Free Marrow by Preston Norton Page B

little—”
    Her sentence never finished. But it felt like I was being folded inside out as Oracle’s bookshelves and conspiracy theory décor suddenly swirled together in a raging vortex of color. It was like a Skittle volcano exploding through the eye of a tornado, and I was right in the middle of it. My body felt like Jell-O being sucked through a vacuum cleaner, but as far as my uncontrolled vision could see, I didn’t seem to have a body anymore.
    All at once, the color flashed into a solid image—a shocking, surreal image, just as epic as it was horrific.
    I was back inside Oracle’s house—at least what used to be her house. The place was ravaged to ruins. Furniture was thrashed and broken, and fragile decorations were shattered. An entire wall had been blown wide open, leaving a gaping, jagged hole of broken planks and splinters. A hazy, smoldering view of the blood-streaked evening sky glowed from the other side, accompanied by the red and blue flash of police lights.
    Bodies were littered all over the floor, contorted in awkward, limp angles. Motionless.
    Two dark figures stood opposite each other like shadows in a mirror. One I recognized instantly. Every muscle was accentuated in a red and black bodysuit. A simple black mask obscured the top half of his sculpted masculine face. A crimson cape trailed behind him like fire.
    Fantom.
    The other figure was even bigger, but lacked the sleekness. Thick dark hair erupted from his scalp, long and knotted, meeting his beard like the mane of a lion. He wore a heavy black coat over his hairy bare chest. His ripped and tattered pants were tucked into army boots that seemed capable of crushing a human skull. His gloves were ripped off at the fingers, exposing dirty, chipped fingernails like claws. The most terrifying feature, however, were his eyes. They were crisp and blue, like a tropic ocean bleached by the noonday sun.
    They were my eyes.
    My father’s eyes.
    Spine.
    His power was like mine, but with an addition that had scary possibilities. This was made manifest as he raised both fists and sharp bones spiked out of his knuckles. This was just one of the nearly limitless ways in which Spine was notorious for manipulating his bone structure. 
    I barely remembered my father, but this dark stranger seemed nothing like that distant memory. My father was merely a dream. This monster was reality.
    My bizarre, fixed perspective zoomed out as the two men charged each other, fists pulled back. The image was bending . . . distorting . . . rounding. The scene was soon captured within a sphere, discoloring to a sharp tint of blue.  The center was dotted black, and white encompassed the blue.
    It was an eye. My eye.
    I zoomed out on my face, bruised heavily on the right side, with deep cuts over my right eyebrow and lip. I was sprawled belly-first on the floor. Flex was lying behind the cut and bruised version of me. His battered form observed the scene in wide-eyed horror.
    A white light flashed and then dimmed to a dark, cluttered living room. I was staring at Oracle’s empty eyes now. Her hand was still on my forehead.
    I blinked. I was back.
    Oracle pulled her hand away and rested it in her lap. She didn’t speak or even smile. Apparently I wasn’t the only one disturbed by what I had just seen.
    “What was that?” I finally managed to ask.
    “Exactly what it looks like,” said Oracle. Her face was grim. “A battle that looms over our future. And apparently it happens in my house and both you and Flex are there to witness it.”
    There were so many questions racing around my skull, I could barely focus. But one managed to escape my mouth, as the image was the most fresh in my mind.
    “All those people . . .” I said, breathless. “Were they . . . ?” I couldn’t bring myself to say it. The word was like acid, burning my thoughts.
    Oracle’s face remained expressionless. “I don’t know.”
    So many people . . . What were they all doing in Oracle’s house?