. I reached over to my bedside table and turned the clock my way to get a better view of the display, only to find that it wasn't working. It only took me a moment to remember why. The power had gone out seven days ago. I still couldn't tell if that was due to being in an active war zone, or having nobody around to pay the bill. Either way, I still needed to know the time. Looking outside, I could see the sun just beginning to shine on the horizon. For October, that'd be about 7AM.
I stepped out of bed, and was very glad for where I lived. Elsewhere, I'd heard that going a night without heat at this time of year was a death sentence, but in Caracas, I could sleep in comfort all year round. That didn't mean that it was good to be without power. Just that it wasn't as bad as it could have been. The temperature overnight was probably in the twenty degree range, which was about where I liked it. Now though, it was feeling more like twenty-three. It was time to get out of my pajamas.
After changing, I felt hungry, so I headed to the kitchen. My apartment was a fairly normal two bedroom on the eighth story of my complex. A hallway ran directly through the center, between the bedrooms and into the kitchen. That made the trek to the kitchen rather short, though not easy. Since the power went out, I'd had a hard time eating the remaining food. It was the first time I had ever felt true hunger. The whole walk to the kitchen felt like I was walking uphill.
I arrived, and checked up on the state of my remaining supplies. Food was becoming frighteningly scarce. Very little was left, and I didn't have the cooking skill to make use of it. I was starting to wonder if I had enough to last until my parents returned. They had left two months ago, the same day the bombs started dropping, and had yet to come back. My hope in their promised return was starting to dwindle, but I would hold out nonetheless. I sensed my thoughts starting to go in a bad direction, so I moved onto another goal. If I couldn't eat, I would just go to the bathroom.
I reached out the kitchen window to where I'd placed several pots and pitchers. It had rained last night, and they were all full. I grabbed a big soup pot, and spilled only a little in getting it to the kitchen floor. I was young and working on very little food, so if I could do something the easy way, I would.
Once the pot was settled on the floor, I dragged it to the bathroom. I used the pot to fill the basin, and set to relieving myself. I flushed, and was rather proud of myself for finding a way to manage it. All that was left was to wash my hands. For that purpose, I had left a bit of water in the pot and set it by the sink. I climbed up on the chair I'd placed next to the bathroom sink, wet my hands with some of the remaining water from the pot, and made a terrible realization.
The entire apartment was out of soap. I had used the last of it the day prior to wash a dirty pot so I would have one more to set outside the window. Hand soap, shampoo, body wash, dish detergent, and even the old pet soaps from when we used to have a dog. They had all been used up over the last two months living alone.
I had always been a very clean kid. My parents had taught me all the ways that cleanliness helped us in our day-to-day lives, and that it was very important to always wash my hands after using the toilet. That I had lost even my ability to clean myself forced me to consider how alone I was. My father would always go out when soap was low, and would buy more. My mother would refill the dispensers diligently when they were empty. But neither of them were around anymore. I was hungry, lonely, and now, unclean. The very thought of continuing like that was torture. I felt my eyes begin to water, and had to stop myself. I had to clear my mind. I had promised my parents that I wasn't going to cry the day they left, and I wasn't going to break that resolve over some soap. It took several minutes, but I eventually did prevent myself from breaking down.
I opened my eyes once I was confident I could face my situation, and was caught off guard by what I saw. Something very strange had happened. My hand had soap in it. I knew I hadn't put it there. There wasn't any in the entire apartment, after all, but there it was. In my hand.
After several seconds taken to process what had happened, I washed my hands as was originally planned. Once I was done, I looked the gift horse directly in the mouth. I retraced my thoughts from a moment prior. That time, very intently watching my hands. As I watched, soap magically came into being in my palm. I smelled it, touched it, and stupidly tasted it before I believed what I was seeing. Somehow, I was now able to produce soap from my own body.
I stuck my index finger into the soap dispenser, and began filling it as I pondered my situation. Was this one of those visions crazy people had? I had heard from Dr. Vasquez that crazy people see and hear things that aren't real. Maybe I had gone crazy. I was under a lot of pressure, so it was possible. The other possibility was that I really was a walking soap dispenser.
The question then became why. Why would I suddenly become a soap boy? Could this have been tied to the great cataclysm that the Blue Bolt had predicted weeks ago? That was predicted to happen on the morning of today, so the timing lined up. That would be incredible. It would mean we got the best possible outcome. Instead of the entire world tearing apart, the rules just changed a little. I decided to believe that I had gained superhuman abilities after the great cataclysm. To that end, further experimentation was in order. I had to figure out the limits of my new power.
