"You're Jack, right?" a raspy female voice asked him.
There was a hint of disbelief in her words, as if she couldn't quite believe it.
A faint tremor of recognition sparked in her as their eyes met.
"You're really Jack!" her eyes were now full of confidence, that I was indeed the Jack she knew.
Surprise flickered across his face.
What was this mad woman saying?
His expression quickly hardened into a guarded defensiveness.
He waited.
More like paralyzed than tense, for her next words, a hint of something unreadable swirling now in her eyes.
"It's me," she whispered, her voice cracking.
"Susan." her face expectant. As if waiting for him to say her name.
Like he would instantly remember someone crazy like this 'Susan' in front of him.
How many 'Susan's' do you think I know? Jack narrowed his eyes.
I've known...
....
????
Hang on.. I only know one Susan.
Susan...
Jack's eyes widened, a wave of disbelief washing over him.
Susan? That Susan?
The older kid, Susan, who always tried to protect him and their other adopted siblings?
The one who ran away? An old wound deep inside Jack has reopened.
He closed his eyes and opened them right away, taking a deep breath in the process.
Trying to bandage the image of an open wound inside his head.
Wouldn't want it to fester.
He stared at the Susan in front of him.
Yes, it must be really her. Susan.
He remembered all their names even if he don't want to: Susan, Becca, Jared, and Cole.
Jack was not the youngest of them.. It's Cole.
But Susan, the oldest, the first foster kid, had left the deepest mark.
So she wasn't forty-something… thirty, maybe thirty-one?
But she looked so… aged. What happened? She was eight years his senior.
Huh. She really looks old. Jack couldn't get over the fact that, the aged woman before him was the pretty teenager he remembered.
It was a far cry transformation from the one the neighbor boys would crane their necks to glimpse as they played baseball across the yard—the one he was so desperate to be a part of. But can't..
That was 2012, he was nine, she was sixteen, almost seventeen, already wielding her powers.
He remembered being awed at seeing her powers for the first time. Front row at that too.
...
He hadn't seen her in ten years, not ever since she abandoned them in that damn house.
She was the one that triggered its slow, agonizing collapse.
Their adoptive parents, terrified she'd report them to the police—and expose the horrors they'd inflicted—had descended into madness.
And that was the day Cole died, in the chaos that she left behind
He didn't know what to feel, a chaotic mix of shock, disbelief, and a flicker of something he dared not name.
In a twisted way, he understood her desperation.
Everyone relied on Susan, even him, but who did Susan have to rely on? She had to take the first chance she could get to escape, once a window of opportunity arises.
Tears streamed down Susan's face, her aged features contorting with raw, unfiltered emotion.
She reached out, her hands trembling, and pulled him into a desperate, clinging hug.
Jack stood there, stiff and unyielding, letting her hold him, the familiar scent of her old perfume stirring long-dormant memories.
"Oh, Jack," she sobbed, her voice muffled against his worn-out hoodie. "I thought… I thought I'd never see you again."
"I'm so glad you are doing alright... I saw you on the tv once.." She pulled back, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand, a watery smile breaking through her tears.
"This is Cole," she said, gesturing to the black-haired boy beside her. "My son."
Jack's breath hitched. Cole. The name echoed in his mind, a painful reminder of their lost brother, the one Susan left behind.
*KABOOM*
Before he could speak, a deafening sound ripped through the cinema.
The sound vibrating through the seats and sending a jolt of panic through the audience.
The walls shook, debris raining down from the ceiling.
Outside, screams mingled with the roar of destruction.
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*BOOM* *BOOM* *BOOM*
A relentless barrage of explosions rattled the cinema, the ground vibrating with each earth-shattering impact.
Jack instinctively ducked, his taller body shielding Susan and her son as rubble rained from the cracking ceiling.
Suddenly, the air around Susan shimmered, distorting the light like heat haze.
But instead of heat, the air seemed to slow down, to thicken.
He watched. A flicker of recognition in his eyes; he had seen this before.
Susan's superpower. Temporal Distortion. Time Warping.
The time itself seemed to warp around Susan, Cole, and him.
Falling scattered pieces from the ceiling hung suspended in mid-air, the screams outside stretched into drawn-out, distorted wails.
Susan moved with an eerie slowness, yet her movements were precise, deliberate.
"What do you think you're doing?" she asked, her voice strained.
"We both know you don't have superpowers, Jack. Don't try to be a hero." she's pointing out how he tried to shield them.
"Right," he retorted, his voice laced with bitterness. Right, of course she would know. She mentioned seeing him in tv once right?
Must be that one time.. my fifteen minutes of shame.
"Well, at least I try to live like a decent human being with my conscience intact, unlike you." The hurtful dig hung in the air, a raw, unspoken accusation.
She flinched.
Hurt and shame flickered across Susan's face.
Jack immediately felt a pang of guilt. Dammit. Me and my goddamn mouth.
Silence descended, thick and heavy, only to be shattered by another deafening BOOM.
"We don't have enough time," Susan said, her voice distorted, yet clear, as if she were speaking through thick liquid. "I think they're targeting this area."
Jack looked around.
He saw the other people, the parents who had glared at him earlier, now using their powers to protect themselves and their families.
Some wielded telekinesis, deflecting debris with invisible force, while others transformed their hands into curved metal shields.
Miraculously, there seemed to be no casualties—yet.
Suddenly, an ear-splitting alarm blared, an emergency red alert that tore through the cinema like a knife.
Panic surged through the crowd.
Susan grabbed Cole's hand, her grip tight.
"We need to get to the underground evacuation area," she said, her voice strained. "Now!"
The theater doors burst open, and the crowd surged out, enveloped in a chaotic mix of fear and determination.
Jack followed Susan and Cole, while his eyes was scanning the chaos outside.
The once-familiar street was a scene of devastation.
Rubble littered the ground, and smoke billowed from shattered windows of the surrounding establishments.
People fled in different directions, some using their powers, others simply running.
It was a total shitshow.
He looked back at the antique movie theater where they had emerged.
The signage, on the verge of falling to the ground, hung precariously by a single bolt.
It stood amidst a handful of small, unassuming buildings: a diner, a laundromat, a barely-open convenience store.
This wasn't the bustling city center, but even here, the destruction was palpable.
What on Earth is going on? It's like he's been transferred to a different world like that movie from his childhood.
It's different from when he entered the theater earlier, after leaving the police station.
Emergency vehicles, sirens wailing, raced down the street. The SERT.
Their faces grim, were already pulling people from the collapsed structures, using their superpowers.
The movements are efficient and practiced like they have done it a thousand times.
No group of superheroes or SPA—yet, just the hard-pressed SERT, doing what they could to help civilians.
Jack felt utterly disconnected from all the happenings around him.
His eyes wandered back to where they came from, he squints his eyes against the brightness of the afternoon sun.
Three figures standing atop the theater.
There were no people there earlier. He thought.
Who are they?
...
The Abyss?
No way....
