Hidden Hero

Chapter 2 - What Lies Outside The Prison

What the hell?? 

I stare at the burning flames before my eyes and blink in horror, thinking I'm probably dreaming. "This ain't real." I sigh as I stare at the raging fire spread across the wall. 

"It's impossible. That's the only logical explanation."

The door is burned down. "Well, this ought to be good," I say as I walk out of the room, the door just burnt into ashes at this point. I look around in shock. 

The moonlight is shining everywhere and the city streets appear to be empty. 

"Woah," I breathe. "It's been so many years." 

I begin walking down the darkened alleyway of which my mother locked me.

"I'm finally free," I keep repeating over and over again in disbelief. There's random puddles of water splashed around. I'm guessing it rained recently. 

There are no neon lights anywhere. It looks like a ghost city. 

"Just like all the stories I heard." I say. 

I'm still too shocked that I actually escaped that nightmare after 8 years. I forgot what the outside world looked like. 

"I wonder what happened to this place," I mutter as I crouch down and pick up a pile of deep black ash.

I cup the ash in my hands as I stare at it. It looks exactly like the ash from the nightmare of a living space I just escaped from. 

"Jeez, if this is from the incident, then the people who were supposed to clean up from the incident must've done a horrible job," I remark as I stand up, still holding the ash.

I begin walking down the alleyway, looking every which way at the wonder before me.

 Anyone else who came here would be shocked by the poverty, I'm sure, but I haven't seen the outside world in forever.

"I wonder why they had to take down the neon lights." I mutter to myself as I head past some minor shops. 

There are no lights whatsoever- not even the occasional lamp post that you would usually find in a city. 

No cars are seen anywhere.

I look into a dusty shop window, the shop being named 'Candy Store'. 

I brush away random rain drops as I peer through the glass, my breath mildly fogging up the window. 

I can see various treats lying around, but not a single shop owner.

"Must be really late," I reason as I look away from the shop and keep going. The wind blows my short, straight hair as I walk along a rocky pathway. 

There are a bunch of crosswalks, but the roads are so desolate that I just walk across the street as casually as possible, knowing no one will see me.

All the windows of the places around me are blinded as far as I can tell, leaving me feeling like no one even lives in this city anymore. 

"What happened to Neonilia anyway?" I ask myself quietly, hoping that maybe seeing the city will shock some memory of some kind.

I can't remember a single thing, though, to my dismay. 

"Ugh, this is horrible," I mutter as I walk across the sidewalks, hearing the occasional sound of splashing water from under my feet.

The city is so dark that it's kind of shocking. I feel a faint sense of comfort from the emptiness, though. 

There is silence, with the exception of the puddles scattered across the sidewalks and roads. I walk down another alleyway when I begin hearing some noise.

 I wouldn't know what this sounds like, but if I had to guess, it sounds like other PEOPLE.

Like, other human beings, no joke. I start trying to trace where the sound may be coming from, thinking that my ears may just be playing tricks on me. 

Maybe I'm psyching myself out.

Well, there's no harm in trying, I think as I run quietly through the alleyway I entered.

 I take a sharp left and keep running until I see a door. "Who puts random rooms out in the middle of some alleyway?" I think before remembering my life story. 

 "Ah. So this is just something Neonilians do then, huh."

I do an epic eye roll and scoff. 

"Freaks," I mutter under my breath as I press my right ear against the coffee-colored wooden door.

 I hold my breath, hoping that that will help with my stealth. 

"We need to find more people with powers like us, Rai! Don't you get it? We're just a small group right now. 7 people won't make the cut for the new hero revolution, I hope you know that." A feminine voice says from inside the room.

I gasp right before I cover my mouth. 

What the hell?!? I think frantically before pressing my right ear on the door yet again. 

I keep my hands cupped over my mouth just so that they don't end up hearing me, whoever these people are.

"I know, but do you really think a magic-user like us is just going to turn up?" Another female voice says, but this time a more harsh one. "We're really rare. I think we established that when we all met each other."

"But we're going to need a GIANT group if we want to defeat Abbadon once and for all!! He's grown way too strong!!!" The first voice says in a frantic tone. 

"From the moment he turned on us we knew power went to his head!! We knew we stood no chance!!! We knew that we were going to get more people with powers, even if it's just one more person!!!"

 I keep listening, intrigued by what I'm hearing from inside there. 

No way. Powers are REAL?!?! I think as I remember what my mother told me.

She told me various stories before she left me. I still remember because they were repeated in my mind time and time again. 

No. No. This can't be. I'm hearing things, I'm sure of it.

I spin around to keep going about my night in hopes that I'll be able to get out of Neonilia. But before I can even have a second thought, my dumb self steps on a giant twig.

 The twig gives off a VERY loud 'SNAP!!!' and I shout "DANG IT!!!".

 I cover my mouth the second I realize what I did. 

"WHO'S THERE?!?!?" I hear a voice shout from the room.