Burn

     His feet were cold.
     It was the first sensation Joshua Anderson became aware of as he woke. His feet were cold and he didn't know where he was, and though he felt his eyes were open, he could see no light. It wasn't until after several minutes spent fumbling in the dark that he remembered what had happened.
     The little boy had been tucked in by his mom in his race-car bed, his rocket pajamas tight but not uncomfortably so. His mom had promised to make pancakes the next day, kissed the top of his head, and bid him goodnight before she closed the door and turned out the lights. That's when the screaming started. First his dad's harsh yelp of pain, and then his mother's scream of terror. The little boy blinked, his powers coming to life, but as soon as the door was opened, he'd been shot with a dart. There was something in it. Drugs, probably. Lots of drugs. He had lost consciousness.
     Remembering this, he sniffled, wiped his nose with a dirty hand and kept moving around until he saw a small light, like that at the end of a tunnel. Was he in a tunnel? No, this wasn't a tunnel. This was a cave. He walked outside, still in his rocket pajamas, and was immediately blinded. Everything was covered in reflective white snow. The ground and the trees. Flakes still fell from the gray sky. He blinked rapidly until he could look around, and took everything in. He was alone in the wilderness. He was only eight years old, but he was a hero, and it was time to act like one.
     With that thought secured in his head, Joshua Anderson blinked once more, and was engulfed by a violent fire.
--
     Hunter had been put on the case several years ago by the underground mutant movement. This wasn't X-Men, it wasn't some fairy tale. Mutation caused by exposure to toxic radiation. So many people dead, only a fraction alive but now drastically changed. Governments promised them the same rights as before, but this was a lie. The mutants had been driven underground, but a few had stayed able and fighting - though they fought for the good of other humans. They were like superheroes of their own, getting little girls from burning houses and keeping mothers from being hit by stolen cars filled with stolen money. Hunter was a mutant, but no one in his squad knew it.
     These were not men ruled by the government. They were undercover, recruited by a general who had a personal problem with the mutants, and wanted them eradicated. Small teams went into residences, apprehended the offender, and dumped them in the middle of nowhere for Hunter's team to finish off. It was disgusting. Like they were hunting, but they weren't hunting rabbits and ducks. They were hunting little kids, old men and women, people in the prime of their life, people just starting to get a taste of the world... And not a one saw the abrupt end coming.
     Next to him, Liam swore.
     "The kid woke early. Look!" Following Liam's pointed finger, Hunter saw the smoke rising in the foothills near the cave. The serum had worked. Hunter had swapped out the batch for something a lot less extreme, hoping to buy the kid some time. He'd only been able to keep a handful of mutants from getting killed while maintaining his cover. The mutant movement knew he was doing his best, and they appreciated every person he brought back alive. But for Hunter, it wasn't enough. He had the blood of feeble women and little girls on his hands. The blood of young men and fathers. His hands were dripping in the stuff, and no matter how hard he scrubbed at his hands with industrial soap under burning hot water, he couldn't get all of the imagined blood off.
     "Then let's go," Hunter muttered. He knew the kid was a hero, revered by the public. He couldn't believe the general was willing to kill this kid, especially when it would be found out. And when it was, the public would be in outrage, demand the government answer for their heinous crime. It would all point back to the general. And then them, the squad. The kid had to live, for several different reasons that all totaled millions of lives.
     Hunter had long dreamed of being like the kid. Taking on a heroic name, the kid's was Burn (not very inspired, but it sure seemed to fuel the passion of the nation), and fighting regular crime. Saving regular people. If an eight year old kid could do it, why couldn't Hunter? Because his powers were so much more violent, destructive. He was trained as a soldier, still was at heart, but now he had the powers to match. The power of a nuclear bomb in his hands, but he'd never use it. He was chock full of powers, but forbidden to use them.
      The squad hiked through the woods in the direction of the smoke, presumably from where the kid had activated his powers as Burn. Become a living, walking, talking body of magma and flame.
--
     Wherever he was, he didn't like it. He wanted to go home. Then he remembered his mom and dad were dead. Tears sizzled on his cheeks, instantaneously evaporating on his fiery flesh. He continued to cry as he trudged through the snow. His footprints left spaces of mud, the dirt below now watered from the melted snow. Around him, the forest was alive, but Joshua couldn't muster an appreciation for it. His parents were probably dead.
     Survived the equivalent of world devastation just to get killed because of him. Because he had powers and they had known but still loved him and treated him like a normal kid. Because they bought him a race car bed and tucked him in at night and made him pancakes in the mornings.
     The scream of a pained boy startled several birds into flight, and Joshua dropped to his knees and began to punch the ground as he continued to scream. This went on for a full minute. When he was drained, he stood, the tears stopped, and he began to walk again.
--
     "What the fuck?" Liam exclaimed as the boy's scream rang through the trees. Hunter winced. The team had done a number on the kid. He'd heard some civilians had been hurt in the cross-fire, but based on the kid's screams... They'd been more than hurt. They'd been killed. That was never part of the mission, and it pissed Hunter off. Even if he was a mutant, he'd still gotten to know the guys on his squad. Mostly they were affected by tragedy, thought they were doing their country a service. They never would have started this on their own. It was all the general's fault. Anger in Hunter had the sky churning with dark clouds and lightning cracking through the sky. A freak storm. Right.
     "Let's move it," Hunter growled, and his squad picked up the pace. They ran through the woods. He had to stay in character, hated to do it. He wanted the kid to live, and prayed the kid would. But when they got to the clearing, the kid was standing there. Waiting for them.
--
     "This is all your fault!" Joshua yelled before running at the man closest to him. Shots fired, yells rang through the night. He didn't care. He was angry, so angry. Then, strong hands grasped his arms and pulled him away from the man he was on with impossible strength. His aggressor wasn't screaming from his hands being burned as they must have been. Joshua struggled, squirmed, shrieked, but the hands held him fast, and then the body threw itself sideways, taking Joshua with it.
     Brilliant flames poured out from his body, and lightning sliced through the sky.
--
     In later reports, the men would say it was crazy. They would say they thought they were done for, that the kid was about to kill them all. That Hunter just grabbed the kid, and hauled him off Liam, straight into the path of lightning. The kid went off like a molten light, and Hunter was engulfed by the fire. They would say the lightning seemed to strike at exactly the spot they were standing. They would say only a crater remained, that the kid's body had been recovered, but Hunter must have been ash. There was nothing left of the squad leader.
     That's what the reports would say.
--
     Pain. Profound. Brilliant.
     Fire. Ice. Burn, burn, burn.
     Shock. Electric. Scream. Scream, and scream, and scream.
     Silence. Darkness. Where am I now?
--
     The site of the incident was cauterized, sterilized. The general crossed Burn off his master list of mutants, and surveyed the names left. It was sad that he had lost his best squad commander, but Hunter had always been too soft on the mutants, didn't understand the full brevity of the situation. So the crater remained, and the events of the week, the events of the day Hunter died, were forgotten. 
     But the man who had been standing at the exact center of the radiation blast when it went off and rocked the planet did not forget. He was not going to let the boy named Joshua Anderson, a.k.a Burn, die for no reason.

     A small fire began to burn in the center of the crater, seemingly from nowhere. There were no witnesses, no one around. The fire grew, and grew. Ashes drew together, bound themselves to the fire.
     And rising out of the fire was a head as dark as the fire was bright, a shadow trapped within the light.
     Hunter screamed.