....iiiiiiiiiiiidk bro

Okay, here we go.

Everything was always so boring in the town of Mesa, Arizona. In fact, it was so boring that it made the top 10 most boring cities in the United States. It was ranked #9.

School had just ended, leaving the once-leaders-of-the-pack Seniors as graduates. Brand Newell has enjoyed the first weeks of his newfound freedom, but then he realized how boring his life was once again. He was so bored out of his mind that a big, fancy truck carrying science stuff passing through a town like Mesa was big news to him.

"Do you guys wanna go check out this truck? It might be something to do..." He asked his friends, leaning back against his chair. They were at a coffee shop, mainly because Brand was addicted to the stuff and wherever he went, the others usually followed for some reason. He looked at his reflection in the dark drink's mirror. He saw a dorky, tired looking young man who was covered from head to toe in freckles. His curly hair was neaty shaven on the sides of his head but was a mop of a fiery mess atop his skull. He wore also too big, black-framed glasses did a better job outline his watery-blue eyes than his orange eyelashes. His skin was so pale that it almost had a blueish-tint to it from his veins.

Even though it was a 102 degrees out, he was still wearing his usual fashion; a pale yellow, short sleeved button down, a deep purple sleeveless vest, and long blue jeans that were tucked into hiking boots. He had two silver studs decorating his left ear and only one in his left. He yawned, being as tired as ever. The boredom wasn't helping with that.

A dark-skinned, young woman with hair matching the color of Brand's vest flung her arms across the length of the table, her head thumping onto the wood surface. Z, a nickname that everyone called her by but no one knew why or what her real name was, was about the most interesting thing one could find in the slow, small town. She was the local, and only, self-proclaimed witch around. She was the person the kids came to to attempt revenge on their parents with purchases of a vodo doll or curse. Whether she was the real deal or not was a matter of debate.
Z lifted her head to stare at Brand with steel gray eyes. "Sounds more fun than watching you drink three pots of coffee like everyday," she signed, having to move her arms to be able to 'talk'. She was mute, for reasons she had never told anyone, but she managed to find a few people that were interested in learning ASL.
Unlike Brand, she was dressed more for the heat. She wore a white, sleeveless crop top that had a print of a black, crescent moon, a black mini skirt, and sandals that laced around her ankle. The only thing about her outfit was the fact that it showed the black marking on her lower, side ribs that looked like a backwards z encased in a circle with a line crossing through it. Yet another thing that she never explained to people if asked.
Z stood up, snatched her sunhat from the table and stood up. "Let's go before a crowd starts," she insisted, standing with her hands on her hips. "Or before you fall asleep."

"Ugh, sorry dudes, I gotta go head home." One of their friends, Sam, said as he stood up. "I'll see you tomorrow, probably." The fourth member of the crew also stood up. "I'll walk with you," Drake offered. "I have a boyfriend who's waiting to see me."

"Huh? Laaaame." Brand grumbled, as the two shrugged and waved good-bye. Suddenly, it was just Brand, Z, and the last member of the club, Lukas. The blonde man looked up from his phone, feeling the eyes of his friends on him. "Huh? Oh, yeah. I guess we can go now." He said with an accent. Lukas was born in Germany and moved to America when he was 8. He was fluent in German, English, and ASL. He also took spanish at the school. Learning languages was one of his quirks.

He stood up, his hand combing through his blonde hair. His hair was similarly styled to Brand, accept instead of curls it was spiked. In addition, Lukas's hair tended to outline and hang in the way of his eyes, so it was messier than Brand's neat hair. Lukas blinked his bright, big, and very awake green eyes. "So, I guess we should be off?" He wore blue-grey cargo shorts and a Navy blue short-sleeved sweatshirt thing for a top.

Brand rolled his eyes, getting to his feet as well. "I guess we will, seeing as you want to move to fast all the time. If we don't leave now, you'll leave us in the dust." He looked to Z. "Ready?"

Z gave a roll of her eyes as the two left, flicking them the bird with the finger that had a pentagram tattooed onto the lower part. She meant well by it but she just happened to come off as rudely friendly. She turned her attention back to the others, grinning at them. She gave a silent scoff at Brand, waving her hands in the air. "I was ready before you two even decided," she signed, sticking her tongue out at them. "Let's go Speedy and Gingy." She had certain signs of nicknames for most of her friends. Without waiting for them, she grabbed her cloth bag, that had 'Witch B*tch' painted on it along with multiple buttons, and headed for the door.

"Always so flashy..." Brand commented with a smirk, following Z out the door. Lukas rolled his eyes and followed his friends. "So, do you guys even know where this truck is going to be?" The German asked, one hand in his pocket, the other flipping through his phone. All the webpages were in German, his native language. Just 'cause he wasn't currently living in Germany didn't mean he didn't wish he still did. Sure, his friends were nice, but America was so strange and uptight.

"Well, I mean it's taking the highway so if we go stand by the exit..." Brand replied, shrugging. "Cool. Maybe they'll give us a demonstration or something." Lukas said, shutting his phone off and shoving it in his pocket. "I seriously doubt scientists travel with the truck, dude." Brand shot back, snickering, as he took a long drag of his coffee. Lukas just glared at his shorter, male friend before looking back to the road.

