Jerrow had always imagined a day would come when life would finally hit him back. You couldn't go through like a breeze and expect nothing to happen. If you looked around, you saw that everywhere people struggled, and either became stronger for it or perished. It was his belief that one day he would face his own pain, and he prepared for that the only way he could – by adopting a stoic attitude over his fiery ways, distancing himself from others, and working hard to become physically strong, agile and fast.
He hit the street running, and water sprayed everywhere as he sagged for half a second before pushing off again, sprinting through the ankle-deep stream that had previously been the town's main street. It was moving faster than him, an ominous reminder of the cataclysmic forces that were at work some ways behind him, a mile upstream, where the great dam had taken a near-direct hit from one of the meteors. Nobody knew how long it would hold, and nobody stuck around to find out. The houses along the road were empty, their windows shattered, some of them cracked or caved in. Smoke drifted overhead in thick clouds mucking up the bright blue sky; somewhere not far off, a neighborhood had caught fire.
He was a lonely, miniscule figure, hurrying along the streets of his deserted hometown, desperately trying to stay ahead of fate.
Loneliness could be pain too, he had found out, and it was for that reason he had made an exception to the rules of his life, or rather, two exceptions. Though even he had to admit that, in retrospect, it might not have gone any other way. Something in the back of his mind told him there had been no conscious decision, no rational plan, and it unsettled him when he thought about it for any stretch of time, so he didn't. He accepted these changes into his life as though he had placed them there, and adapted to them.
It had actually been surprisingly easy. People had always been drawn to him, to his unending surprise and sometimes annoyance. Karen and Dominic had been no different. Having been placed under his supervision as part of a high school student-to-student tutoring program ('adoption', as the students called it), they had seen him as their go-to person, their mentor, and occasionally their guardian. Karen hadn't needed him in that last respect. She fought her own battles, or tried to, and she lost most of them, but in all those years she had never come to him for support. He respected that and hadn't interfered. Sometimes he wondered if things would have unfolded differently if he had. Between her and him…
An explosion to his left shook the ground, and he skidded to an uncertain halt, the stream pulling at his legs forcefully. His jaw dropped as he saw a fireball rise up from behind the mansions, and even at this distance he could feel the heat on his skin, taste the warm wind. A distant, muffled scream echoed across the street before being submerged in the angry murmur of the water. Maybe he had just imagined it? He looked around uncertainly, but saw only water. Another explosion rumbled, further away – the town was destabilizing. He forced himself to start moving, and resume his course. There was no time to look after anyone else, or for sightseeing. There was no time at all.
Dominic had been a lot more work than Karen, but then, he had always been a strange kid. When they had met for the first time, he had been stuck-up, egoistic and rude, and when he got into trouble he ran for the nearest teacher for protection. He had tried the same thing with his new mentor, but only once, at which point he'd found out Jerrow was remarkably good at not noticing there was anything going on, despite the occasional cry of pain and the cluster of children rolling over the floor and occasionally bumping into his legs. Afterwards they'd gone to the doctor together, and since then the kid had started observing him critically, following him around the premises and - and that was the thing that really freaked him out – taking notes. It went on for only two weeks before he put a stop to it, but from that time on the boy was inevitably changing, like a rock that had perched on a cliff for ages and had finally fallen off.
And then it was time to let go.
"You've both come a long way," Jerrow reflected. They were looking at him, and he realised they were no longer looking up as they always had. When exactly that change had taken place, he had no idea, but he figured the time was right.
"I hope we'll go much longer still," Karen said, staring at him intently. "All of us."
Jerrow noticed the defiance in her gaze, and wished she wouldn't make it harder than it had to be. "You know I care for you guys," he said.
"Liar!" Dominic jumped up and cramped his hands around the table. "You gonna dump us and get the hell out, aren't you?"
Jerrow shrugged, and looked back at Karen, usually the voice of reason. She didn't look away, she didn't even blink. "Well," she said, "are you?"
"He is, that douche! I've known all week, he's just gonna tear off-"
"Shut up, Dominic," Jerrow said, kindly. "It's not that easy. I'm done with high school. I can't just stay on for you guys."
"That must be easy for you." Karen's voice was remarkably cool. "And when you leave, what will happen to us?"
He looked at them, from one to the other, felt the invisible clash in the air. Then he sagged. "That," he said, "is for you to figure out."
He walked towards the crater step by step, carefully, trying not to lose his foothold on the cracked bricks. The water was warm around his feet, and in the crater, it boiled. Heavy fumes rose up from it and made him lightheaded, and once he had to lean against a half-charred vehicle wreck so as not to fall over. He started to wonder if he was dreaming. Could any of it be real? Meteors, disasters, the end of the world – frankly, the notion struck him as foolhardy. He shook his head and set his last step in the hot water, finally reaching the crater's edge. It was real enough. A little too real for his tastes, actually. With some effort he set himself down on the remains of a stone fence, which rose up out of the coiling murk like a peer at sea.
Jerrow had always imagined life would hit him back some day. Anticipating the pain, he had worked hard to improve himself, so that he would be ready when the time came. And now, as he noticed there was far too little rubble here for an entire house to have collapsed, and there was no sign of bodies, he found that the worst thing wasn't having a harsh destiny, or a painful one, but having no destiny at all.
A scorched, soaked brown envelope sloshed by on the waves, having miraculously survived the impact somehow. Jerrow fished it up almost absent-mindedly. The half that wasn't burned away still faintly showed the green spirograph of SBURB.
A long, thundering rumble far behind him indicated the gigantic concrete walls hadn't been able to contain the water any longer. Jerrow crumpled the paper in his fist and found himself crying, quietly, miserably.
It wasn't like there was anyone around to see.