I set about touring the apartment, refilling all the empty soap dispensers. After that, I filled the detergent box. My ability allowed me to produce powders as well. I made bars of soap, and even refilled the empty glass cleaner, though I had no intention of using it. Solid, semi-solid, powder, liquid, and presumably, any other type of soap. Whether it be for people, dogs, clothes, dishes, or windows. I could make any soap. I tried to make food so I could eat, and came up with nothing. I tried to make cloth, wood, and plastic as well, but got nothing for my trouble. It seemed I was limited to types of soap.
I had always wanted powers, so I could become a legendary hero like the Blue Bolt, but was producing soap good enough? Surely it was. After all, the Blue Bolt didn't even really have powers. He was just really smart. If I could become smart like him, and have genuine powers as well, I could be an even better hero.
Once the excitement from getting a power began to die down, my hunger started creeping back to the surface. I decided I would just try to make something with whatever was in the kitchen. If it didn't work out, it was a bad lunch. If it did, lunch would be good. Either way, if I didn't try, I would stay hungry.
I made my way back to the kitchen, and found the journey much easier. Gaining a new ability seemed to lend me some strength. I searched through the kitchen and found what little food was left that didn't need to be cooked. Two baby pickles, and half a tortilla. I was only able to eat half of the tortilla because the other half had turned green. That left the protein. I didn't know what that was, but my mother always said that it was needed for every meal. She had also told me that it was in meat and beans, along with some other things that I couldn't remember. The meat had gone bad, so that left the beans.
I grabbed the big jar with the dried beans in it, and put them in a small pot with water from the window. I set the pot on the stove, and encountered another issue. No power meant no heat. No heat meant no cooking. No cooking meant no beans. I was so hungry that I'd forgotten. The whole reason the beans were still full was that I couldn't eat them. That wouldn't stop me, though. I was never one to give up, and I wasn't going to let some beans get the better of me. All I had to do was find some heat without electricity.
After a moment's consideration, I found my answer. When my family went camping the previous year, dad had started a fire to cook. He did say that fires shouldn't be started inside, but I would be careful. If I kept the fire in a metal pan, the apartment would be protected. Now I just needed a lighter or matches. I went to my father's room, and soon found his lighter. What were the other bits again? The lighter made heat, then I needed to add... fuel and... air. It was air. First came fuel. What did I have that burned? I had paper, wooden spoons, clothes, and some alcohol from the first aid kit in the bathroom.
I went to the bathroom and grabbed the alcohol. When a teacher was showing us how fire worked in class, he used a scrap of t-shirt covered in alcohol on a stick. If the teacher was willing to make that fire in a school full of children, surely it was safe for inside, right?
On the way back to the kitchen, I grabbed a wire clothes hanger and unbent it. On the camping trip, I was allowed to cook on one of these, so it must also be safe to use as my fire stick. I also took the dress that was hanging on it to the kitchen with me. I used scissors to cut long strips out of the dress like the teacher had done with the t-shirt. I then wrapped them around the end of the hanger-turned-stick. Once I had a big wad on the end, I poured alcohol over it. I sat that in the middle of the pan on the floor, and set to grabbing three clay bowls. I laid the bowls in a triangle inside the pan, and put the bean pot on top. Now the beans could sit on the fire, and the fire could still get air. All that was left was to light it. I reached into the assembly and sparked the lighter. In an instant, the fire was ignited. I pulled my hand out as fast as I could without knocking anything over, and admired my work.
Just as I had planned, the fire was kept entirely inside the pan and under the pot. All that was left was to wait. A few minutes passed, and the next of what was quickly becoming a long list of problems reared its head. The water in the pot had become too hot to touch, but the fire was already going out. Even as a ten year old boy, I was smart enough to know not to try pouring more alcohol into the flame.
That left very few options. Did I wait until the fire went out and start a new one, or did I try to add fuel to keep the current one going?
I'd seen mom take a boiling pot off the stove once, and it stopped boiling instantly. I didn't want to lose whatever progress I had made, so I opted for the latter. I fashioned another torch, and fed it into the existing fire. The fire roared once more, and the water soon boiled. I kept this process going until the fourth torch. After that, there wouldn't be enough room to fit another. I'd let the fire go out and then eat my beans. I inserted the fourth torch, and left to go get a spoon.
