Pain jolted Taylor out of her sleep. The intensity of The Pull gripping her stomach made her gasp and clutch the edge of her mattress. When the feeling didn't subside, she staggered out of her bed, sheets tangling around her body. Trying to think through the claws digging into her stomach, she threw off the blankets but only managed to trip herself. She hit her carpeted floor, swearing.

Tearing the sheet away from her ankles, she staggered to her feet and fumbled with her clothes, grimacing as she changed into the all-black outfit. She had barely slipped into her shoes and hadn't even bothered tugging on her hood when she vanished from her room.

As she landed on a coarse surface, she sank to all fours, breathing heavily as the pain vanished. Dazed, she lifted her head, staring out on her surroundings. A chill night wind whipped around her, flinging her dark hair into her face.

Taylor pushed herself up and rubbed her eyes, trying to get her bearings. She was on a rooftop. The moon was high in the sky. The buildings around her were mostly dark. From the skyscraper across from her with the glowing sign of the Fidelity Investment sign, she knew she was in the heart of the city.

Another gust of wind caught up her hair and she grabbed the tangled mane, burying it in her jacket and settling her hood on her head. Trapped in the breeze was the acrid smell of something burning. Taylor glanced around, spotting an angry orange glow coming from a building across the way. Blinking furiously and stumbling once, Taylor moved to the building's ledge and peered over it.

One floor of the Court House tower coughed out pillars of smoke. Taylor sagged against the ledge, gripping the rough stone to keep her upright.

"You got to be kidding me," she breathed out.

In the distance, she heard the wail of sirens and turned her head, hoping to spot the firetrucks careening down the street, but they weren't that close. She stared at the Court House, watching as flames shattered windows and licked the night air. Even from across the street, Taylor could feel waves of heat. She didn't move, didn't act, could only stand there frozen on the rooftop, eyes locked on the inferno.

Taylor dropped her head into her arms. Three hours of sleep didn't feel like enough to deal with this. The thought of going home and letting the fire department handle the situation passed through her mind. But on the tail end of that thought she heard her father's voice in her head, 'What ever you have in your hand to do, do with all your might'.

Lifting her head, Taylor gazed up at the floors above the fire, she spotted more than a dozen windows with lights still on. Her heart grew heavy in her chest. There were still people in there. People that were thirty stories above the fire. People that might not make it out before the firefighters got there. She didn't have a lot of might, but she had a might that no one else had.

Forcing herself upright, Taylor left the safety of her rooftop and jumped to the top floor where a light was on. A blaring alarm hit her eardrums as she popped into the office and she winced, the sound cutting through the sluggishness in her brain. The shock of the office lamp made her squint.

She spun a circle trying to find the occupant who had turned it all. But all she found was an empty chair, open computer, a scattering of files, a half-eaten sandwich, and a poster with a kitten clinging to a branch telling her to hang in there.

Darting out of the room, she paused before a maze of cubicles and hallways leading to glass-walled offices.

"Hello?" Taylor called out, her voice still rough from sleep. "Is anyone here?"

There was no response. She swore, the alarm drilling into her head as she sprinted through the office, calling out as she went. When she found the level completely empty, she raced to the doorway leading to the stairs and yanked it open.

The stairwell rang with the frantic pounding of someone charging downward. Peering over the railing, Taylor spotted a round suited figure four floors below her. She vanished and reappeared on the landing beneath him. Face sweaty and breathing hard, the man didn't even notice Taylor until he almost tackled her. He jerked back, sucking in a deep lungful of air.

"What are you doing standing there?" he gasped. "We have to get out."

"That's why I'm here."

Taylor grabbed the man's arm and his eyes widened as she jumped them out of the building and onto the safety of the sidewalk. Shocked, the man staggered, twisted away from Taylor, and emptied the contents of his stomach into a bush.

With the acrid smell of vomit in her nose, Taylor turned back to the Court House, choose the next floor, and jumped herself there. When she landed inside, she spotted a hunched figure at a desk and raced over. A plump woman with steel gray hair gathered up bobblehead figures and placed them into her large purse.

"Didn't you hear the alarm?" Taylor said. "We have to go."

"I can't leave my collection," the woman said, continuing to pick up figurines.

