Chapter 2: System

Both Oscar and Finn wandered around an isolated part of the city making their way to an abandoned sugar factory; Finn with a school bag on his back.

"This is the place?" Finn raised the phone to his face, staring at the location on the map and the building concurrently.

"What's wrong? You're scared of getting kidnapped? Thought you weren't scared of anything," Oscar matched ahead of him.

"Are you teasing me?" Finn raced to catch up with him. "Cops are meant to do good things that we hate, kidnappers are meant to do plain bad things and you can't even sue them for. Which should you be more afraid of?"

As soon as they got near the door of the factory, a disoriented man like the one Oscar had seen in the streets earlier, jumped Finn to the ground from out of nowhere.

In the same second the man elevated in midair and busted into pieces. Oscar turned around to see the stranger who had performed the trick.

"What're you kids doing in this part of the city?" he questioned them.

"We're here to buy drugs… to sell," Finn responded from the ground.

"What school?"

"Clinton High School," Oscar responded as he pulled Finn up.

"Oh, the voodoo high school," he opened the metal door and stepped in. "Come."

They both stared at themselves for a brief second and followed him inside.

Downstairs seems less busy, with all the men lying on the couches sleeping.

"Who was that man outside? The one you killed," Oscar inquired.

"He took the drug. Didn't work for him. It turns older people to zombies. Thirty years and upward," he chuckled like a psycho.

"What about you? I saw you use powers outside."

"We have our special one. Enough questions kid," he took them up the stairs where they found starches of drugs and a lot of shelves full of files all around.

A man with long hair hasted to pack them in his bag when he saw them, "Who're these kids?" he asked with urgency in his tone.

"Our new dealers from voodoo high school," his partner responded in a bit of shock. "What're you doing?"

"The cops are unto us. We don't have time to evacuate everyone. Code Z."

"What's code Z?" Oscar questioned in confusion mixed with fear. The tone in which it was said was dreadful. He could tell He's heard this words before, but where.

"Sorry kids, wrong timing," their tour guard's eyes went red as he opened his palm and rained fire on everything in the building.

His partner's eyes glowed white as he took a step to stand side to side with him. He drew a circle with a wave of his hand and they both disappeared, leaving the kids and their sleeping men alone in the burning building.

"What the fuck!" Finn cussed in surprise at their display of power, but then reality caught up with him. He was on the top floor of a burning house with exits already crushed in fire.

His breathing intensified with his heart pounding loudly. He stared at the fire that was brutally racing towards him, "What the fuck! What the fuck! What the fuck!" he cussed in one breath.

Even Oscar was shitting his pants right now; the flames reflecting in his widely intimidated eyeballs. But he was much more calm compared to his friend Finn.

"You think they're coming back for us?" Finn's voice quivered.

"No," Oscar accepted his fate and stood back-to-back with Finn. "No one's coming."

Finn took a huge swallow of spit and started to shed tears, "Mama."

"Eww," Oscar reacted to his sudden childishness. "What power does the drug give you?"

"Light weight," Finn mewled.

Oscar opened his clenched hand showing him a piece of drug he had rescued from the fire, "Here, take this."

Finn immediately took it from his palm and threw it down his throat.

"Now use your power. Don't ask questions."

Finn's eyes glowed in a blue, his feet suddenly elevated from the ground slightly with each contact he made. He skipped in front of Oscar, "Now what?"

Oscar coughed severely. He's eyeballs already resembling the ones of a diseased old man. The smoke had filled his nostrils, meanwhile the drug has hardened Finn's immune system. Nonetheless it can't save him from the furnace of the fire that's already here.

More pieces of wood fell from the ceiling, a large part even tainting the skin of Oscar's hand.

"Ouch!" He yelled in the pain.

Finn hugged him tightly, "I'm sorry for bringing us into this. Please don't fight me in the afterlife."

"I'm the only one going to the afterlife today," Oscar sighted a hole in the roof and grabbed Finn from underneath his armpit.

"What're you doing?" Finn questioned in confusion. Both their clothes were already on fire.

"Saving your life," Oscar took a deep breath and carried out an overhead throw with Finn, tossing him through the hole in the ceiling and equally out of the burning building.

Then he fell on his knees, "I don't have much to live for."

The fire caught up with him in the same second.

"Arggh!" Oscar screamed out and folded into himself on the ground.

'My whole life I've been bullied around. I've never had anything go the way I want it.'

"Arrggh!"

'When everyone was being born with a sliver spoon, I was born with infinite bad luck.'

"Aaarrrggghhh!" A huge part of the roof broke down and landed on his leg, fracturing him and simultaneously pinning him to the ground.

'When other sixteen years olds were going through childhood I was going through the gates of hell.'

"Aaaarrrggggghhhhhhhh!"

'I've been burnt before, not just in physical fire. I can take it. I can take it.'

"Aaarggghh!"

'Perhaps after this last burn, this world will let me rest."

The metal shelf at the corner of the building fell straight down and crushed his skull, blanking him out and leaving him for the fire to finish off.

Sudden silence followed.

Then a loud beep accompanied by green lines.

{System Activated…}

{Host: Human}

{Host's Name: Oscar Rife}