“And where do we know it comes from?” Henry asked, pacing back and forth in the cramped basement.

  Greg watched his shadow twist around the cold floor, radiated by the single source of dim light in the ceiling. Gnawing on the inside of his cheek, he avoided the very direct eye contact Henry pointed toward him.

  “Greg?”

  “I don’t know!”

  “I’m telling you, it’s a response to pain!” Henry smashed a fist into his palm, causing Greg to flinch.

  “We don’t know that,” Greg insisted quietly.

  “Nah man, seriously. Hammerton is the only city that has the Awakened…”

  “That we know of…”

  “We’re a special people! It’s just, like, sitting inside of all of us until we discover how to bring it out!” Henry smashed a fist into his other palm.

  Greg shifted uncomfortably, his eyes glossing over to the stairs like a marble gradually realizing it was on a decline.

  “Stop looking so nervous, man!” Henry laughed.

  “I don’t think anyone should be getting hurt,” Greg murmured.

  “Nonsense! Once I prove my theory, then there will be beatings all over town! It’ll be great!”

  “Henry, I think we should at least tell people what we’re planning to do. Won’t your parents be upset?” Greg flinched as Henry placed an aluminum bat at his feet. Shifting slightly in place, he gently pushed it away with his toe. “Seriously, I dunno about this, man. How many Awakened people do you know at our age?”

  “There was that guy Sami in the news the other day! He’s, like, a year or two older than us. I heard a rumor that he’s got more than one power. You think a second one manifested when he took damage in a fight?” Henry hopped back and forth, shadowboxing.

  Greg watched in mild horror, the cold of the room growing closer to him as the dark lines of his best friend’s shadow danced around the area ahead of him. Henry continued to attack invisible enemies, throwing each one over his shoulder and stomping on their poor, defeated throats before turning back to Greg, his breathing labored.

  “All right, pick up the bat.”

  A bright, rectangular light stretched across the ground suddenly, a creaking from above echoing in the room.

  “Oh boys! Can I interest you in any snacks?” Henry’s mom called sweetly.

  “No, Mom!” Henry yelled dismissively.

  “Yes!” Greg sprung to his feet and bound up the stairs two at a time. Reaching the top, he gratefully took a tray with cucumber yogurt sandwiches, a pitcher of water, and two slices of lemon cake.

  “I hope you boys are having fun. Is Henry playing too rough?” Henry’s mom said, giving Greg a pleased grin as he downed a whole sandwich in two bites.

  Greg’s eyes went wide at the question. He answered in a choked mumble, his mouth full of confessions and sandwich ingredients.

  “Oh, you bunch of sillies! Just call me if you need anything. And turn on some more lights down there, it looks like a morgue!” She closed the door behind her, and Greg turned to look at Henry as he forced the sandwich down his throat in a loud swallow.

  “I thought there was only one light down here!”

  “I was trying to set the scene!” Henry’s dim silhouette replied.

  “Turn on some more lights!”

  Rolling his eyes, Henry stomped out of sight and flipped a switch, blinding bright lights illuminating the scene. Greg shielded his eyes with one hand while he stepped down the stairs.

  “See, it’s too bright!” Henry made to move toward the switch again.

  “I’m fine, just let my eyes adjust!” Greg blinked rapidly.

  As soon as he reached the bottom, he held out the tray of snacks to Henry, who eyed them warily. Gnawing slightly on the inside of his cheek, Greg poured water into the two cups, offering one out. When Henry didn’t take it, Greg drank his cup, as though teaching Henry what he was supposed to do.

  “Dude, I’m done with the waiting! Beat me until I get laser eyes!” Henry pointed to the bat.

  “No!”

  “Why not?”

  “Because this is stupid! Your theory doesn’t even make sense!”

  “But I did some reading!”

  “You said it was from a comment on some video! Was that your only source!?” Greg grabbed lemon cake and ate, comfortably stepping away from the weapon on the floor.

  “It wasn’t just one comment!”

  “Oh, what, like five comments?” Greg asked, bits of cake sputtering in contempt.

  Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.

  Henry hesitated, his eyes finally breaking away.

  “It was three different comments,” Henry admitted in a grumble.

  “Dude.”

  “From three different videos! And one of the commenters runs an Awakening theory channel! They can’t all be wrong!”

  “They can! Why wouldn’t they be? Did you even see a video about someone testing the pain thing?”

  Eyebrow raising, Henry pointed a finger to a fixture Greg had forgotten in his mortification. A smart phone was leaning on a pile of clothes on top of a washer, recording the scene. Henry wanted to go viral when Awakening. Like the stunt in the jewelry store, but that place burned down so the path to Awakening was gone. If it was even real, which Greg doubted.

  “I’m not gonna hurt you,” Greg said, taking another sandwich and stepping away from his friend.

  “If you wanna stop me, you’re gonna have to hurt me,” Henry said gravely.

  “That doesn’t even make sense!”

  With a sense of determination, Henry moved past Greg like he hadn’t heard his last remark, picking the bat up and looking it over. Greg stopped chewing on his food, watching with wide eyes and shallow breath as Henry approached him, weapon in hand.

  “Henry?” Greg squeaked as he raised the bat.

  Henry’s grip tightened on the weapon.

  “Henry?” Dropping the tray of snacks, Greg covered his eyes.

  The air whipped loudly as Henry brought the bat down fast.

