Skirmish

A crescendo of angst, the reality of my discovery brought upon my anxious lobe, ways in which it could become my downfall, countless torture methods came to mind, but maybe they'd be more tolerable on my end, let me explain. The feeling of reattaching one's fingers in such an unnatural manner is an experience that one cannot attribute a perfect all-encompassing description, it feels as though you have a plastic straw inside the phalanges, in between the distal and middle bone. I've tried to crack my knuckles, but it feels as though my fingers are disconnected from my body. I wonder if my nerves have fully set in. It could be used as an advantage, a nerveless body. It's a dark impulse to just see what's the worst that could happen.

—"Ouch."

Damn. I'm back to normal. I kept prickling at my fingers with a pen until I regained my senses, and now I have a bunch of blue circles encrusted beneath my skin like a tattoo. It wasn't an unproductive night, though. I found a nice teamwork activity during my insomniac phase.

—"So where are we?"— Ten asked the rest of the group, comprised of Sgt., Lou, and me

—"P.U.C. has a blog set up by Sgt. you see, even though we maintain our identities completely anonymous, we still want to propagate our ideal, keep the city safe from power-aggressors. So we usually post some evidence relating to 'mysterious occurrences' covered up by the media, which in reality relate to our battles with other users. People are allowed to comment about their own anecdotes and share suspicious locations for us to scout that are related to the unlawful use of power. Though in this case we're just meeting with one of the many people who've just developed powers and wanted to know how to control them."— Perfect opportunity to make our organization larger.

—"Yeah, I get all the PeeJuicy stuff but..."— Are you pronouncing it wrong on purpose? —"I'm referring to the place we're at now."

—"Well this whole area was supposed to be part of a big project carried out by a major private company."— added Sgt. —"But when last year's crisis struck it affected a bunch of the citie's developing projects, not to mention all the people who had invested in CDOs, and as such some were left in early stages, plus some legal disputes of course. And there you have it: abandoned edifices."

—"Uh..."

—"I expected a bit more enthusiasm on your part."— I said to Ten.

—"It's neat, I guess."

—"... Anyhow? How about we enter the abandoned mall!"

As we entered, we could see a familiar setting, barren of any open stores or advertisements, for that matter. As I looked at the notes I wrote on a small piece of paper for the rendezvous directions, I began to make my way to a store that seemed almost finished but nevertheless empty.

—"Hmm. Weird, it should be here. I think it would be best if we split up and looked for the person who asked to contact us."

—"Split up?!" —exclaimed Ten. —"Isn't that the first thing you shouldn't do in a horror movie?"

—"C'mon, look at the sun rays coming from the unfinished mall ceiling, clear skies. Nothing bad is going to happen, besides we are more than capable of defending ourselves."— And if something does go wrong, it's not like you guys will notice, as I'd use my powers before things get too serious, though I don't know if I'm fully recovered from yesterday's practice.

—"I'm also not too sure about splitting off,"— Lou added.

—"We don't know what this person wants, it could be a trap."— said Sgt.

—"Let's not be so negative, okay, it was just a suggestion, how about we all go into each would-be retail space, who's with me!"

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I can't believe they all decided to go back; this is so frustrating. I'll not see them to the entrance; unlike them, I do have to make due as a leader and scout new talent. They said they'd wait for me until I'm done with my search. I'll make them wait until it's afternoon to see how they like it! They'd just leave me here... Let's hurry up.

I had parted ways from my team a bit too far from the actual meeting point, so I checked some of the vacant stores while retracing my steps. Once I made it back, I entered it only to find out it was much bigger on the inside, like a full-on supermarket. It was weird stepping into the such a bare yet everyday environment. I looked around but didn't find much, only some traces of people living in the place, some empty cans, and some dust footprints. The more I explored, the more undeveloped it appeared; it was even missing a wall, which allowed me to look outside the building. There was a big parking lot with no soul in sight. I had looked at pretty much everything and thought about calling it quits for this space in particular, and looking somewhere else, but I had forgotten to check where they kept their stock. Walking around for a bit, I encountered the two big doors which led to the storage racks, surprisingly enough, they were still in there, and I saw what looked to be an elevator for transporting loads from the floor below, where a company truck would park to dispatch supplies. I wandered again and tried to use the elevator, but it just didn't work, not like I expected it to, so I used the emergency stairs next to it.

Once below, I noticed a graffiti which showed an arrow pointing to my left. It pointed directly at some stairs next to the parking spot for trucks. This will lead to another dead end, as long as I don't get lost... I guess I'll check it out. I opened the door, but after my grip let go of the handle, I heard a locking noise.

—"W-Wait, goddammit!"— The door seemingly could only be locked from the outside since the mechanical lock was installed incorrectly. —"What a shoddy work!"— The lock required a password. I tried 0-0-0-0 since that's the default factory-set combination in most cases but it didn't open. Why did someone bother to change it if the mall was never going to open!

