Two Page Shorts by Nick Venom (top reads .txt) 📕

Ghost and Frost weren’t surprised by the news and acted the least emotional about the situation. Jessica and Jacob, however, took it the hardest. Tears poured down their cheeks and boogers came out of their noses. I allowed Echo to deal with them. We needed to leave the downtown area, but we had no mode of transportation. I ordered Scarecrow and Ghost to retrieve the humvee we ditched. They nodded and headed out, taking two hours to get back. Once they came back, we pooled our supplies into the humvee and headed out. By this time, Jessica and Jacob felt better and weren’t in an understandable crying fit. As we left, we wrapped Harper’s body and laid her in the trunk. 

We weren’t able to bury Hammerhead or Luke, but we needed to bury Harper. If not for Harper, but for us. For our survival. I faced Echo. I thought to myself as I stood next to the humvee. “Echo drives, I’ll be in the passenger seat, Frost will be on the fifty caliber machine gun, and everybody else will be squished into the backseat,” I announced. Echo nodded, sliding into the driver’s seat while I got into the passenger’s seat. My sleep deprivation slowly caught up to me. I closed my eyes and quickly drifted to sleep, ignoring my responsibilities… even for a small moment.

*** 

   I woke up to be in the countryside. We weren’t in downtown Chicago anymore, now being in the suburbs. “Where are we?” I asked.

    “While you were out, I made contact with a base not too far from here. The plan is to head to the base and see if we can make contact with HQ.” Echo informed me.

    “Perfect,” I told him. “Let’s go with that plan.” Echo nodded, slightly trembling. He still seemed frightened by the event unfolding in front of us. However, he was a soldier. A trained one, at that.

He continued driving for another five minutes when we were stopped by an adult male standing in the middle of the road, picking something up. He looked up, noticing us. He seemed surprised, his hand moving towards his gun on a hip-holster.

    “Are you okay?” Jacob shouted from the backseat, his eyes puffy. The tears were long gone, but the irritation remained.

    “Yeah, I’m returning to my town.” The man said.

    “A town?” Echo asked, his hand hovering close to his weapon.

    “Yeah, the safe haven town of Grandville.” The man said. “The only town that still exists out here.”

Impossible Girl [Extended Challenger Universe]

Helen awoke in a capsule, a glass panel trapping her inside. She touched the glass, her fingers pressing against the cold material. Where am I? She thought. She pressed a palm against her stomach, feeling it growling. She was hungry.

She balled up her other fist and threw it at the glass. Her fist didn’t dent the glass, bouncing off it. What is happening to me? Wasn’t I by the gas station? How did I get here? Her thoughts were in a frenzy. She last remembered being outside of a gas station. Now she was here.

She tried to peer out of the capsule through the glass but found nothing. Darkness consumed all but a single faint light in the distance. Her eyes grew curious about the light, calling out to it. “Help me! Help me!” She shouted. Her cries of help fell on deaf ears. The light remained distant and nobody came to her aid. 

“Help!” She shouted while slamming her fists into the glass. This caught the attention of someone in the darkness, a man working at a desk near several capsules, Helen’s capsule being one of them. He heard her fists slam at the glass, standing up. His eyes took their time adjusting to the darkness. He identified the capsule making the ratchet, turning towards his desk. He grabbed his phone and dialed a number. Bringing the phone to his ear, he began talking to a person on the other side.

Meanwhile, Helen stopped slamming her fists and began tearing up. The glass was bulletproof and soundproof, meaning that there was no way out for her. She was stuck inside the capsule. What do I do? My parents are probably looking for me… or maybe they aren’t. What will happen to me? Are they going to kill me and take my organs? No, they won’t right? Right? Oh God, they’re going to kill me. Why? Why God why?

The man laid down his phone, turning towards the main door of the 5000 square feet room. He watched the door open and revealed a person of interest. He bowed his head to the man that entered. “Welcome, Mister Shot.”

“Mister Spark Shot. Don’t refer to me as ‘Mister Shot’ again, Justin.” The man remarked, approaching him. He wore bulky armor that was different shades of blue and different pieces of material - none of it being metal or anything resembling it. In the middle of his chest was a large triangle, fitted with patches of yellow material. His eyes, which were hidden behind a pair of glasses, were bloodshot.

His head was oval-shaped and his face fit naturally, being enhanced by the scruffy gray beard and overly long mustache that covered the wrinkles he had on the bottom part of his face. There was plenty of wrinkles.

Spark Shot reached Justin, now towering over him. “Pass me the knockout gas.” He demanded. Justin nodded, turning to his desk and sifting through the contents. He pulled out an unlabelled can. He handed it over to Spark Shot, who took it and approached Helen’s capsule.

