Coagulation

Chapter 4: Zero

Coagulation 

Zero

Thunder danced around lightning in the swirling dark sky, arcing and twisting and bucking as it spiraled into a building. A mere strike alone sent a mild shockwave through the ground and rocked the struck structure down to its foundation. The building, old and gangly as it was, shuddered at its adversary’s whim. They say lightning doesn’t strike twice in the same place; that law might apply in another town, another city where manners and sense and science converge together, until they are mangled into one philosophy and become the law to people who wholeheartedly believe in it.

Here, laws didn’t matter.

A second bolt of brilliant gold winded the building, puncturing its latest wound and traveling down to its core. It shuddered again, like how animals shuddered when they died…like how a person would shudder when the light seeps out of their eyes. Thunder boomed overhead, almost tauntingly, as the building crumbled away, no longer able to support its own weight or bear the pain of the wounds.

David tilted his head to the side, slightly, watching this event. He rarely saw lightning strike in the same place twice. Out there, outside of this entire town he found himself in, it formed from the ground up, striking objects which were magnetically charged on the way up. Here, though, it descended from the heavens to pierce whatever it wanted to, how many times it wanted to. Whenever it wanted to.

He got to his feet and sighed, clutching what remained of his belongings and holding them at his side. Three hours had passed since the accident and the slaughter of those masked men. He was lost after that, completely unsure of what to do and where to go. Who wouldn’t, if they watched themselves kill five men with guns using their own blood? He was not in control of himself then, he kept saying. Over and over, he wasn’t in control.

Since then, he picked through the wreckage of the bus and found his binder in shreds. Four years came undone in ten minutes. All his drawings were ruined, all the notes he saved were shredded to pieces. Only one thing remained, well, two actually: his house key and a pendant passed down from his grandfather. He only counted the pendant because he had a feeling that getting home would never happen.

So, with the clothes on his back and the pendant in hand, he set out to the edge of the road. The buildings were farther out than he thought they were, a common misconception of distance when looking at objects from afar. An hour had already passed, marked by the familiar sting in the soles of his feet. The road was far from forgiving. Still, he pressed on and eventually found a rusted iron fence that stretched all the way down the road on either side, as far as the eye could see.

Another hour passed as he tried to find a way through the fence, or around it. No luck there, considering that the nearest gate was probably miles and miles away.

Half an hour prior to now, he decided to give the ability a try. What was the worst that could happen, right? So he held his right arm out and focused on moving the blood that pulsed beneath the dry brown flakes forming above his wounds. His head began to hurt real bad, like migraine bad, and the world flickered just a smudge, taking a dip in mahogany.

Then his blood slithered out of his wounds, the flakes crumbling away, similar to dust or ash. It moved around in its raw form, unfazed by the snippy air or the low breeze rolling gently through the area. A headache settled behind his eyes as he gave the blood a form to inhabit; he thought of a tool strong enough to tear away at the gnarled iron sitting between him and shelter, yet promiscuous and reliable enough to be used as a weapon if needed. The blood obeyed and gathered in thick, crimson pockets along his arm. It expanded, narrow and thin at first, then it grew wider and wider, curving at the spot where his hand connected to his arm. It stopped at a foot and three-quarters; longer than the blade he saw that thing create earlier, and wider to boot.