The human torch's flame

Chapter 7 (for thtgrlthtfollowback)

The first thing you processed was your burning skin. You stood up and almost fell over. You were staring at a shiny silver surface of the space platform.

You stood on your feet. To your left, three bodies lay limp. Your eyes grew wide as you crouched beside them. Your hand went to Johnny's neck first. You felt his pulse. A steady beat could be heard underneath your skin. You sighed in relief. You looked at your hands. Your knuckles had stopped bleeding. You took a second to realise what had happened and when you did you had to steady yourself on the ramp. Storm hit you. You looked at the computer behind you and typed in a few commands. 

A video played. No sound though. You looked up and saw where the video had been taped from. On the top of the platform was a little black box with a flashing red light.

You saw everything that you remembered from before your black out. Punched Victor. Punched Susan. You crying. Then you came to the part where you didn't remember. On the video, you fell to the ground. Johnny stood stiffly for a second then wrapped his arms around you. Johnny seemed to see something on his right and immediately broke the hug and attempted to shield you. 

A little orange blur appeared on the camera and that's when it started getting weird. Sue suddenly started disappearing, just for seconds at a time but disappearing nonetheless.  Johnny's form started glowing brighter. 

Their seemed to be a few glitches in the video because you started appearing and disappearing from a meter away. As though you were teleporting. Victor was the only one who looked normal in the video.

Suddenly, You remembered Ben and Reed. You taped the screen until you came on the page signalling who were on board. As soon as you saw, six bleeping dots, you let out a sigh. You tried to wake up Johnny and Sue but none of the responded even when you threw water at their faces. You walked slowly to where Ben and Reed would be. Being careful of  not treading on any fallen metal. 

The small corridor you took led you exactly to where you wanted to go. On the floor of the corridor lay an unconscious Reed and, through a small  crack in the wall you could see Ben safely inside the designated safe area created by the shield. His vizier was cracked probably due to the speed you brought him in with. You check both of their pulses. Fine. But everyone including you would need medical attention.

Attention you couldn't deliver in space with their type of equipment. You realised that you'd have to drag them all to the ship and fly it back to America. Alone.

You were wondering why you of all six, was conscious. If anything, you were the one who was badly hurt not only before but after. The cut hand and bleeding knuckles. Then you realised.

The orange blur ; that could be radiation. The fact that you had been exposed with small doses of radiation all because of your prolonged exposure to bomb and nuclear weapons had prepared you for a bigger blast of radiation that would cause normal people to black out.

It took you about two hours to get Reed and Ben on the shuttle and strapped into the seats. You stopped after that because you were feeling vague.  You put a fresh bandage on your wounds and splashed water on your face. 

It took you only an hour to bring Sue and Johnny on board but the Storms were heavy and the work was tiring. 

You came back on the platform and stared at Victor Van Doom's unconscious form. For a scary moment, you thought you'd leave him there. Maybe it was because of his ego, his annoying habit of being condescending and rude to people that he should respect or maybe it was the fact that he was prepared to kill all of the five of you to stay safe. Okay maybe not Susan but the others he wouldn't hesitate.

Let's just say you thought of him as a murderer when he hadn't really done anything. But... some part of you still believed in second chances and redemption. What a stupid part that was. 

When you went to the shuttle, you dragged him by his legs (The others you pulled by the chest and arms) and pulled him inside. You made sure that his head bonked any objects that would be fatal.

You strapped him in his seat. And as soon as you were done you trodded over to the pilot's desk. You clicked a few buttons but you realised this was a plane intended for two pilots. And you were barely fit enough to count as one. Your vision got blurry from effort, you could just close your eyes.... just for a few seconds...

The next thing you new was you had woken up. You might have been out for ten seconds of two days, the facts were your colleagues needed medical attention and so did you. You walked over to the sink and spilt water across your face. In the shuttle, you said a loud in a teasing tone:

"Get ready passengers. We are going back to earth. Beware the landing may be a little ruff since there is only one pilot." You glared at Johnny and said "Because SOMEONE couldn't stay conscious when you have work to do."

You smiled a little and went back to the pilot's desk. You replaced your bandage that had leaked across the still new but covered in blood bandage on your hand.

You sat in the front and flicked a few switches. Ocationally moving around to pull levers and technical stuff. 

The trip only lasted two hours but it seemed like an eternity. When you finally reached the landing space. There was a fiasco down there. You managed to land without to many collateral damages but you did destroy one miniature stages of Victor on the way. Not on purpose. (Yeah, Right)

You boomed on the loud speaker. "Put us in quarantine. I repeat: Put us in quarantine. Radiation poisoning is suspected."

Your voice faltered and you fell into unconsciousness.

A/N

Hey! Author here.

I was always wondering how they came back from space. Caus' there the storm then there on earth. And I was like What? SO here you are heroin of the story...

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