Z glanced back at her friends, shaking her head at the sight of Lukas being on his phone. She snapped her fingers to get his attention then signed, "Do not walk with your phone, you will run into something." She moved her hands to say something else but was suddenly distracted by something else. Clapping her hands excitedly, she pointed towards the nearest gas station where the trucks were parked. Even fancy trucks need fuel to run. "Maybe it's for some science convention?" She suggested with a shrug. Sure enough, as she had stated earlier, a small crowd of the towns people had been drawn to the trucks out of boredom and curiosity.

"Maybe." Lukas answered, reading her question. He walked over towards the group with his friends. There was a small crowd, but they could still wiggle the way through to the front row. The truck driver was putting gas in the truck, wearily watching the group of super bored folks. "Nothing to see here, people. I'm just getting gas and then I'm out of here."

Maybe it was because someone was so bored, maybe it was just because they were plain messed up, but for some reason that day someone did something that changed Brand's, Z's, and Lukas's life forever.

Everything slowed down into slow motion as Lukas went from admiring the big, heavily armored white truck to noticing a light being tossed at the truckdriver with the gasoline nozzle just as he was taking it out of the gas tank.

"GET BACK!" Brad shouted in an instant, shoving people back as he watched the truck and driver instantly go up in flames. Hot, it was so hot. It was so insanely bright!

Lukas screamed, instinctively covering his face with his forearms as the budding blast knocked him back.

Z saw the light before Brad even exclaimed. It felt like my heart was pounding at her chest to get out while everything around her seemed to slow down. Without thinking, she dove behind one of the columns that supported the gas station's overhang. The air around her went from being hot to intensely burning. If she had a voice then she would be screaming. To make matters worse, the explosion produced a ringing in her ears so loud that she couldn't hear anything. Z felt helpless and lost, being both mute and now not being able to hear. She wrapped her arms around her head, shielding the back of her neck and face as the blast wrapped around the column she was hiding behind.

Lukas was whimpering from the pain, his pain-torn face against the ground as he grit his teeth. He had been really close to the blast, and his entire back was beyond just 'throbbing with pain', it was killing him. "Call 9-1-1!" People screamed. "Oh my God, what the f***?! Who, what happened!?" Others questioned.

Brand hissed as he sat up from the soot-covered ground. "Z! Lukas! Where are you at?!" He called, shakingly getting to his feet. His whole body ached and bubbled from the heat. There were black scorch marks all over everything, fires were still burning around the gas station. People were dragging the injured away. Sirens were coming closer. It looked like a war zone.

Lukas certainly looked like he had been in a war zone. Brand's jaw dropped as he sprinted towards his backless friend, literally backless. "Lukas, your back..." He gasped, looking over his friend chard piece of meat of a back. It sounded like Lukas was crying. That was when he noticed that he and Lukas were the only ones within 20 feet of the blast zone. Where was Z? "Z! Where are you!?" He shouted, looking around for any signs of the mute girl, standing over Lukas.

Z had had her eyes shut as the chaos stirred around her. The ringing in her ears was so loud that it was giving her a splitting headache. Daring the look up, she found that even though people were rushing around like crazy, it appeared safe to come out. She slowly slid against the column until she was standing. Her legs were scrapped up from sliding on the asphalt and burned a little from the explosion. Other than that, the intense ringing in her ears, and a twisted ankle, she was fine.
Z came out from her hiding place, her cloth bag still slung over her shoulder. Her eyes widened when she saw Lukas. Trying to limp as fast as she could over to them, she dropped to her knees next to Lukas. She attempted to sign something, but her hands were shaking so bad that it wouldn't be eligible. She mouthed 'Are you ok?' to Brad, seeing no use in asking Lukas.

"I'm just banged up, nothing too serious..." Brand replied, looking back at the shell of the truck. There was almost nothing left of the driver to even identify.

Suddenly, what was left of the car started to vibrate and hum. "What the hell-?!?" Brand started before a green light blasted from the truck in a single wave and he suddenly felt himself once again being pushed against the ground by another blast. There was a loud buzzing in his ears, that got louder, and louder, and LOUDER before it suddenly stopped.

Z couldn't hear a single thing Brad said but she was decent enough at lip-reading to make out what he said. Even thought she couldn't hear the hum, Brad's reaction gave her enough initiative to look at the source. She felt the blast as it shoved her against the ground, making her scrap the side of her leg more so than it already was. The ringing in her ears was replaced by the buzzing. The sound reached an intensity that she tried to cover her ears with her palms. Squeezing her eyes shut pushed tears to the corners of her eyes. Then suddenly it was over. Both the ringing and buzzing stopped, leaving the effect like she was underwater for her hearing. Her head was swimming in pain: her temples were throbbing, she could feel her fast heartbeat in every vein of her body, and everything felt like a dream, not real but somehow there.

Lukas screamed out in pain. "M-Make it stop!" He shouted as the buzzing echoed through out his head. His breathing hitched, his back feeling like Hell itself. God must had been listening, because everything stopped. Not only the buzzing, but the pain. Lukas's emerald eyes snapped opened, looking around. He looked up. Z and Brand were on the ground. "Was...was hast passeirt?" He asked, wiping some ashe away from the corner of his mouth with the back of his filthy hand. "Guys?"