All of the spoons were dirty, but I had an incredible power now, so that wasn't much of a problem. I grabbed a pitcher of water, produced some dish soap, and washed some dishes. Once I was happy with the utensils, I picked out my favorite spoon and made my way back to where I'd left the pot. There, I found disaster.
The fire had crawled up the rod of the fourth torch and ignited the puddle of alcohol where I was pouring it over the torches. By the time I got back, the floor was burning and the fire had gotten dangerously close to the table. I had to do something, or my home was going to burn down.
I remembered the fire triangle, and rushed to get rid of the inferno's air. I ripped the curtain from the window and threw it over the biggest spot of flame. I then began to squirt soap over the remaining spots. I grabbed what was left of the dress, and used it to pull the pot off of the main flame. Then, I used the dress to smother that fire. After a few moments of waiting for another ignition, I breathed a sigh of relief. The crisis had been averted.
Not only had I put out the fire, I had also saved my lunch. I was genuinely surprised that in a moment of panic, I had remembered to use a cloth to grab the bean pot. It really seemed like the kind of thing one would forget in that kind of circumstance. Not that I was complaining. I would have to make it a rule to not leave fires unattended in the future, however. That could have been way, way worse.
Nonetheless, it was time for lunch, and beans and pickle flatbread were on the menu. After serving lunch onto a plate, I ate the pickle flatbread while I waited for the beans to cool down. After narrowly avoiding burning myself with fire and boiling water, I would hate myself if I let my guard down and got burned anyway by the beans. The pickle flatbread was surprisingly good, until I remembered that pickles were a main sandwich ingredient. At which point, the surprise faded.
Once I was very sure the beans had cooled enough to eat, I took a bite. They were still crunchy. I had only boiled them for a few minutes, so I expected them to be undercooked, but it was still a good feeling to have a hot lunch. Even if that lunch had quickly become far too hot. It made me miss the better times. Before the bombs started dropping, when my parents were still around. When I went to school, had friends, and ate good food every day.
Once again, I felt myself beginning to slip into negativity. I pulled myself out of it the same way I always did. I cleared my mind, and remembered the words of my hero. "It's when you're at your lowest that you have nowhere to go but up." They were simple words, and surely weren't original to the Blue Bolt, but he was where I had first heard them. Those words held power. Whenever I found myself at a new low, I spoke them aloud, and I felt a little bit better as a result. In the previous months, they had become my mantra. When my parents left, when the power went out, and today, when I nearly burned the apartment down just for some crunchy beans. Always, the power of those words would help me get back on my feet.
That time, however, the words reigned more true than ever. I had actually hit rock bottom earlier. That's why it was so hard to keep from crying back then. If I thought about it that way, then my new powers were the first step up from the bottom. The crunchy beans were also a step upward. As was learning the true danger of fire without dying. Was that last one a bit of a stretch? Maybe. But that wouldn't stop me from thinking that way. That's right. So long as my outlook was positive, I could keep going. It would be hard, but I couldn't keep living in the past. From then on, there was no past me. Only present me, and the future where I was a hero. It was about time I acknowledged reality. My parents were never coming back, so it was time to leave the apartment. The only usable food left was beans, and they wouldn't last until the end of the week. There was no future there, only the past.
I began hatching my plans for the future as I packed my things. I packed a blanket, first aid kit, jar of beans, some clothes hangers, clothes, spices, a lighter, and a kitchen knife. I wasn't stupid. I knew I was about to step into a war zone, so I brought a weapon. My powers were cool, but without training, I wouldn't be winning any fights.
I left my apartment ready to start my new life, and I turned around again because I forgot a pot for the beans. While I was at it, I grabbed a bottle for water.
Second time out the door, second time turned around. I forgot to put on my shoes.
Third time out the door, and I thought I forgot my toothpaste. After checking, I could produce toothpaste just like any other soap, but I did forget the brush.
After taking the walk of shame back into my home, I decided to make an actual list of the things I needed. An hour later, after going over the list a hundred times, I finally left. I was going to say goodbye to my home, but I felt the mood was lost in all the confusion. So I just left without a word. It was time for me to start my life, and with it, my journey towards heroism. I knew I was starting a bit soon, but that just meant that I had a head start. Every step I took, I felt a new purpose welling up inside of me. I was going to become a legendary hero on at least the same level as the Blue Bolt, and I would settle for nothing less. Fighting villains, saving the innocent, supporting my country, ending wars. I wanted to do it all. My predecessor had set the bar incredibly high, but I was going to clear it if it was the last thing I did.
With new resolve in my heart, I set off into the disheveled streets of Caracas.