The Super 4 : Dark Death (2 page)

It exploded with the pillow causing a
hurricane of feathers to swirl around me. I looked to see if my
sister saw that but she was in her room.

I collected the remains of the pillow and
threw them in the bin.

That night I dreamt I was in a pillow fight
with my friends but I kept on burning the pillows and my friends
kicked me out onto the cold street, throwing pillows at
me.

Not exactly a horrible nightmare but I
wouldn’t want that happening to me in real life either.

Jake

II

I awoke the next morning with a cold bucket of
ice being dumped on my head. I got up immediately. I spotted my
sister’s smirking face looking at me.

Before I could pulverize her she said, “Get up
birdbrain, school starts in ten minutes.” I hopped out of bed,
shoved my twelve-year-old sister, Jane, out of my room and got
ready for the day, at an unnatural pace. I didn’t have any time to
ponder this, because just as I finished getting ready the bus
arrived on the curb. I picked up my bag and rushed out of the
house. I got a snack at the cafeteria and waited for the bell to
ring.

I guess I must’ve fallen asleep at some point,
because I was awoken ten minutes later by the bell. By the time I
remembered where I was the second bell was ringing. I started
running. Within seconds I had collapsed in my chair in
homeroom.

The second bell was still ringing.

The rest of the day passed in a blur of mixed
events. I got a C in math and a B in English, but I didn’t even
notice the lectures my teachers were giving me. How could I? I
decided I couldn’t keep this in me anymore. I would eventually
explode from keeping something that big inside me. I had to tell
someone. And there was only one person I trusted to keep a secret:
Harrison.

At lunch I dragged Harrison into a private
corner of the school. I told him what had happened. For a while he
was silent. I wondered if it was a good idea to tell him. If he
would think I was crazy.

After what seemed like an eternity he finally
responded. “My power is cooler than yours,” he said. What? Then it
hit me I had just ran at an unnatural speed, how else could that be
described? I had a superpower. Then I realized something else.
Harrison said his power was cooler than mine. That must
mean…

“
You have a superpower
too?”

Harrison rolled his eyes as if it were the
most obvious thing in the world. “Well obviously, that’s what I
just said”

“
So just out of curiosity what is
your superpower?”

He didn’t respond for a moment. Then he said:
“Fire. And I think I might be able to fly. At least that’s what
happened in the movies.”

I thought about yesterday. How weird to have a
building in such a remote place. Then I remembered the soda.
Harrison’s had fire on it. That same day he showed the ability to
create fire. I wondered if the others had powers too. They probably
did.

“
Hey, Harrison, what if…” I
started.

“
The others have powers too? Yep,
I was just thinking that.”

“
I’ll ask Darryl, you ask
Carly.”

“
Sure.” He paused. “I’m sure you’d
prefer me to look like a weirdo in front of your beloved
Carly.”

A teacher appeared before I could give him a
pounding.

After Phys. Ed.
I asked Darryl if anything weird had happened to him. He bit his
lip and said no. I shrugged and began walking away. “ Okay just
checking. You know me and Harrison felt slightly…
powerful
” I left the
comment hang.

After a moment he responded. “Wait. Okay
something weird happened. Everyday I take an online IQ test. And
yesterday I had an IQ of-of … four-hundred and
twenty-eight!”

“
Wow!” I said. I didn’t know much
about IQs but I was pretty sure that if Darryl was shocked I should
be as well.

“
And I made a phone.”

“
Okay?”

“
And the phone worked. And I made
it out of plastic, a bit of glass and two paper clips!”

“
Can I see?” I asked. He nodded
before continuing.

“
Then I put it on top of the roof
to hide it, then I went into the backyard to see if it showed and
it did, but I didn’t want to climb all the way up to the roof and
then I got this feeling I should stretch my hand so I did and my
hand stretched all the way up to the roof and moved the
phone!”

“
I have a theory that it had
something to do with…” I started

“
The soda? Yeah I think so to.” He
interrupted. “Oh right! I almost forgot here’s the phone.” Pulling
out a lump of plastic from his pocket I noticed it looked
strikingly family to the new state-of-the-art phone. If he hadn’t
told me it was plastic I never would’ve guessed.

“
Well…Harrison is checking with
Carly now, so I guess we’ll find out when school’s out.” I told
him. He nodded absentmindedly.

The next class was History. I was barely
paying attention as Mr. Nesbitt droned on and on about the
“oh-so-fascinating” history of the United States. I heard something
about the British and Christopher Cucumber or something like that.
Like I said I was barely paying attention.

After what seemed to be decades, the bell rang
and hundreds of students left the classrooms without being
dismissed. I waited impatiently by the bus. Now that I had super
speed the whole world seemed to move at a turtle’s pace. That was
both good and bad. Good on holidays and weekends bad on tests and
school days.

“
Jake!” I heard someone shout. I
turned around and saw Carly running towards me.

“
Hey.” I said.

“
Hey.” She said in return. “
Harrison told me everything. I have electricity and water powers.”
She had told Harrison how she had been able to breathe under water
and cause a blackout when parents told her off. “So that’s why the
power was out.” I thought.” Shame I was watching a football game
last night.”

I then told her about my power and Darryl’s
power. She said our powers were pretty cool too.

On the bus we decided to meet at Harrison’s
tree house to discuss the series of events that had taken
place.

I arrived at the tree house first, even though
I set off at 2:55, I still got there at 2.56. I decided to admire
Harrison’s tree house. The tree house was made completely of blue
glass: Harrison’s favorite color. Inside the tree house was adorned
with red velvet sofas, two flat screen TV’s and a long oak table
with six chairs. On the roof was a Jacuzzi.