I tried quickly opening the metal door open but it wasn't budging. My only option was to go deeper into the office space I'd just entered. I didn't try yelling yet since that would just be getting ahead of myself when the solution/escape route might just be in front of me, of course that's a figure of speech since I was getting sort of lost, too many incomplete walls, many loose frames, and no exit to be found. I kept walking until, out of nowhere, I was greeted with certain danger.

I turned my head around the corner of one of the many drywalls and saw what looked to be a senile man with a plastic wizard hat and a tank top with the words "CERTIFIED GYM RAT", a t-shirt I imagine Wham would wear.

—"...Sir?"

—"Oh, you made it. I hope the instructions weren't unclear, sonny."

—"Uhm, you were the one who wrote the post?"

—"Uh? Post, what are you talking about?"

—"The superpower... thing."— Relax, anyone can develop supernatural abilities at whichever age, as long as the conditions are there.

—"Oh, that? Yeah, I was supposed to do something about that, I think?"

—"Ex-excuse me? You don't remember what you called me for?"— This is bad, I shouldn't lean into that topic with someone who may not be involved at all.

—"I was told to wait here for someone to arrive, are you by any chance one of those vigilantes that's been roaming around in the city?"

—"Wha- did someone tell you I was?"

—"Not good, sonny, you must keep your thoughts in a straight line. Also, don't be dismissive of my questions. This generation just keeps getting worse and worse."

Look who's talking.

The man pondered with his eyes closed, trying to recall what he was supposed to do.

—"That's right, I need my pills!"— The old man reached for his pocket, where he pulled out three ping-pong-sized metal spheres. He pressed a button located in each ball, which changed from red to pulsating green once pushed, and began putting them into his mouth.

—"WHAT ARE YOU DOING, GRANPA? STOP THAT! YOU'LL CHOKE!"

—"Nonsense! These are my envigorators. You see, once you reach my age, you need a kick of sorts to start the engine."

—"I don't... understand."

—"Do not worry, it's not like you'll understand once you are dead!"

Suddenly, the spheres moved erratically, stretching the man's skin in all directions. Scared I was about to see some heads explode, I covered my eyes for a second, but then when I returned my gaze to the old man, only his cheeks had expanded, for some reason they hadn't torn apart.

—"It's a trap."

—"Bingo."— A siniste grin had formed in his face.

I began to run, but the shock waves produced by the spheres made the body of the old man continue stretching and stretching until it slipped on some flabby flesh laid out in the floor. I took out a box-cutter from my coat as I was standing up, but as I tried to look at where the old man once was, I was hit by a giant expanding layer of callus through the drywalls. I held my box-cutter forward, but it was useless; the layer of callus was pushing in my organs and solar plexus, leaving me without air. Though the wall I was back against also came down and allowed me to escape asphyxiation. 

—"Ough-h."— I tried exhaling but I felt a sharp pain in my chest, I hadn't stabilized and the enemy took chance of that as it started flingling me around with his ever-expanding pody parts, the face of the old man a molten mess in the center of an unrecognizable body, a sea of flesh and innards covering the walls and the floor. My mind couldn't concentrate to travel back in time, no, it was as if I instinctively knew I didn't have that many minutes I could use without severely overexerting my already-injured self. But then I found it, an emergency exit in a floorless room above the office space I was in, unfinished to the point of hanging in mid air, but I knew I couldn't reach it without using some help thankfully a giant finger struck and dragged my body in the more rigid yet bumpy textured-walls which teared some of my epidermis off. Grabbing the finger launched me into the doors where I tried to regain my breath before making a run for it. The old man, now a giant slug-like creature, followed suit.

Everything was moving, and I was losing my footing. The empty shelves fell down only to be subsequently thrown by the palpitating skin coming out of every nook and cranny. C'mon, c'mon, get out of here! Ah!

I jumped out of the second floor's balcony without much thought, I wouldn't faceplant to my death though, since as soon as I jumped, the old man's mutant body increased massively, putting me on the roof of the mall. I was forcefully launched into the air, I rapidly cut a finger and threw it with the help of a rubber band, trying to put into practice what I had learned with Ten but it was no use, as soon as I called it back there was no force behind it, doing practically no damage. It's like Ten's attacks are so sudden and powerful, it's like my body registers it as a different magnitude altogether, which makes its return to my body similar to a bullet's force. I rolled off the gigantic body, making a relatively safe landing since the flesh cushioned it. I was exhausted from running and had multiple bruises all over my body, coupled with some broken ribs. Thankfully, since the discovery of the finger technique, I had an idea, since I could revert body parts to where they belong, maybe I could fix any broken or ripped pieces. It was worth a shot.

By this point, help must be on the way, right?