Destroyer of Time: Pyrokinesis

Chapter Twelve: Confusion+Exhaustion= Illusion?

I woke up feeling exhausted as if I just didn't sleep through the night without waking up. I glanced at the clock on my bedside table and saw that it was eight in the morning. I tried to sit up, but my body felt so heavy. Like some unknown force was holding me down. But I couldn't ignore nature's call. My bladder felt like it was about to explode.

After ten tries, I managed to get myself up. I was sweating and heaving loudly when my feet finally touched the carpeted floor. 

     I hate this. I hate being sick.

I'd never been sick before, and it was awful. I just wanted to crawl back to bed again and sleep forever, but I needed to go to the bathroom first. 

Slowly, I made my way to the toilet and relieved myself. After I finished, I started walking back towards my bed but suddenly stopped when I heard my dad's voice through the door. It was a bit cracked open, so I could hear his voice clearly. 

     “You really think it's him?"

Uncle Road's voice answered. "I'm almost one hundred percent positive that it's him."

     "Road, I got a bad feeling about this. If he’s already in town, then we’re all in danger."

     "Yeah. No kidding. Luckily, he doesn't seem to know anything about Hunter at the moment. So, we still got some time."

I frowned at that. They were talking about me. Who are they talking about, and why does that include me?

There was some silence for a while before they started talking again. "You know, I predicted that this was gonna happen after the incident with Kelly. He's hunting every member of the cycle, Road."

I recognized the name dad mentioned. I was pretty sure he was talking about the same Kelly I knew. She was a thirty-five-year-old woman who died three weeks ago on a fire along with the rest of her family. They just lived a couple of blocks from our house, and I even had few interactions with them before the incident.

The police said they couldn't find any evidence of any possible cause of the fire, so it was taking them a while to solve the case. They said that it was like the fire just came out from nowhere.   

The more frightening part of the story was that she and her family weren't the only victims of these random fires. So far, eight more houses have burnt down these past few weeks. All of the families died in them. It was becoming alarming how often these incidents were happening, but we couldn't do anything but wait for the police to solve these cases. 

     Now, my dad sounds like he's saying that he knows who has been causing these fires. Why the hell hasn’t he reported this to the police?

I strained harder to hear more. "Sooner or later, he'll be able to kill them all and free Cryros unless we do something about it. Out of the twelve founding families, only three are left,” I heard my dad saying. 

     What founding families and who's hunting them?

     “We don’t know for a fact that he’s alone, Ron. s**t, we haven't even identified his real identity. The first thing we gotta do is figure out who he is while also protecting the three remaining members of the cycle."

"How are you gonna do that? There are only two of us."

     "Don't worry. I brought back up. They're already keeping watch of the last three families. The thing we gotta focus on is investigating who has been killing these people. If we figure out their identity first, then we can just confront them head-on." 

I frowned, trying to absorb all the information I was hearing. I was still unsure what they were talking about, but I was beginning to believe it was dire. "So many people have died already, Ron." They went quiet for a second before Uncle Road spoke again. "Can I tell you something?"

     "You know you can tell me anything."

     "If you ask me, I think that we should tell Hunter what’s going on now and prepare him."

     Tell me what?

     "You really think so? Do you think he's ready?"

     Ready for what?

     "That's even more of a reason to tell him now. We can prepare him early, so if anything ever happens, then he knows what to do." I could hear someone start pacing. "Imagine this. If worse comes to worst and Cryros gets set free, Hunter will be able to take care of himself. If we don't prepare him, then that's like handing them over without a fight to them.” I heard Uncle Road saying.

     "Not that I'm opposed to your suggestion, Road, but I think that we should wait for him to come to his abilities first. I might not have been close to him for a long time, but even I could tell that he would not believe anything without seeing it himself."

     "You're right." They fell silent again before Uncle Road exclaimed, "Wait! Why can't we just show him our abilities?"

     "We can, I guess. Well, we gotta show him yours because it would be quicker to believe it than mine."

     "True. Alright. When your kid wakes up, we'll talk to him and explain all these things. Then I'll show him what I can do."

I was perplexed by their conversation at this point, and I felt the incoming headache pounding my brain softly. I wanted to lay down and rest, but I also wanted to hear the rest of what they have to say.

"You know what else, Road? I've come to a conclusion, and I think this guy that we’re looking for is someone who interacts with Hunter regularly."

     "Seriously? How'd you come up with that?"

     "Well, he affected Hunter to the point that he fainted and got a fever. I think that we should keep a lookout for someone that comes close to him,” I heard my dad replied.

Someone made me faint and gave me a fever? 

     "Huh. Wait. I'm getting a call," Uncle Road said. "Yeah. Yeah. Alright. Seriously? Okay. I'll be there in a few." 

     "Who's that?" my dad asked once the call was over. 

     "One of my associates. They discovered something important just now and want me to come over. Why don't you come with me?" 

     "How about Hunter? What if he wakes up?" My dad sounded concerned about me, and it was very touching. 

     "Ron, he's nineteen. I think he can handle himself just fine for a few hours without us. I swear we won't be long. We might even be back before he wakes up."

There was a pause before my father responded, "Fine. We better be quick."

     "We will be, I promise."

There were some shuffling noises, and a few seconds later, the front door slammed shut, followed by silence. It was perfect timing, too, since my legs were about to give out. I almost crawled towards my bed. I had to leap face down on top of it because I didn't have any energy left. 

Even if I wanted to keep thinking about the things I'd heard, my eyes were closing again. I didn't have the strength to do anything but drift once again to a dreamless sleep. 

     Stupid fever.