A long lake ran across one side of the tree
house and from that Carly emerged looking as grand as ever. She
smiled and waved. Then Darryl emerged on a motorcycle. My jaw
dropped open. I knew Darryl could invent stuff but wow! And then
almost as if determined to make a grand entrance Harrison floated
down from the sky, straining to keep himself from
grinning.

“
Wow” I heard Carly whisper
softly.

“
Let the meeting begin!” Harrison
announced when we were all seated around the table with snacks.
Harrison held a little hammer that I think was called a gavel, as
if he were the judge and we the jury.

“
Well Darryl and I have come to an
agreement.” I started, pausing for dramatic effect. “It was the
soda!”

At the time I didn’t realize how ridiculous
that sounded. Even Darryl struggled to keep a straight
face.

“
No it was the chips!” Carly said,
going into a helpless fit of giggles.

Finally, I grabbed the gavel and banged it on
the table three times. That got their attention.

“
I liked that gavel.” Harrison
said.

All of a sudden, a small bolt of lightning
came from Carly to Harrison. Somehow Harrison had disappeared. We
looked around but all we saw was a reddish puddle.

Then Harrison appeared from the puddle, “Cool”
he grinned.

“
Oh my gosh!” Carly’s hands
covered her mouth. “I’m so sorry, Harrison! I don’t know how that
happened! I was probably really excited, maybe spar-”

Harrison interrupted her apology ramble. “It’s
fine. Besides, I discovered that I have this awesome liquefying
power!”

He smiled excitably. Then he whispered
something to Carly a mischievous look crossed her face. Almost
immediately a small blast of water came my way.

As if on cue, a sky blue bubble appeared in
front of me, deflecting the water and drenching Carly
instead.

Carly

III

We all stared open mouthed at Jake.

“
Well,” he announced, “I guess I
have another power: Bubble stuff.”

“
Force field” Darryl corrected
almost immediately. “It’s a force field.”

I stared at Jake and he grinned cheekily at
me.

“Well,” I began, “Let’s hope that’s the last of
many surprises.” We all nodded heartily, but Jake looked kind of
disappointed.

“Hey,” he began. “Let’s have like superhero
names. Ooh and costumes.” That wasn’t a bad idea and looking at the
others faces I could tell they felt the same.

“So,” Darryl asked. “What are our names?” We
thought about names for several minutes.

Finally, Harrison said, “Hey, remember those
soda cans?” We all nodded. “Do you remember the names written on
them? Like mine said ‘Magma’ and yours said something else. What
about that for our names?” We all agreed.

After all, the names made sense. A bullet was
super fast and barely anything can penetrate it, so Jake became
Bullet. According to Darryl ‘tritor’ meant rubber in Latin. And
since Darryl could stretch and was super smart, he became Dr
Tritor. Harrison’s fire, flight and melting sort of powers gave him
the name Magma. Personally I think my name is the coolest. Electric
Eel.

Eels are water creatures and I can control and
manipulate water. The electric parts makes you know I can do the
same with electricity as I can with water; an overall awesome
name.

The costume part was tricky, because everyone
wanted to make different costumes. In the end we decided to create
an identical costume for everyone. I was elected, along with Darryl
to design the costumes. Darryl was chosen because he can make
awesome things and can add additional touches. Like fireproof
material for Harrison, waterproof material for me, and long-lasting
material for Jake. I was chosen because I can make it look
nice.

After one excruciating hour of work, Darryl
and I entered the living room where Harrison and Jake were seated
watching last night’s match.

“
Hey, guys,” I said. They turned.
“The costumes are ready.”

We spent the next few minutes looking at our
costumes and admiring our handiwork. Then Harrison whispered
something unintelligibly in Darryl’s ear. Darryl nodded and the two
of them walked out of the room.

A few minutes later they returned holding four
amulets. “They have speaking devices implanted in them,” Harrison
informed us, holding out the amulets for us to examine. “That way
we can always track the other.”

On each amulet was a different symbol. One had
fire, the other had a picture of an electric eel, the other had a
hammer and the last one had three lines of different sizes in a
circle. Harrison handed out the amulets to us. It was no surprise
that I got the electric eel. Obviously Harrison got the fire and
Darryl got the hammer. But I was a little surprised by Jake’s
amulet.

“
The circle was supposed to
represent the force field and the lines were supposed to represent
speed, like in the cartoons.” Harrison explained.

“
Oh.” said Jake. “ I knew
that”

“
Of course you did.” We all
muttered under our breaths.

That night I reached out and pulled a thin pink
book from under my mattress. That book held all my dearest secrets
in it and I guarded it with my life.

I opened it to a fresh page and
wrote:

Dear Diary,

Today has been an interesting turn
of events. And it all started with Jake. There we were taking the
usual route through the woods home. Jake was in the middle
describing a fascinating scene of last weeks match. I listened
eagerly even though; being the head cheerleader I was there and
already knew what had happened. Nevertheless I listened, because
Jake took after his two parents and tended to over-exaggerate a
lot. In his version he was on national TV and the world was
screaming for the quarterback. I kind of tuned out after that
thinking about something else. I guess somewhere along that lonely
road we must have taken the wrong turn because half an hour later
the trail ended abruptly and there was still no sign of
civilization. A look of realization crossed over our faces. We were
lost. I thought everything was hopeless, but then Harrison yelled
out, pointing at something. We all followed his gaze. There was an
abandoned building lying in the middle of the wilderness. We all
ran towards the building. Harrison opened the door and we slowly
crept inside. My mouth opened with shock. Inside was a glorious
sight. Row after row of vending machines. I raced to one covered
with blue and yellow. I took three drinks and drank them on the
spot. When I put the drink down I noticed a name written on its
side: Electric Eel. “That’s strange,” I thought. “ Who would write
such a weird name?” Little did I know that that can of soda was
about to turn my world around-