Enlightened

Ryan slowly began to open his eyes, feeling how heavy they were as if he had just been drugged or something. "God, what happened to my head?", he asked himself as his vision finally began to clear up. As the room came into view, he could see how simple of a setting they were in. There was nothing on the walls, no windows, the floor wasn't carpeted, and there was only one door that came in and out. It looked more like a storage unit than an actual room.

Ryan moved to stand up before coming to a quick and sudden halt. "The hell?", he asked himself as he tried to look around. He could hardly move, and his eyes were only just now adjusting to see that he was bound to a chair by several ropes, the kind he wouldn't be able to just wiggle out of any time soon. Ryan kept moving and flailing, trying to get any sort of movement of momentum.

"HEY! HEY LET ME OUT OF HERE! IS ANYONE THERE!? HELLO!?", Ryan screamed at the top of his lungs. Ryan kept looking towards the door for help, but he didn't realize that he wasn't alone in the room. Right before he woke up here, Ryan had been hanging out with his good friend Amy who was tied to a chair behind him. She would be waking up any moment just as he had. Ryan continued to shake his chair violently, trying to figure out why he was here. "Somebody!?", Ryan yelled one last time.

“Owww…” Amy groaned painfully as she began to slowly return to the waking world. “When the hell did I fall asleep… and what are you yelling about? You could wake the-… What the hell is this?!” As her situation became clearer, Amy joined right along in the alarmed shouting, wriggling violently in her very own rope-bound chair. “This is your fault, isn’t it!” Amy accused her friend almost immediately. “You pissed someone off and now they’re gonna kill us both!”

Ryan turned his head, only barely getting a glimpse of Amy's back as she was tied up behind him. As she began to speak, Ryan was about to say something until he heard what came out of her mouth next. "Oh hey now, what kind of people do you think I get involved with?", Ryan asked. "I haven't insulted anyone from the mafia last I checked so stop yelling at me and help me figure out what's going on!", Ryan said as he tried to look around.

The room was so bare, it was literally just a square room with a door on one end. "Is there anything on your end that might help us out here?"

Amy stopped her yelling and squirming as Ryan protested his involvement with anyone capable of doing such a thing. She shrugged quickly, though he probably wouldn’t be able to see it from his position.

“Ya never know…” she spoke a bit too casual for their current situation. “I got nothing on my end, but then the villains usually only give you something to work with in comic books and movies, right?”

"Well it would've been nice to think that we could have used something", Ryan said to himself as he continued to struggle against his bonds. They were too tight though, he could hardly move at all against them. There was no way he was going to muster up enough strength to break the cords. However.......a sudden thought came to his mind. "Amy, what if we used our abilities?", he suggested. "I'm sure one of us could cause these chairs to break"

"Well..." Amy mused briefly. “I could break the chairs real easy, but the problem in that is that it would take a mega-lot of concentration to not break us along with them. I’d really prefer to not accidentally lodge my spinal column in my brain… if you know what I mean. So... do you have any decent tricks up your sleeve?”

"Yeah I like my spinal column where it is too", Ryan admitted as he didn't like the sound of Amy's idea backfiring. "I might be able to release a concentrated shock wave into the chair legs, but I can't guarantee it won't send us flying after I use it", he commented as he bit at his lip. "Still, I guess one of us needs to try something. Whatever we're here for, I doubt it's because we won a prize", he added as he glanced at the door again.

They weren't hearing a thing from the other side, hopefully because no one was close enough to make any noise. Maybe the room was sound proof too? "Do you want to try? Or do you want me to?"

“Well, I’d much rather go flying and have a bump on my head than accidentally reduce myself to blood flavored pudding, so be my guest! You’re better at concentrated demolition than me anyways. Read when you are…” Amy braced herself for whatever impact may have been coming, clenching her eyes shut and praying that a bump to her noggin was the worst possible outcome.

Ryan had to admit that Amy's point was definitely a valid one. Being blood flavored pudding was definitely not something that sounded very appealing. "Alright, just hand on and pray for the best", he muttered as he clenched his hand into a fist. He bumped the side of the chair, and within a moment there was a shattering sound as Amy and Ryan flew into the air, only stopping just before their faces met the ceiling.

