Adam was an average lad. He lived in a small village in Gaelic-speaking County Galway in Southern Ireland. He was average height and build, with short blond hair and grey eyes. He did pretty well in school, had the usual amount of friends and was considered a genuinely helpful boy. He didn't swear, he said his prayers and went to Mass every Sunday and his family were rarely troubled.
Recently, Adam had been having unexplained fevers, odd migraines that often resulted in him vomiting blood and odd bleeds. He'd swung from anaemic to apparent haemophilia to 'sticky blood' in the space of a few weeks. This was not average for the guy, and the doctors passing around words like 'strokes' and 'tumours' troubled his parents, though not as much as the word 'mutant' that was becoming heard more and more often.
But Adam didn't know about that. He just knew that he was sick, and trusted in the doctors to make him better. And that today, him and his dad were pushing out the boat onto the glass-smooth water of the lake with their rods and boxes inside it, and they were going to fish until the sun was well up.
...That was the plan, anyway.
"Are you sure you want to do this, Adam?" Shane Kilduff looked at his son, frowning a little. The boy was pale, eyes bloodshot (the latest in the long list of weird things was that he'd started crying blood) and a little shaky on his feet.
"Yes, Daid." Adam grinned at him. "I've been looking forward to this for a whole week. I feel fine!"
"So long as you're sure, boy." Shane smiled. "First sign that you're not well, though, you just tell me. The lake's always going to be here."
"'Course, Daid." Adam nodded. His father couldn't help but notice that even in this thin light, the boy was squinting, rubbing at his forearms again.
-Last Week-
"...Can't find any causes for this." The doctor sighed and took off his glasses, polishing them distractedly on his coat. They were in the hospital yet again, Adam hooked up to blood bags again. He'd started bleeding badly from his arms, with no sign of injuries except for an odd hardness forming along the underside of his arms. "It's almost as if something wants him to bleed to death."
There was a dry sob from Keira before she could stop it, a shaking hand pressed against her lips. "I'm sorry, doctor, I just-"
"I understand, Mrs Kilduff." The doctor gave her a smile, replacing his glasses. "Have you given any thought to my theory yet?"
Shane looked at Keira for a moment. "The mutant one?" He sighed, rubbing his eyes. "We can't think of anything else...like you say, this is...impossible. But there's no family history or...trauma..."
"It's a possibility that the onset of puberty can trigger a manifestation of this...X-gene." The doctor ran his hand through his hair, fidgeting with Adam's notes on the table in front of him. "There's been documentation of occurrences, after all."
Shane and Keira looked at each other again. "Well...if he's a mutant, we don't care. He's still our little boy." Keira mumbled. "But...why's it doing this to him? It's killing him!"
"That...I don't know." The doctor glanced through the window of the door, behind which Adam lay unconscious, a nurse changing already blood-soaked sheets. He's almost sweating blood...how is there even any left? "All we can do is keep this up until he stabilises or..."
"Don't even think it." Shane cut in. "God wouldn't let him die."
-Present-
Despite how pale and...ill the boy looked, he had no problem hauling the boat onto the runners. In fact, Shane was pretty sure that Adam could probably pick up the entire thing by himself and walk to the water with it. He'd noticed that the twelve year old had been...changing physically since this started - his ears were far more pointed, he was sure, and his eyes were lightening, not to mention the sheer strength he'd felt in his grip sometimes.
If Adam survived this, Shane was looking forward to seeing just what the boy would become. Even Keira was excited, both of them determined to do everything they could to see the boy through this.
"Daaaaiiid, you're day-dreaming again. Fish aren't going to catch themselves!" Adam waved his hand in front of him, grinning happily. "Come on."
"Alright, alright." Shane laughed, helping push the boat into the water and climbing in beside the boy. "You want to row or should I?"
"You row. My arms hurt."
"No, you're just lazy." Shane smiled gently as he pulled on the life jacket, Adam doing the same and poking his tongue out at him. He grinned back, picking up the oars and pushing them out into the lake.
Adam wasn't feeling too good by the time they got home, despite the brace of fish he and his father had caught. His eyes stung, everything was too loud and he could swear he could smell everything. The all-too-familiar sick feeling had settled in his stomach again, and his sight was oddly reddened.
"Daid...I don't feel so good again..." He murmured, trying to swallow the lump in his throat as he pulled his coat off - and sure enough, there was a slight tint of blood when he wiped his forehead. "Oh...not again..."
His father was there, holding a cool cloth to his burning skin. "Hey, shh, Adam." He murmured as Adam hiccuped, tears rolling down his cheeks, leaving bloody trails. "It's okay." His dad picked him up, calling for his mother. "Keira! Get the doctor, it's started again."
"Dad...I'm scared..."
Shane took him into the kitchen and started to strip his clothes off him. "Don't be, kiddo." He smiled at Adam, but the boy could...smell? Yes, that was the word...smell the panic on him. "It's going to be alright." By the time he'd pulled off Adam's clothes, the cloth was drenched in blood, and he sat the naked boy down on the floor. Adam sobbed, clinging to his father as his mother came in.
"Oh...my boy..." Keira murmured, kneeling beside him and pulling him close, despite the blood. "Jesus, you're burning up. Get some cold cloths, Shane, doctor will be here in a few minutes with the ambulance again."
Adam curled up as his head started pounding. He was literally burning up, temperature spiking far more violently then it had done so far. "I-I don't...don't feel good..." He sobbed, trying to clear his eyes of the redness. It felt like he had liquid fire in his body, that at any moment it might explode out of him. "Mam - Daid - I-I'm scared, I-I'm gonna die aren't I?"
Both of them wrapped their arms around him as both pain and temperature contiued to climb and then-
The world turned red, suddenly. Everything slowed. The pain seemed to detach itself as the twelve year old suddenly felt the blood, a thought stopping it, slicking it off his skin. He could...could control it, reach out and touch the actual energy in it, manipulate it-
And then the heat suddenly spiked and the control went. Pain shot through him, agonising, and he could barely hear the screams over the pounding rush in his head, doubled over and vomiting. Then everything went black as he once again fell into unconsciousness.
When he came to, it wasn't to the normal pristine of a hospital ceiling. It was to a nightmare, a room plastered with blood and worse, parts of the body that should have never seen daylight. Adam stared at the walls, the ceiling - everything was covered, except him. The heat was unbearable, flames licking the walls and turning the gore black, the smell of roasting meat surrounding him.
His father's wrist watch lay in a mess of flesh next to him.
Adam screamed, and that was when the house collapsed around him.