Helen placed her palms on the glass, screaming. Her screams couldn’t be heard outside, but she needed to release her anger in some kind of way. She had gotten angry after her tears left her. Anger was the only option in her now. “I’m about to lose my life and I haven’t done anything! I can’t die like this! I need to survive!” She screamed, feeling something leaving her body and flooding into her hands. It bubbled at her fingertips, threatening to spill out and escape from her body. It was a weird sensation for her.

“Ahhh!” She shouted out of anger. Her palms glowed differently; one red and the other blue. The red hand glowed brighter than the blue one. The glass that her hand had contact with was disintegrating. The glass shards that were carved out disappeared without a trace. Almost as if she was erasing them from existence.

Spark Shot neared Helen’s capsule but stopped in his tracks when he noticed the lights appear in her horizontal capsule. He picked up the pace, racing towards her but was too late. Helen disintegrated the glass, jumping out. With her right hand lighting the way, she had a good sight of her kidnappers. Spark Shot stood fifteen feet from her, glaring at her.

“Return to your capsule or else!” Spark Shot threatened, his right hand holding the can. He slowly shifted the can to his other hand, but Helen noticed his small movements. She recognized it as him pulling out a gun or something similar. She darted towards the main door, which was closer to her than Spark Shot was to it. 

Spark Shot chased after her, throwing the can at her. She glanced over her shoulder at the object, turning her right hand towards the object and spewing out flames. She looked as confused as Spark Shot was - surprised to see that her powers had been activated.

Spark Shot relented, stepping away to avoid the knockout gas, which exploded upon contact with the flames, as she reached the main door and escaped through it. His speed was of an average sixty-year-old human, nothing spectacular. He wouldn’t be able to catch her no matter what, especially with the knockout gas coming into play.

 

“She… She escaped.” He turned to Justin. “Sent out the dog. She needs to be taken care of or else my promise will be broken.”

Justin nodded, vanishing through a side entrance that led into a series of hallways. 

Spark Shot turned back to the main door, scowling at it. “I can’t allow Project HOUSE to be discovered by the government or else we’re all dead. For our vision, Project HOUSE must survive.”

***

Helen ran out of stamina several blocks away from the building she had been locked in. There were few guards and the ones she encountered were bamboozled by her presence. She used this to her advantage, sprinting out before she could be captured. 

With no air in her lungs, she rested her body against an inner wall of an abandoned warehouse she found. The warehouse was in a series of warehouses that had been vacant for years, maybe decades.

Thank God I took track instead of cheerleading… or else I would’ve fallen apart earlier. She panted like a dog in an attempt to regain her air. She laid her head against the brick wall, feeling relief from the cold material.

Her eyes turned bloodshot as her palms began adjusting themselves to the new situation that Helen found herself in. Once Helen ran out of anger and her life wasn’t in danger, her hands returned to normal as if her emotions were the ones in control. 

“What… is happening… to me.” She croaked while inspecting her palms. Her palms weren’t damaged. They looked new, almost as if she never worked a day in her life. However, something was off. Her palms emitted two different lights, one being red, spewing out fire while the other being blue - which she guessed to be ice.

Helen shook her head as she wiped her right hand on her torn jeans. Her left hand wasn’t sweaty like her left. “Miss, you’re being tracked,” remarked a raspy voice. Helen jumped forward, landing on all fours. She spun around, facing where the voice came from. An elderly man, with a round and chubby face, appeared from the other side of the wall, through an open hole.

“Who are you?” She asked, glancing down at her palms. Her palms weren’t glowing like they were previously. 

“Me? I’m a homeless elder. You, on the other hand, are a displaced teen that’s being tracked.” The elderly man stated. He was bald with small features; a small nose, a small mouth, and small eyes. He wore a white shirt and black trousers. He smiled at her, taking a step inside. “You can call me, Wing-San.”

“Wing-San?” Helen repeated, tilting her head. She never heard of ‘san’ before.

“Oh… it’s an honorific used to address anybody in gender, no matter the race, age, or status. It’s used in my culture.” 

“You’re culture?”

“I lived in Japan for most of my life. I moved out here believing that my life would enter a new stage, but…” He motioned to his surroundings. “... It hasn’t worked out as planned.” 

  “I’m a fifth of Japanese, but I don’t know much about Japan,” Helen remarked, a sudden pain shooting itself through her brain.

“Oh, then you must be one of the lucky ones,” He remarked, laying against the wall. 

“Anyways, why did you say I was being tracked?” Helen laid her hand against her forehead.

Wing-San smiled, his full pair of glittering teeth basking in the sunlight coming in from the roof. “You emerged from what’s been known as Warehouse 5. Rumors of human experiments occurring there have