AutumnXd
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XGO CHAPTER 33
🕑 Added 2025-04-11 11:02:11 +0000 UTCI remember the first time I made fire appear in my palm. I was fifteen, huddled in the corner of my bedroom, a fresh bruise blooming across my cheek. My father had passed out downstairs, empty whiskey bottles scattered around him like fallen soldiers. The tiny flame danced in my hand—no larger than a candle's glow—but it was mine. A secret power in a life where I had no power at all.
My name is Sam. I'm twenty-three now, though there were many days I didn't expect to live this long. My story isn't one of heroism or redemption. It's a chronicle of pain, of breaking, and finally, of embracing what everyone always told me I was: a monster.
My father made sure I knew the truth about myself from an early age. "You killed her," he would slur, whiskey breath hot against my face as his fists connected with my ribs. "If you hadn't been born, she'd still be here. You're a curse, boy. A goddamn curse on this family."
My mother died giving birth to me. I never knew her except through the faded photographs my father would sometimes stare at before his drinking binges turned violent. In those pictures, she was beautiful—dark hair, gentle eyes, a smile that seemed to promise safety. Safety I never knew.
The beatings were routine by the time I was seven. A broken plate. A creaking floorboard when he was nursing a hangover. Sometimes, no reason at all—just the need to punish me for existing, for continuing to breathe while she couldn't.
"You're worthless," he would say as the belt came down across my back. "Nothing but a burden. A mistake."
School offered no refuge. Kids can sense weakness like sharks scent blood in water. I was small for my age, always hungry, dressed in clothes that never quite fit. The bruises I couldn't hide made me an easy target.
"Hey, Sad Sam," they would taunt, shoving me into lockers. "Did you trip and fall again? Or did Daddy remind you what a piece of shit you are?"
I learned to disappear—to make myself so quiet, so still, that people forgot I was there. I became a ghost haunting the halls, slipping through crowds unnoticed, hiding in bathroom stalls during lunch because eating alone in the cafeteria made me too visible.
The fire came to me during one of those hiding sessions. I was sitting on the closed toilet lid, pressing a wet paper towel against a bloody nose courtesy of Jason Merrick, the star quarterback who enjoyed using me as a punching bag. I remember staring at my shaking hands, wishing I could hurt him like he hurt me, wishing I had some way to fight back.
And then—warmth. A tiny spark dancing on my palm, flickering orange and gold. It didn't burn me. It felt... right. Like something that had always been a part of me, finally awakening.
I practiced in secret—in my room late at night, in abandoned corners of the school where security cameras couldn't reach. I could make the flame grow from a spark to the size of a tennis ball, though anything larger left me dizzy and weak. I could shape it too—into spirals and stars and tiny, dancing figures.
For the first time in my life, I had something that was mine alone. Something beautiful. Something powerful.
I fantasized about showing my father—about the look on his face when he realized what I could do. Would he be afraid? Would he finally stop? Or would he still see me as nothing but the thing that killed his wife?
I got my answer on my sixteenth birthday.
He came home drunker than usual, a special bottle of whiskey in hand—the expensive kind he saved for this day each year. The anniversary of her death. My birth.
"Sixteen years," he slurred, cornering me in the kitchen. "Sixteen years she's been gone because of you."
I tried to slip past him, to retreat to my room as I always did when he got like this. But he was faster, grabbing my arm with bruising force.
"Where do you think you're going? Think you're too good to hear about her? About what you took from me?"
"Dad, please—"
The back of his hand connected with my face, splitting my lip. The familiar copper taste of blood filled my mouth.
"Don't call me that," he hissed. "You don't get to call me that. You aren't my son. You're the thing that killed my wife."
Something snapped inside me then. Years of pain and fear crystallized into white-hot rage. I felt heat rushing through my veins, pooling in my fingertips.
"Let. Me. Go," I said, my voice sounding strange to my own ears.
He laughed—a harsh, ugly sound. "Or what? What are you going to do, boy?"
The fire erupted from my hands before I could stop it—not the controlled flame I'd practiced, but a violent explosion of heat and light. It caught his clothes, racing up his sleeve. He screamed, releasing me as he frantically tried to extinguish the flames.
I stood frozen, watching as he stumbled backward, tearing at his burning shirt. The air filled with the acrid smell of burning fabric and flesh. He managed to pull off the shirt, revealing angry red burns across his chest and arms.
His eyes met mine, and what I saw there wasn't pain, wasn't fear—it was pure hatred.
"Monster," he snarled, backing away from me. "I always knew there was something wrong with you."
He grabbed a heavy wooden baseball bat from beside the door—his protection against home invaders, he'd always said. Now I realized it had been meant for me all along.
"Dad, I didn't mean to—" I began, but he was already swinging.
The first blow caught me across the shoulder, sending white-hot pain shooting down my arm. I stumbled, falling to my knees. The second strike hit my back with a sickening crack.
"Please," I gasped, collapsing onto the floor. "Stop."
But he didn't stop. The bat came down again and again. Through the haze of pain, I heard him ranting—about my mother, about how I'd ruined his life, about how he should have drowned me at birth.
I couldn't take it anymore. The fire inside me surged, responding to my desperation. I raised my hands in a futile attempt to shield myself, and flames erupted from my palms—not a small, controlled burn this time, but a raging inferno.
I didn't mean to kill him. I just wanted the pain to stop.
