Pyrokinesis Skill

The bathroom door splintered. Mark barely registered the blue-haired figure crashing into the stall next to him—too busy fumbling with his makeshift spear.

"Move!" shouted a voice crackling with panic.

The teen (17? 18? Hard to tell through the blood smeared on his glasses) wedged a trash can under the sink pipes. His cobalt-dyed hair reeked of cheap drugstore bleach, roots showing two inches of black growth. Not some anime protagonist—just another kid who'd made questionable lockdown decisions.

"Help me!" the stranger gasped, heaving a tampon dispenser against the door.

Mark hesitated. Three weeks ago, he'd seen this guy get shoved into a locker by footballers for "looking like a Smurf." Now here they were, pressed shoulder-to-shoulder as 180 pounds of rabid muscle slammed against hollow-core wood.

"Mark."

"Alex," the blue-haired teen panted. "You infected?"

"Fuck no!"

"Prove it." Alex thrust a stolen dissection scalpel at him. "Pupil check."

They locked eyes in the fractured mirror—Mark's blown-wide with adrenaline, Alex's constricted to pinpricks. Both alive. For now.

Mark's fingertips brushed the scroll. His optic nerve lit with a searing afterimage—the same migraine aura he'd gotten after his first concussion in middle school football. Words burned into his retinas like a welding flash:

**[NEURAL REWIRE DETECTED: Activate thermogenic response? Y/N]**

"Y," he croaked, throat raw from smoke.

Pain exploded behind his sternum. His palms blistered as if gripping a stove coil.

[You have Learned the skill: Pyrokinesis]

[Pyrokinesis Skill: +50% Damage The system's label was clinical, but the reality felt like holding a live wire. Sweat dripped onto the tile as his core temperature spiked to 102°F—he didn't need a thermometer to know.

**[Metabolic Load: 87%]**

**[Core Temp: 103.1°F (CRITICAL)]**

Alex—the blue-haired transfer student Mark recognized from chem lab—stared at the blisters rising on Mark's hands. "Are you *sick*?"

Before Mark could answer, the stench hit them: rotting meat and wet fur. Eight German shepherds prowled the hallway, pupils dilated to black saucers. Rabid foam slicked their jaws.

"*Run!*" Alex yanked Mark backward.

They barricaded themselves in the faculty restroom. Mark's sneakers slipped in congealed blood—someone had tried hiding here before. The dogs slammed against the door, hinges groaning.

**Physics of Survival:**

1. **The Door:** Hollow-core wood, rated for 150 lbs force. Each 90-lb dog hit with 300 psi (rabid aggression).

2. **Time Until Failure:** 43 seconds (Mark counted, a habit from timing his mom's dialysis injections).

"Help me!" Alex braced against a sink. Mark shoved a steel paper towel dispenser under the door handle.

The dogs retreated. Silence.

Then—

*Sniffing.*

A wet nose pressed against the gap under the door. Mark's blistered hand twitched.

"What's wrong with you?" Alex hissed.

"Killed one of the infected. Got… a fever." Mark peeled back his hoodie sleeve, revealing veined burns crawling up his forearm. "Body's cooking itself."

A crash. Two dogs exploded through the weakened door.

The fire wasn't a "fireball." It was a grease-fed arc that:

- Melted the lead solder in nearby pipes

- Set off the sprinklers

- Caught the first dog's fur

The beast screamed—a human-like sound—as flames ate its oxygen. Alex beat the second dog with a shattered mop handle, strikes wild but effective.

**[Metabolic Load: 99%]**

**[Core Temp: 105.8°F (SHUTDOWN IMMINENT)]**

Mark collapsed, vision tunneling Alex quickly dragged him to a stall. "Stay awake!"

On the floor, a greenish orb pulsed. Mark's fried nerves mistook it for a weapon. In reality, it was a janitor's fire axe, its handle warped by heat into a cruel hook.

"Use… this," Mark gagged, thrusting the axe at Alex.

The remaining dogs fled from the sprinklers' deluge. Alex stared at the burns consuming Mark's arms.

"You're dying."

"Not… yet." Mark's shaking finger traced his mom's name on the axe handle. "Status points" were just the placebo effect of a brain rewriting its own pain thresholds.

Somewhere, Kelly's helicopter disappeared into the storm.