In A Universe Without Stars 1: Skyeater Read Free Page B

start to
glow steel blue, reflecting into his eyes.
    He
has to get home.
    He
drops his cargo and runs for his car, cast not slowing him down.
    ”Hey
stop!” They yell at him, but he doesn’t.
     
    …
     
    Cole
storms into his kitchen, his arms aren’t glowing anymore. He stops and rest on
the counter. He’s had time to think on his way back. He wants to do it again, the
feeling he felt was something else. The glow did something to him.
    It
must have been the watch, maybe he wasn’t going crazy after all. That rush ,
that adrenaline was amazing. He starts to sweat and shakes just thinking about
it. He needs to have that feeling again.
    He
stares at his hands. How? How can he do it again? He grimaces and flexes his
arms. Nothing. He tries again, straining from the effort.
    “Nothing.”
    He
didn’t imagine it, did he? He thinks of all the drugs he took last night.
    “I’m
going fucking crazy.” His watch beeps. He taps the glass, nothing.
    “Work
god damn you!”
    Cole
grabs his head. No, he’s not losing his mind. He tries to calm himself down.
There’s no way he could’ve imagined something like that.
    “I
can do it again,” he told himself. Stretching out his arms again, he flexes
them. What did he do? Cole empties his mind and imagines himself back to the
accident. The car was in front of him, his arms were out. He didn’t think, he
just did. It was instinct. He was…
    “Calm.”
    He
relaxes and closes his eyes.
    Calm.
    He
empties his mind, his thoughts, his anger and fears, he thinks of nothing
except of the feeling he felt. The power, the sweetness of it. It almost
disgusts him, as if he’s eating an entire bowl of sugar, bathing in its fervency.
His hands start to glow again. It comes to him naturally.
    He
opens his eyes, a bright blue orb forms in between his hands, spinning into
form. Condensing from nothing.
    The
light fills the room, shadows from the appliances on the counter dance to life
on the walls. He stares deeply into it as it starts to solidify. He can feel
the power trickle from his fingertips, he wiggle his fingers and—
    It
wavers and explodes. Cole flies back into the wall. The whole kitchen comes
down, the kitchen island is destroyed, cabinet doors blast off the cabinets,
and the windows explode out.
    His
kitchen is destroyed.
    Cole
coughs and struggles up to his feet.
    “Sweet.”
    “AH!”
He gasps as he looks at his charred hands, blackened to a crisp from the
explosion. He tries to squeeze his hands but he doesn’t feel a thing. His watch
dings.
    His
cuts and bruises start to heal. His flesh brightens and fills in around his
bones, his skin grows back and tightens against the muscles. They continue to
heal until—
    “Nothing”
He rubs his hands together and soot drops to the floor. No scars, no marks.
 Nothing.
    “My
god…My leg!” He’s still wearing the stupid cast, if he could’ve healed from
this then-
    He
finds a kitchen knife under what used to be his island. He sits on the floor
against a counter and chips away at the cast.
     
    …
     
    His
cast is cut crudely open. Chunks of plaster are scattered across the floor.
Cole grimaces at the smell, it’s revolting. His sticky smelly untanned leg is
completely healed, he hesitates as he touches it. Not a single crack . He
wiggles his toes.
    He
gets an idea and pulls out his phone.
    “Hello?
Sarah? Hey, yes, it’s Cole. Yeah, yeah, it’s good to hear from you, too. I was
wondering if you can tell Mr. Jones that I will be available to come in tomorrow
for work,” he smiles. “No, the doctors said it wasn’t as bad as they thought,
thanks.” He hangs up and just sits there staring at his dirty hands.
    “How
the hell?” he says as he takes off his watch, brushing the soot of the glass.
He examines it trying to see if anything is different. Nothing.
    However
he got these powers, it happened during his car accident. It looks exactly the
same but he can’t rule it out. Perhaps it really wasn’t as bad as he