  Crack!

  Henry howled in pain. Leaning back, Greg slowly separated his fingers to see what happened. The bat lay over the top of Henry’s foot. Kneeling down, Henry was seething loudly, groaning with every other breath.

  “Dude, oh my God.” Greg lowered his hands and took in a shaky breath. “Did you break your foot?”

  With his eyes squeezed shut, Henry breathed heavily, his teeth grinding together. Slapping himself in the face hard, he looked up at Greg. Tears streamed down his face.

  “It’s okay. I’ll go get your mom and we can get you to a doctor. That was messed up, dude,” Greg said, moving toward the stairs. He paused when he heard Henry slap his face again.

  “Wait! I don’t feel any powers yet. Let me try again!”

  “Henry, no!”

  The bat had already swung back up, determination written deeply in Henry’s tear-stricken eyes. Gritting his teeth and roaring, Henry swung the bat down, smacking his shin. Greg stared in horror, Henry falling onto his back screaming. As much as pain made itself part of his every fractured movement, Greg saw Henry grip to the bat, drawing it up again.

  “You have to stop!” Greg approached him with an extended hand, but flinched back when Henry swung again, this time striking his kneecap.

  Henry gave a mix of a whimper and a cackle, punching his free hand against the cold floor until his knuckles were too red to continue. Greg felt trapped between trying to get Henry to stop himself and running upstairs to get his mother. The decision was made for him when Henry lifted the bat with shaky hands, raising the weapon above his forehead. The metal trembled and Henry looked at it in a mesh of defiance and fear. Greg knew for certain he would crack his skull.

  “Henry,” he said slowly. “Please. Put it down gently.”

  “I’ve been going too easy on myself,” he said, his blue foot flinching involuntarily. “A good hit to the face should be enough to bring it out. Maybe I just need to rattle my brain.”

  He raised the bat.

  “Henry!”

  The bat descended rapidly.

  Crying out, Greg held out his hands, diving forward to try in a fruitless last-ditch effort to stop the strike. Watching the scene like it moved through molasses, the bat inched closer to Henry’s face.

  Slowly. Gradually.

  Stopping.

  From the floor, Greg stared with his outstretched hand, wondering what brought sense into Henry. A wide smile stretched across Henry’s face, the bat shivering just ahead of his nose. Eyes sinking lower, Greg saw that Henry’s forearms were frozen to his chest in ice, holding them in place.

  “I did it! I got the power!” Henry proclaimed, his elation overpowering any pain in his voice. “My subconscious froze me right before I could hurt myself too badly!”

  “Unbelievable,” Greg looked at the ice with curiosity. “You didn’t even mean to do that?”

  “Not really! I was actually gonna hit myself!”

  Scoffing at his friend’s idiocy, Greg sat himself up, then felt a chill run up his arm. Looking down at his palms, he saw flakes of ice all across his hands. Tapping them lightly, he ran a finger across the jagged edges.

  “I think you got me, too.”

  “Awesome. Now I can practice to be the new Lightcrown. How does Icecrown sound to you?” Henry asked, struggling under the ice over his arms. Fresh tears flowed from his eyes, though he smiled the whole time.

  “Oh, right, we have to get you to a hospital,” Greg said, standing.

  “Wait, wait, don’t leave yet! Let me try and move the ice again! This time on purpose.”

  Reluctantly, Greg sat at the lowest stair to watch. Henry grunted, rolling slightly from side to side, struggling to break out of the ice.

  “I don’t know how to make it go down. Let me try putting some ice on my broken leg,” Henry said.

  “So it is broken!”

  “Let me concentrate!”

  Straining his neck, Henry breathed loudly as he stared at the general area of his feet. Sniffling hard, he looked somewhat disappointed as the veins in his neck protruded further.

  Glancing at his frosty hands one more time, Greg suddenly had a mix of an epiphany and an idea. Reaching out his hands, Greg emitted a dusting of snowflakes, which solidified over Henry’s foot, encasing it in a block of ice. Henry snapped his face toward him, eyes twitching through a dozen different questions.

  “You?”

  Greg shrugged, looking between his hands again.

  Henry struggled harder under the ice restraints, his frustration crawling into his tone. “How? You didn’t even hurt yourself!”

  “I told you it was a stupid theory!”

  “Can you get me out of this?” Henry asked, pointing to his frozen arms with his chin.

  It took a full minute of trial and error for Greg to figure out how to reduce ice instead of emitting it. Henry stared at him closely, but remained quiet all the while. Once the handcuffs had melted away, Henry sat up with a new plan in his eager eyes.

  “Whatever it is, no,” Greg said immediately.

  “It’s an even better theory!”

  “No, Henry, you need a doctor! Now!”

  “At least hear me out!”

  Greg threw his arms open in exasperation and listened.

  “Okay, so clearly hurting oneself doesn’t do anything. But… what if you beat yourself with the bat and I watch?”

  Greg narrowed his eyes, unamused.

  “Think about it! You play football, right? You watch people get hurt all the time. You’ve probably been priming yourself for this moment and I pushed you over the edge! Just a little bit! You don’t even have to hit your face, just stick to the waist down until I Awaken!”

  “Shut up. I’m going to get your mom.”

  “Just one hit! So we can be certain!”

  With a wave of his hand, Greg cast a small ice block over Henry’s mouth, quieting him while he trudged up the stairs to call his mother.