Luminescence

Two.

When the work bell rang, all I could recollect in myself was sadness, and soreness. Yesterday I had pushed myself so hard, that I don't think my muscles will ever be the same again.

Last night, I couldn't sleep. Not because our makeshift house had burnt to the ground, but rather because I had miraculously won an fight against three brutes.

It couldn't have been luck. No force could've possibly allowed me jump a fifteen-foot gap, four stories in the air.

Then, the fight between me and the three brutes. In all of my twenty-one years, I hadn't taken a single self-defense course in my life. All three of them were on the ground in a matter of seconds.

And finally, that hooded figure I saw the other night on that building.

Ominous. Chilling. The figure caused nightmares to haunt my sleep just hours ago. I had never felt so frightened, yet drawn towards a person ever before.

I wanted to see them. To touch them.

But all of those thoughts diminished as I finally finish wrapping Alex's wounded arm with the thick toilet paper found in the bathroom stalls.

Today was any normal day at work. Blazing heat, metal that seared your skin, and work that made you sweat the entire Atlantic Ocean.

"Attention," booms a voice over the loudspeaker making us all cover our ears. "The Plague has orders to perform an Mandatory Mutant Check in this following vicinity. All who defy the orders will be sent to prison X-2 for interrogations and reform."

Groans could be heard from other scrappers around us, as the announcement rings through our ears. This was nothing out of the ordinary. Every month, the Plague ordered a mandatory gene check of all persons living in a sector.

I know very little about mutants — other than how the Plague wants them all dead.

Mutants have always been a legend to the common man. They were said to exist decades before the Plague came into power. While they might've looked perfectly human, they were gifted with extraordinary abilities that only gods could possess. They were Earth's protectors. They gave hope to ordinary people.

And it didn't take an idiot to know, that if mutants truly did exist, that the Plague was afraid of their kind.

"Move it, pieces of scum!" Shouts a guard who quickly beat a man who refused to follow orders.

The dozens of scavengers begin to stand in a vertical line, no different from the past experiences. Depending on how quickly the makeshift machines work, most of us workers might be standing for hours.

As we all wait in the blistering heat, a sound of a vessel in the sky snaps us out of our trances. Our eyes avert to a small ship no bigger than a normal jet landing rapidly, as it deploys its landing gear. Whoever is inside clearly has high authority, due to the ship's decorative coating and paint job.

The door finally opened to the vessel after it landed, and all eyes were focused on whoever was about to step foot in our junkyard. My eyes widened when I recognized the horrifying mask instantly.

It was the masked person on the building watching me yesterday.

With each step the commander took, the ship's metal below their feet groaned, but was then silenced and blanketed by their black, flowing cape that went just beyond their ankles. Whoever it was, they were tall. It couldn't have been a woman due to their chest size and their broadened body, so immediately I assume it was one hell of a man. Even the helmet that covers his face was even intimidating, to say the least.