Snow Falls

Chapter Two

Barry and Wally zipped through the streets and towered over buildings to find the source of the disturbance. Nothing but their signature trails of red and yellow lightning could be seen by the untrained eye.

"Guys! What's the problem?" Barry asked; his voice laced with skepticism as he momentarily doubted the urgency of the mission. "Everything looks-"

He and Wally jumped back as they were startled by a sudden blast of lightning, quite different from the ones you'd normally encounter during a storm. This was something else; something beyond Mother Nature's capabilities.

"Uhh.. I think we found it" Wally said.

"It's lightning" Barry chimed in.

"Skies were clear a minute ago. That storm must have come out of nowhere" Iris responded.

"We got a bigger problem" Cisco said. "There's an experimental cold fusion core from Mercury Labs in the plant, and if it blows-"

"It could take out the whole block" Caitlin concluded.

"I see it" Barry said affirmatively, just before he and Wally ducked to avoid the next stroke.

Iris then instructed that Wally evacuate all the workers to safety. Barry was already a step ahead on his role. He needed to grab the core. Wally looked to him with uncertainty. Even though they had endured far more dangerous missions than this, Kid Flash still worried for his brother's safety.

"Something's not right, man" Wally said.

"Just listen to Iris, grab the workers from inside" Barry encouraged. And with that, Wally sped off in a state of determination.

The lightning was uncharacteristically bright against the otherwise clear Central City sky. It seemed to stretch beyond nature's limits as it aimed to touch the power plant. Barry pushed himself to outrun the lightning as went for the core. He held onto the blue cylinder with the strongest football hold. But if there was anything Barry had learned in his years as The Flash, it was that sometimes there were things you could not outrun. For the second time in his life, Barry Allen was struck by lightning.

"He's going into cardiac arrest. Wally needs to restart his heart" Caitlin said as calmly as she could muster. Meanwhile, her own heart began pounding with worry. But a part of her held onto the hope that he would survive.

A minute later, the monitor showed just that. Caitlin had been too focused to notice that Cisco and Iris were looking at her with a mixture of astonishment and confusion.

"Flash! Flash! Guys, he's not breathing!" Wally yelled.

"How did you? Cisco asked.

"I guess this is my half of the pregnancy symptoms" Caitlin answered with a shrug. "Killer Frost can keep the kids of Central City out of school for a week and I sense people's emotions".

"W-What? H-How do I do that?" Wally asked nervously.

"Rub your hands together to create lightning and then give him a chest compression" Caitlin ordered, crossing her fingers behind her back that it would work. She had never lost faith in Barry's ability to survive and she wasn't about to start now; especially with a baby on the way.

Wally did as Caitlin said, once but to no avail.

"Come on, man. Come on, stay with me" Wally said, growing frustrated and trying his best not to lose hope as he rubbed his hands and tried a second time. But again with no success.

"It's not working" he reported, on the verge of tears. He was with his mother when she passed and he couldn't stand to see the man who was like a brother to him suffer a similar fate.