As they landed back on the ground the chairs broke completely, allowing them to pull off their bonds.

Amy let loose with an ear shattering scream the second the chairs took off, keeping her eyes clenched shut and not even realizing just how close she’d come to getting a face full of ceiling before screaming even louder as they plummeted back to the ground.

“Ow,” the girl muttered simply once they’d landed, getting up slowly from the chair and dusting herself off. “Well that didn’t go quite how I’d expected it to.”

Upon hearing Amy scream, Ryan couldn't help but let out a yell himself as he realized how terrible of a decision this was. He couldn't control this thing yet! Why on earth would he try to use it to save them now!? Thankfully, Ryan's fears would die the moment that they landed safely. "You can say that again", Ryan said as he was able to slip the cords off of his wrists now that the chair was broken. "You alright?", he asked as he helped her to get up on her feet.

"I think you may have bruised my ass," Amy answered while rubbing the offending sore spot gingerly, "but otherwise I'm pretty sure I'm alright. You seem to have come out of that no worse from wear yourself. Unless you broke your tailbone or something, which I wouldn't really be able to see..." She rambled on for a few seconds more before finally coming to a realization.

"Ya know, we should probably get the hell out of Dodge and fast. I wasn't exactly quiet. I'm not sure if there's anyone close enough to have heard all that, but I'd rather not stick around and find out, amirite?"

"A bruised ass is far better than a shattered skull", Ryan pointed out simply as he shook the headache away that was bothering him. "And thanks for your concern but I'm good thanks", Ryan said with the tiniest bit of a laugh. He was surprised he even could laugh in a situation like this, granted that for all they knew they were minutes away from being executed.

"And yeah, you're right on that point", Ryan said as he moved to the door. He jiggled the handle for several moments. "Yeah should've known that would be locked", he muttered to himself as he tried to shake it a few more times. He glanced over at Amy. "Amy.......do you think you could use your power to lift up the tumblers and unlock the door?"

“Only one way to find out…” she replied thoughtfully, staring at the handle of the door intently and taking a deep breath. Nothing really happened for a few seconds as she and the door had a staring contest until there was finally an audible click of the lock moving out of place.

“Ding!” she announced with as much humor as she could muster in their current situation.

Ryan watched with a bit of worry in his chest as she waited for Amy to activate her ability. She was worried about turning them into much earlier, so Ryan couldn't help but worry that she might focus her power too hard and have some consequences. He wasn't going to voice any of this though, as he didn't want to apply more pressure to an already bad situation.

However, these worries dispelled the moment that the tumblers fell into place. "You're the best Amy", Ryan said as he took the door and quickly pushed it open. He wasn't sure what was on the other side, but he was tempted to run as fast as he could. Of course, what was on the other side wasn't quite what Ryan had been expecting.

They found themselves in a white room, fireplace donning the opposite side of the wall. In front of the fireplace set a man in a large chair, staring at the flames absently. He glanced up at them. He couldn't have been past fifty, but clearly age had taken a toll on his body. He turned his body slowly to look at the two of them. "Interesting..........now how may I ask did you get out of there?", he asked simply.

“Don’t I know it!” Amy replied smugly to Ryan’s compliment, flipping her hair back confidently. Knowing her personality it was obviously a joke.

Once they were on the other side, however, all she could really do was stare blankly at the formerly sole occupant of the room outside the door.

“Um…” she hesitated. “Should I… squish him?” What should happen in this situation was entirely lost on her. They’d just been kidnapped and now they were… here. It was highly abnormal and difficult to react to at a moment’s notice and yet they kinda had to. If nothing happened and no one said anything then chances were that her instincts would scream for her to break this weirdo in a quick hurry and continue moving onward.

"I wouldn't quite go to that extreme just yet", Ryan said as he glanced around the room. They appeared to be alone, but for all they knew this was just some other kind of trap. Ryan had expected to come out in some dark warehouse in the middle of the night. Instead, it looked like they were at some rich guy's house in the middle of the day. Something was clearly not adding up here, but what was really going on?