The fire engulfed him in seconds. His screams echoed through the house as he flailed, a human torch in our kitchen. I scrambled backward, watching with a mixture of horror and terrible fascination as he collapsed to the floor, still writhing as the flames consumed him.
The smell was the worst part—burning hair and flesh. I should have been sickened. Instead, as his screams faded to whimpers and then to nothing at all, I felt something unfamiliar spreading through me. Relief. Power. A savage kind of joy.
I had made it stop. After all those years, I had finally made him stop.
By the time the neighbors called emergency services, drawn by the smoke pouring from our windows, my father was nothing but charred remains on our kitchen floor. I sat on the front steps, watching dispassionately as firefighters battled the blaze that had spread to the rest of the house.
Police officers approached me cautiously. They asked what happened. I told them part of the truth—that my father had been drinking, that he'd attacked me. I didn't mention the flames that had erupted from my hands. I didn't tell them that for one brief, terrible moment, I had enjoyed watching him burn.
They seemed sympathetic at first. They put a blanket around my shoulders and spoke in gentle tones about trauma and shock. One of them even squeezed my shoulder—right where the bat had struck—making me wince.
Then they began to exchange glances. One of them knelt beside me, his voice still gentle but his eyes hard.
"Son, the fire department is saying the burn pattern is... unusual. Like the fire started at your father's chest and radiated outward. Can you explain that?"
I couldn't. Or wouldn't. I just stared at him, my mind racing for a plausible lie.
"We need you to come with us to the station," another officer said. "Just to sort this all out."
I knew then that they suspected. I should have run. But where would I go? What would I do? So I nodded numbly and followed them to the patrol car.
As we drove away from the smoldering remains of my childhood home, the officer in the passenger seat turned to look at me.
"What really happened back there, Sam?" he asked, his voice deceptively casual.
I opened my mouth, but no words came out. How could I explain something I barely understood myself?
His partner, who was driving, met my gaze in the rearview mirror. Then, without warning, he pulled over to the side of the road.
"Hold him," the driver ordered, and before I could react, the officer in the passenger seat had grabbed my arms, pinning them behind me.
The driver turned around, a syringe gleaming in his hand. "Sorry, kid," he said, though he didn't sound sorry at all. "Can't have someone like you running around loose."
I struggled, panic rising in my throat. "What are you talking about? Let me go!"
"We know what you are," the officer holding me said, his grip tightening painfully. "And we know where you belong."
The needle plunged into my neck, and almost immediately, the world began to blur around the edges. My limbs grew heavy, my thoughts sluggish.
As darkness closed in, I heard one of them say, "Facility Six will know what to do with him."
That was how I learned there were others like me. That was how I discovered what happens to monsters in a world of men.
I woke up strapped to a metal table, harsh fluorescent lights burning my eyes. My head throbbed, my mouth bone-dry. I tried to move, but thick restraints bound my wrists and ankles. A heavy collar encircled my throat, pressing uncomfortably against my windpipe when I swallowed.
A woman's face appeared above me—steel-gray hair pulled back in a severe bun, cold eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses. She wore a white lab coat with a badge that read "Dr. Eleanor Voss, Research Director."
"Subject 247 is conscious," she announced to someone I couldn't see. "Vital signs stable. Proceeding with initial assessment."
"Where am I?" My voice came out as a rasp. "What is this place?"
Dr. Voss ignored me, shining a penlight into my eyes. "Pupillary response normal," she noted. "No visible cellular degradation post-manifestation."
Another voice—male, clinical—spoke from somewhere to my left. "The report says he incinerated his father. Total combustion in under thirty seconds. Impressive pyrokinetic potential."
"Indeed," Dr. Voss agreed, her gaze sweeping over me with cold calculation. "Subject 247 may be quite valuable. Schedule a full battery of tests—tissue samples, stress response, power ceiling evaluation."
"Stop calling me that," I said, straining against the restraints. "My name is Sam."
Dr. Voss finally addressed me directly, a thin smile curving her lips. "No, it's not. Not anymore. You are Subject 247, a dangerous mutant anomaly that requires study and containment. The sooner you accept that reality, the easier this will be for you."
I felt anger rising, and with it, that familiar warmth spreading through my fingertips. But nothing happened—no flames, not even a spark.
Dr. Voss noticed my confusion and her smile widened fractionally. "The suppressant collar around your neck inhibits your abilities. Quite effective, isn't it? We've had years to perfect the technology."
"There are others like me?" I asked, momentarily forgetting my situation in my surprise.
"Oh yes," she said. "Many others. Though fewer now than when we started. The mortality rate is... significant."
A chill ran through me. "You're killing people."
"We're studying anomalies," she corrected. "Human subjects are incidental to the research. If they expire during the process, that's unfortunate but necessary for scientific advancement."
The casual way she dismissed human life—my life—made my blood run cold. My father had been a monster born of grief and alcohol. These people were monsters of a different kind—cold, calculating, seeing me as nothing more than a lab specimen.
"What do you want from me?" I asked, though I already knew the answer.
"Everything," Dr. Voss replied simply. "Every cell, every secret, every aspect of the mutation that allows you to generate and control fire. And when we've extracted all possible knowledge from you, Subject 247, your remains will advance our understanding even further."
That was my introduction to Facility Six—the place that would be my prison and torture chamber for the next seven years.
