The Battle Within An Angel

Fourteen | Wesley

Wesley Amherst watched as Maddox flew away with Claire wrapped tightly in his arms, but decided against following the two. Instead, he made his way back to Chaos's warehouse using his newly claimed ability of speed.

The Red Giant sun was setting, only cooling off the surface of the Earth by a few degrees. Even in the evening, the temperature rested at a hot 95 degrees. During the day, temperatures were over 100.

The weather was absolutely miserable, but the thought of getting away from it to a place that hadn't been phased by such heat gave Wesley hope.

Hope of living a decent life like he had been before the sun became a Red Giant.

He longed for a cool breeze, but such a thing no longer existed. He'd heard on the news that Earth only had a few years left of existence, but the sun had begun to warm Jupiter, Uranus, and Neptune into being warm enough to inhabit.

The problem lied in the fact that all three are gaseous planets, making them nearly impossible for humans to inhabit.

The newscast also mentioned that though Earth won't be engulfed by the Red Giant as Mercury and Venus, Earth and Mars would both be charred beyond habitability.

Earth only had a few years left.

Wesley would rather live on the promise of a new world- a new island- than on the fact that humanity would be blown out of existence, and soon.

Chaos's warehouse came into view, though Wesley could see only the roof over the over piled sand and waste that had accumulated on the remnants of Sedona streets. He slowed down, not wanting to risk anyone seeing him move with unrealistic speeds.

They might try to capture me too, he thought, if they knew about this. All for science, but I've seen the lab. Can't risk that.

Wesley tried not to blink, for every time he did, he saw countless people with "powers" strapped to chairs with various machinery attached to them. He saw a young girl, not possibly over eight years old, running on a treadmill with additional machinery attached to her head and arms.

She was tired, but Chaos wouldn't allow her to stop, not even for food or water.

They were abused, and he refused to suffer the same fate.

Members weren't allowed entry into the lab, but through happenstance and curiosity, Wesley had stumbled into the closed-off room. He felt nearly no sympathy for those who were trapped in such a place, but he'd certainly feel sorry for himself if he ended up there.

Though he had been running for miles, Wesley wasn't out of breath until he began to walk toward the warehouse.

The air had grown unbelievably hot, though it was only 96 degrees compared to earlier's 120 degrees. Wesley hadn't noticed his soaked shirt, reeking of sweat. His clothing had grown unbelievably heavy, and that wasn't counting his combat boots.

Wiping the beads of sweat that had accumulated on his brow, he pressed on, inching closer until he could see the piece of metal with the black spray-painted word "CHAOS" on it, haphazardly attached to the building above the door.

Over half of the warehouse was located underground, a "precaution" against bombs by enraged civilians. In reality, the location was simply for privacy against the government. After all, most satellites couldn't truly "see" underground in order to detect the laboratory.

Most of them had already been destroyed by the Red Giant, but ever since, governments worldwide had continued to launch more.

What does world domination matter if the world is going to end soon?