Speed Kills
City sirens continued to cut through the dramatic chords of the telenovela airing on the local Spanish station.
"I'm not going nowhere, pinché sirena!" she spat on the wood floor.
The program suddenly switched to a breaking news bulletin and was promptly shut off by the older woman watching from her brown and tan faded floral couch. The bang of her screen door shutting got her to stand up and face her tiny kitchen now a third filled with her scrawny, sunburnt and sweaty grandson.
"Oy, Abuelita, we gotta go! There is a fuckin huge mon-" with a start she swatted her grandson on the side of his head with her sandal.
"Watch your tongue, mijo o te cortaré la lengua", she admonished him and half as quickly tossed her sandal on the floor and stepped back into it.
"Ow, okay okay sorry. I was saying we got to leave. Grandpa wouldn't want you to get crushed by some stupid monster."
"Tsk, but my shows are on."
"It'll be covered up by the warnings and the fight, I'll turn your shows on my phone and we'll watch it in the bunkers, together okay? I just- just want you to be safe. C'mon, I love you, Mama. Please?"
The siren's blare hung heavy in the moment as the family pictures, a wooden rosary, and an old framed drawing from her grandson depicting her and her husband in crayon standing in front of their little one story home on the wall started to vibrate.
"Tsk, don't you cry, mijo. I go. Let's go. But turn off the stove I got water on and put out the garbage on the curb? Monster or no, I'm not going to let la gringa cruce la calle bitch about the pinché recycling again."
He knew better than to argue with her, even if cleaning up the house during an Endbringer attack was ultimately futile, so he sprinted to the kitchen and twisted the knob for the kettle's burner. A swift kick to open the screen door and he ran carrying a plain white stuffed garbage bag and a half full blue recycling bag, tossing both in the white spray painted cage just a couple feet from the curb meant to keep local critters from rummaging through the trash.
He wiped the sweat from his face, let the cage door slam shut, and a series of loud crashes came from behind their house.
"Mijo!"
A low rumble from below his feet came with his Grandmother's cry. He looked back at his house.
"Run, run! MIJO, RUN!"
She cried out from behind the screen door as chunks of ice smashed through their next door neighbor's house.
"No, C'MON!"
He motioned for her to come to him, and she shook her head and the moment he took a step forward she slammed the front door shut.
"NO!"
A massive chunk of ice tore it's way through their small bungalow and he took a step back to pivot into a futile effort to run.
All he could see was darkness and all he could feel was immense pressure over his entire body. He couldn't move an inch. He must be dead and this his hell.
A rapid beep was all he could hear in his own personal Hell and his demon took his sight and freedom of movement. He wanted to scream but even his mouth was forced shut, his throat spasmed on the alien appendage shoved down his throat.
The beeping sped up to the point it became a piercing singular beep. The beep reminded him of the air raid siren and his thoughts flashed to his childhood home, his grandmother telling him to run, the chunks of ice demolishing his home, and he wanted to go back. He wanted free from his Hell. He wanted to live to see his Mama again. He needed to go back.
Now.
Like a dream he was flying, soaring over the city but huge swathes lay in ruins. A preternatural feeling of something of a magnetic attraction had him slow and descend to a somewhat familiar location.
His body, seemingly lighter than air, came to rest just above the white cage that still held the white and blue bags. The cage itself was sticking up out of the water that flooded the entire neighborhood. Where the Little bungalow had once sat now was just a lot filled with water and debris from other homes that ice chunks left in their wake.
Despite feeling like a dream he tried to look down at himself, his arms, his body and saw nothing but a floating cloud of dust but blown back like a streak.
From dust to dust, he recollected the words from his Abuelo's funeral. He was dead and seeing his home in ruins was another punishment. Punishment for failing to protect his grandmother, the death of his last living relative. Punishment for not stepping up sooner and quitting school to work so his Grandfather could rest in his old age.
He was a burden left on their doorstep by their daughter who drank and snorted herself to an early grave, and this was his punishment for existing.
He couldn't cry or sob. This dusty ghost form couldn't even disturb the surface of the water. Couldn't even shut his eyes to block out the scene and he wanted nothing more than to go back to the darkness and forget it all. That magnetic pull returned and his ghostly body ascended to the skies.
His dusty streak descended onto his personal hell, and Hell sure looked alot like Boston. The pulling sensation lead him directly down into a hospital, his ghostly form hovered through the entrance, down a hall, into a room with medical staff looking perplexed.
The beep returned as his ghost sunk down into the heavily bandaged and cast covered silhouette of a body. The long beep broke for a long second and a steady rhythm of beeps returned.
The voices of the medical staff calmed down as one older female voice spoke up, "Notify the local PRT - we've got a cape here."
~~x