The Breaking of The World

When I first wrote this, I intended to write a series of short stories taking place in this world. if anyone who reads this feels like contributing to this universe, please feel free to either send me your ideas or your own short stories from here.

thanks in advance
superbeads
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“What’s the big emergency?” Ben asked sleepily

He looked over at his alarm clock. Its light blue display read 5:00 AM.
It was far too early for his friend’s shenanigans

“Trust me it’s worth it” said the voice of his friend over the phone
“Meet me in the park in half an hour okay? Bring your camera”

Ben sighed as he hung up the phone. Well he was already up and anything that could get Chuck up at sunrise had to be interesting. He quickly got some clothes on and grabbed his digital camera and shoved it in his pants pocket.Because of the early hour, Ben decided that instead of using the front door, which would involvee walking down a craky hallway pasthis parent's room, he would use the backup strategy. He went into his closet and pulled out the emergency ladder that was put there in case of a fire. He opened his window and lowered the ladder out into his backyard, then climbed down onto the grass. Then he set off for the park.

As he walked in the early morning chill towards the park a few blocks away, he looked to the east and saw the first bit of sun peeking over the horizon. He tried to imagine what caused Chuck to wake up at five that could possibly be so interesting that he HAD to wake up someone else.

These thoughts were swirling around inside Ben’s head when he finally reached the park. He saw Chuck leaning against the fence around the playground. When he saw the Ben had arrived, he smiled

“What took you so long man?”

“Something to do with it being about 5 in the freaking morning”

Chuck stood up and headed towards the center of the flat grassy area of the park and Ben started after him.

“Trust me, once you see what I have to show you, you'll be glad you came I can promise you that” Chuck said as he walked.

“Okay, so show me already!” Ben said starting to get a bit excited.

Suddenly, Chuck stopped walking. They had reached the middle of the grassy area where there had recently been built a gazebo. There was no reason for it to be there, but the town's parks commission had ordered it to be built because in their words “it really tied together the look of the whole park”. There was nothing particularly wrong with it, but the guys in Ben and Chuck’s class could no longer play football there in the long stretch of grass because smack in the middle of it, there was the gazebo now.

“I have hated this gazebo since they built it and ruined our park but there was nothing we could do about it but complain,” said Chuck staring intently at the gazebo “but now I finally can do something about it.”

He looked at the gazebo, then flashed me a smile and said “I would advise you to stand back.”

“What are you going to do?” Ben said as he took a few steps back.

Chuck didn’t answer. He looked back at the gazebo inhaled to his lungs capacity, and held it. Ben was about to crack a big bad wolf joke when Chuck exhaled.  A gout of flame erupted from his mouth and quickly engulfed the wooden gazebo lighting it afire. Ben could do nothing but stare wide eyed at the stream of flames flowing out of his best friend’s mouth. After a couple of seconds, Chuck ran out of breath and fell to his knees panting. The gazebo burned with a cheery orange flame. Ben went over to his friend and helped him sit up.

“Alright, let’s hear it” said Ben crossing his arms.

“Hear what?” replied Chuck still slightly out of breath.

“How you are suddenly able to BREATHE FIRE for starters!” yelled Ben.

“Oh that.”

“YES THAT!”

“Well I have no idea how it happened actually,” said Chuck sitting down on the grass, “Earlier this morning at about four thirty, I was woken by a burning sensation in my stomach that I mistook for heartburn.  I went to the bathroom to get a drink of water. Before I got there, I burped. Guess what came out of my mouth?” 

Chuck sat there staring at the now crumbling gazebo, still in flames.

“So what else can you do?” Ben asked.

  *********  *********  *********

         After the escapades of that morning, Ben found breakfast to be very mundane.

His father was watching the morning news reports, but Ben didn’t pay attention. The local news wouldn’t find the damage that they had done till at least the afternoon circuit of the news, and all the other news was kind of everyday news. A mugging in an alley with two victims, a strangely dressed man and a woman, a home invasion of a young married couple ends with the husband and the invader dead and the strangely tall wife inconsolable, the usual horribleness.

School was pretty normal except for the fact that there were several students missing from every single class. There must have been about 100 kids home sick that day. Even some teachers were gone! Chuck didn't show up either, so Ben spent all day wondering if every kid or teacher that was not there also had superpowers like Chuck.

When he wasn't thinking about the possible powers of his classmates, he tried to think about why HE hadn't gotten superpowers. He didn't recall there being a nuclear power plant or a meteorite strike recently, and to his knowledge there hadn't even been an eclipse! So why had his best friend gotten awesome powers and not him?

After school was over Ben raced back home so that he could catch the beginning of the news to see if Chuck's handiwork made it onto TV. What he saw was much more interesting. There were reports worldwide of random people waking up that morning with superpowers. There were hundreds of thousands of accidental injuries and deaths in America alone. Every hospital was full to capacity and more people keep flowing in. As the report went on, showing photos and videos of people using superpowers and the injuries caused by them, Ben’s initial surprise about the existence of millions of superheroes had now soured into a fear of the mayhem that had quickly overtaken the world.  The last image he saw before he turned off the TV was a building in flames and people jumping out of the windows to escape. Fire no longer seemed so exciting. Just then, the doorbell rang. It was Chuck, but he wasn’t alone. Their friend Dan had also been up at sunrise that morning and had seen some of the fireworks in the park.

“Why were you up that early?” asked Ben “unless…”

Dan grinned.

“You wanna see what I can do?” Dan asked, clearly hoping that they would say yes.

“I know I do!” said Chuck with a big smile on his face “To the park!”

As Chuck started to walk away, Dan grabbed his and Ben's shoulders and suddenly, they were in the park!

“So what do you think? Pretty cool huh?”

“Wicked cool!”

While Chuck and Dan were comparing abilities, Ben was on his hands and knees puking.  It was not helping his mental state. Chuck helped him to his feet.

“Are you okay?” asked Chuck

“Yeah just need some water.”

“I got ya covered,” said Dan.

He teleported away.Eight seconds later, he was back with a glass of water in his hand. Ben took it and still breathing heavilly and trying not to throw up a second time.

“Pretty convenient don’t you think?”  Dan said with a smirk “I can got to any place I have ever been and back in five seconds.”

Ben looked at the cup of water in his hand and wondered what it would be like to have the power Dan now had. He imagined that it would be awesome to be able to appear and disappear from anywhere to anywhere. He would never have to walk to school again, never need to run down to the store to pick up things, just poof he’s here poof he’s there. Then he wondered again why it was that Chuck and now Dan had been chosen to get powers and not him? Why was he the odd one out? Why were they any better than him? Then the floodgates opened. In an instant, these two guys who had been his friends were in his mind transformed into monsters. His fear and jealousy mixed and intertwined becoming cold hatred. His hands began to shake. He threw the glass on the ground and stalked off. Chuck and Dan watch him leave in shock.

Before Ben could get very far, Dan appeared in front of him loking concerned and raised his hands in a gesture of peace.

"What's wrong dude?" Dan asked sincerely.

Chuck ran over and said "we're your friends! you can talk to us!"

“You aren’t my friends!” Ben angrily slapped Dan’s hands away” you’re a bunch of FREAKS!”

Ben stalked off, his hate radiating off him and this time, neither Dan nor Chuck go after him.