A Heart's Thoughts

Day 23 - Part 3

Emma carefully lift her finger and faintly pointed in Anthony's direction, still thinking hard as she spoke, "so, you're telling me this man here controls heat....... And since he's the only one with such a power, the government uses him to heat up the entire city?"

Cecilia nodded, and Emma furrowed her brows as she crossed her arms and focused her gaze on the old wooden floor she was sitting on inside the house, "and this is a problem because...?"

Cecilia opened her mouth to explain but Anthony beat her to it as he started talking, "since my power is heat, I can control the temperature of things, but to do that, I need to be constantly focused and pour my energy into it. The moment I stop pouring my energy into it, whatever I was heating up starts cooling down. The government in our city has made me heat up air and water to supply our buildings with warmth ever since I was old enough to properly control my power."

Emma interrupted, "but wait, you told me there's only one person who controls a power, so you're the only one who controls heat, but what did they do before you could control your powers?"

"They used the woman who controlled fire. They made her burn whatever they could lose and used that to heat up the city. The only downside to that was that it released a lot of carbondioxide into the air."

"Then why won't they alternate between you and this fire lady?"

Anthony sighed sadly, "I was nine when the Ministry first asked for my services, but since I was young I didn't have a whole lot of energy I could put into my power, so they did alternate between the two of us. When I turned nineteen, the woman died, so I had to do the job on my own."

Emma's frown deepened, "why didn't they just use something to set fire to a big pile of wood?"

Anthony shrugged, "probably because my power is more nature-friendly. I'm only one person who suffers from the work, but if they use fire, everyone will suffer in some way."

Emma gave Anthony a sad look, "how were things for you after that fire woman died? I mean, they must've had some solution ready in case you ran out of energy."

Anthony gave her a bitter smile before slightly turning his body so he could look at Elias, "when I claimed to be out of energy, they would get one of my best friends into the room. Elias." Anthony paused and smiled sadly as he looked his friend in the eye before turning back to Emma. "they would threaten to hurt him, and if I didn't- or couldn't give in after such a threat, they'd actually do it. I never let them go far; the anger and fear were enough of an adrenaline boost for me to continue working until they said it was enough. They made Eden erase Elias' memories of it afterwards."

Everyone fell silent, and for a few seconds the only sound they could hear was the ticking of the old clock on one of the walls of the house Emma provided them with.

After a while, Emma finally let out a baffled sigh, staring at Anthony with pity, "that's..... horrible. So that's why you fled?"

Anthony glanced at Cecilia for a moment before fixing his gaze back on Emma, "actually, no. We had plans to start a rebellion, but then they abducted Cecilia and they..." Anthony stopped talking as he balled his fists. Cecilia stared at him for a few moments before putting on an indifferent expression and continued where Anthony left off, "they put me in their torture room for three days, until all my friends here came to my rescue. We left that same night, as the danger of staying was too great. We were all wanted for breaking into the Ministry, so all we could do was leave, and hope to find help."

Emma stared at her in shock before weakly lifting her hand and asking, "are you okay?"

Cecilia chuckled a little, "you ask me but not Elias or Anthony?"