"You still haven't answered my questions as to how you got out of there", the man said as stared at them for several moments. "You were bound, held against chairs, and that door wasn't going to just break down. And yet I'm certain that neither of you had any sort of lockpick on you............so how did you escape?"

“How bout a good ole thing I like to call ‘Nunyobusiness’ Amy quipped back to his insistence to hear about their exploits in escaping the room, her arms planted firmly and unwaveringly upon her hips. She was serious when that happened… “You owe an explanation before we squish you!”

The old man just gave a brief nod. "Yes, I suppose that I do owe you an explanation. I am sorry that I brought you here the way that I did, but I needed you for a time to feel scared and helpless", he said before pointing a finger at himself. "Like yourselves, I am a bit different from everyone else", he said as he looked from one of them to the other. "I can make things happen that most humans shouldn't be able to do. I'm different", he said slowly.

Ryan glanced over at Amy before leaning in to whisper to her. "Do you think he knows......about our abilities I mean?"

"Hell no," Amy hissed back decisively to Ryan. "No one does!"

"I don't do scared and helpless!" she bluffed at the old kidnapper, looking as threatening as she possibly could. "Keep going and we might not beat you up."

"Suppose you got me there", Ryan said as he looked back to the old man. Still, the way the man talked just made it seem like he knew something that he wasn't fully letting on about.

The old man gave a nod, as if saying that he would agree to Amy's request and keep going. "Just by looking at the two of you, I can tell that you each are capable of great things", he said as he leaned back in his chair a bit. "I don't know what it is you can do, but it's a power beyond human means. I'm guessing you only discovered them about four or five months ago", he said. It was true, it was only a short few months ago that Amy and Ryan discovered their powers.

Amy squinted at the guy, giving him an odd side glare as she tried to discern just how he was obtaining such obscure, secret information. Was he bluffing?! It was a fairly specific bluff if so. She still wasn’t going to give up the ghost so easily.

“You’ve got my attention…” Amy urged him to continue, now crossing her arms over her chest as she listened a bit more closely than she had back when she just wanted to beat him up and leave.

"Allow me to cut to the point. When the Tsunami hit Japan so many months ago, the radiation from several of the chemical plants began to mix with the water. Needless to say, all this water wasn't accounted for", the man said as he looked right at Amy this time. She appeared to be the most skeptical. "To any who came into contact with this water one of two things happened. They died immediately, or they began to notice a change within themselves", he said as he closed his eyes.

Upon opening them them Ryan took a step back as they appeared pure white. "You both shine with a bright light........it's how I can tell that you are just like me"

Amy leaned in closer as the man got more and more detailed with his explanation. He had her interest at least.

She was almost as taken aback as her friend had been when the man’s eyes went white, but she regained her composure quickly and tightened her posture once again.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, you batty old man. Those are some impressive contacts though.” She seemed dead set on refusing to admit that she was different. It was probably something to do with the way this guy said his hellos and went about talking cryptically without ever actually coming out and saying what he meant. She was pretty much just doing it to spite him at this point since he obviously knew…

"As I said before, if you wish to leave that is your choice", the old man said as his eyes resumed full normal colors. "Just know that the reward will be worth whatever risk you undertake", he said before pulling a package out of his jacket and tossing it to Ryan. "Four thousand dollars for each of you, for hearing my proposal", he said with a nod. "Thank you for not killing me, since I know that you could if you wanted to", he added. "My name is Raine, and I am merely concerned for the future. Your abilities make you special, but its the hearts of the powered that make me nervous. Not everyone will use it for good as you will", he pointed out.

"If the bad ones get to the public first, they won't be able to tell the difference between you and a serial killer that can turn invisible. You'll all be targets", Raine said before motioning towards a door. "There is the door if you wish to leave, I do hope that you'd stay though. There will be far more money in it for you if you stay though. I promise"

Ryan glanced over at Amy and raised an eyebrow. The money was legitimate, and it was more than Ryan had after working a year at his crappy job. "what do you think Amy?"