Everything around him was frozen.

Lukas looked around. The flames were still. "Guys?" He asked again, looking down at himself and checking his hands. He studied his palms. Where he once had roadburn now was skin. He looked back as his back. Not a single burn in sight. "...the burns are gone?" He looked back to his friends. They were still on the ground, not moving. Even the hairs on their heads were still. Lukas stood up, shaking. "Guys?" The wind wooshed around him and everything started moving, knocking the breath out of the german boy.

Brand groaned, sitting back up. "What the F*** was that?!" He asked, loosing his cool. His glasses were cracked. "You guys ok-?" He started before seeing Lukas standing up next to them. "How are you doing that?" the ginger asked rather calmly, looking up at the blonde boy. "Your back...?"

Lukas shrugged, bending down on his knees. "Are you two alright?" He asked, not even feeling sore. He felt completed healed.

Z slowly opened her eyes and uncovered her ears. Everything around her seemed to be shrouded in a smoky mist. A contradictory feeling of fear and safety overwhelmed her. She was frantically looking around, even though none of the others could see what she was seeing. Figures of people that appeared as shadows surrounded her but they all stood in one spot. A tall man with skin the color of burnt wood grinned at her from a few feet away, towering over her as he reached out a hand. Then everything disappeared.
Z scrambled to her feet as her misty surroundings dissipated, hardly paying attention to her friends. A look of extreme confusion over came her frantic look. She had herbs and potents that could mess with someone's mind bad, but this was beyond what she's experienced even if she messed with voodoo. Now that it came to her mind, what had happened reminded her of something that happened once when she was younger, but the memory was hazy. Blinking her steel eyes, she turned her head towards the others. "Did you guys see that?" She signed, hands still shaky.

Lukas and Brand both had a hard time reading her signs, but they got the idea. "I, actually, was going to ask you the same thing." Lukas mentioned, rubbing the back of his neck. "Did you see everything around you stop? Like, stop moving? Like you were trapped in time for a moment?"

"I didn't see that." Brand asked, looking at Lukas in disbelief. "You want to explain how you're okay now?" Suddenly, it heard like the sirens were no longer coming, they were here. Brand looked behind him at all the cops, fighter fighters, and ambulances that were coming. Nearby towns must had sent help as well. "Never mind, we'll talk about this later. We should go."

Z frowned at Lukas and shook her head in response to his question. She tried to take a step forward but she stumbled on her hurt ankle, making her drop to the ground and hiss at the pain. She looked up at the boys, giving a lopsided grin to silently ask one of them for help. Typically, she avoided going to a nurse or doctor for reasons of her own, but she didn't really see a way around it this time.

"Careful." Lukas warned as both he and Brand came over to her. "We'll get you to one of the paramedics, I'm sure they can patch you up." As both of the young men helped Z up, both of them carrying her weight as they fixed each of her arms around each pair of shoulders.

Brand looked back at Lukas. "Even though your skin might be all better...your shirt super isn't. Feeling the wind on your back?" He teased as they started to walk towards one of the ambulances. Lukas just rolled his eyes and kept walking.

People were being treated for burns and such all over the place as police taped off the blast site and/or took statements from bystanders. The firemen fought the flames. A paramedic came over to help Z, telling the boys to bring her over to the ambulance and set her down on the edge. "We're fine, she has a sprained ankle or something." Brand explained to the worker. "He's fine," The medic said, gesturing to Lukas, "but you're still a little banged up. I'll bandage you up once I get her ankle setup." she said, walking over to Z with tape and bandages and making quick work of her ankle.

"Really, I'm fine." Brand said. "We're all just going to go back home after this, and I'd rather not stick around here if I have to."

Z was grateful that she had such strong (and hot) friends. Barely having to touch the ground, she limped over to the ambulance and was seated on the edge. She did take the liberty of sneaking a glance of Lukas's bare back. She silently grinned to herself, her mind going else where, before she was pulled back into reality as the paramedic bandaged her ankle. She winced at the pain, but, regardless, she signed 'thank you' to both the medic and the boys. She rummaged in her cloth bag and pulled a small pill capsule filled with who knows what. She popped it into her mouth, grimacing slightly at the taste. "My mom is going to flip when she finds out I was here," she signed with a huff. Her mother was extremely protective of Z since the time she had been abducted as a kid. And knowing her mother, she would probably blame the boys for bringing her there just for blaming's sake.

The paramedic watched the three teens. "You sure you're just going to go home?" She asked, climbing into the medical vehicle to grab some crutches for Z.

"Yes, m'mam." Lukas answered, shoving his hands into his pockets. "I'm sure our parents are all really worried and stuff...word travels fast in this town."

"Well, I guess that's okay. I'm sure you three kids don't want to get hammered by the police with questions." She thought aloud, handing Z the crutches.

"Thanks!" Brand called, gesturing to the others to leave with him. "We're all going straight home!" Even though he certainly had other plans for the three of them.