To Taylor's annoyance, she saw that there were over fifty bobble-head dolls in the cubicle and the woman handled them as if they were made of glass. Growling in frustration, Taylor joined the woman, taking less care with the bobble-heads as she swept a display of them into her arms and dumped them into the woman's purse.

"Careful that Elvis is an antique," the woman said.

"I don't care."

Taylor snatched the final row which had been neatly placed on the cubicle's edge and tossed them into the bag. As the woman clutched the purse to her chest, Taylor took her arm, startling her. Before Taylor jumped them out of the building, she grabbed the metal trashcan from underneath the desk and pushed it into the woman's arms.

"You'll want this," she said.

When they hit the sidewalk, the woman tottered, dropped her bag, hugged the trashcan, and threw up into it. Taylor didn't wait to see if the bobble-heads survived the fall to the concrete, instead choosing her next floor and jumped herself there.

For Taylor with each rescue, a bit of her strength was sucked away, the act of moving two bodies instead of one wearing away at her. Added with this, was the constant search she had to make of each floor and sometimes the conflicts she faced when employees struggled with her, didn't listen to her shout that she could help, or mistook her hooded appearance for an attacker and ran away.

When Taylor reached the floor above the one on fire, she swayed, her mind foggy and her limbs filled with lead. Trying to push away her fatigue, she made a circle, searching for employees still there. Heat radiated from below her and sucked at the air. When there was no one in sight, she moved from office to office but found them all empty. Sweat clung to her neck and slid down her back. The air was thick with smoke.

As she rounded a corner, she spotted a hooded figure with the build of a man further down the hallway. She opened her mouth to call out, but the ground beneath her buckled and she stumbled, falling to the floor. The ground burned like lava and she scrambled to her feet, pressing her palm into the wall for balance, but snatched it away second later, the surface hot to the touch. Shaking off her dizziness, she found the hooded figure again.

"Hey, I can help." But her call was barely a whisper, her voice raw from constant shouting.

As she forced herself towards him, she blinked and he was no longer there. Taylor froze, staring at the spot where he had been only a second ago, trying to make sense of the sudden disappearance. Trying to think through her fog. Trying to figure out if she was exhausted enough that she had begun to hallucinate. Trying to decide if she was tired enough it was best to go home.

But with two more floors left to search, she knew she couldn't leave. Not yet. Not until she was certain everyone was out.

When Taylor's search of her current floor came up empty, she clenched her fists, took a deep breath, and jumped to the floor below. A wall of heat slammed into her as she appeared in the heart of the blaze and smoke attacked her lungs. She coughed and struggled to see through the darkness. Fire devoured desks and curled around filing cabinets. Frames cracked and crashed to the ground, the photos getting eaten in the process.

Taylor pulled the edge of her hoody up to cover her mouth, a weak barrier against the smoke, but still a barrier. For this floor she didn't bother trying to run, instead jumped from one open spot to the next, trying to steer clear of the worst of the flames.

By the time Taylor made it through half of the level, her clothes were drenched in sweat and the fabric clung to her. Jumping from office to office, she found the deeper she went into the building, the further away she got from the source of the fire until there was only a thick cloud of black smoke filling the air.

As she moved through the final section of the level, she spotted a man with a long, black, circular canister slung across his back near the stairwell. She raced towards him, not bothering to call out, her voice gone.

A few feet away, she faltered, heart freezing in her chest, able to see what the cloud of smoke had obscured. The man held a gasoline can and doused the surrounding desks with the pungent oil. Finished, he tossed the can away from him and pulled out a lighter.

Taylor sucked in a breath, but inhaled smoke and coughed violently. The man whipped his head towards her and Taylor stared, wide-eyed. Despite the mask across his face, she knew who he was. Knew it from the clubs tattoo on his neck and the menacing narrowing of his eyes. Knew him because this was the man she'd been trying to find for Detective Weston. Vincent Fitzpatrick.

Vincent flung the lighter into the row of desks and sprinted for the stairwell. Taylor broke from her shock and jumped a spot right before him, reaching for his arm, needing to stop him, needing to get him to Detective Weston.

As she latched onto his arm, his fist came out of nowhere and slammed into her cheekbone, sending her colliding with the wall. She collapsed onto the floor, stars popping in her vision. She blinked furiously, trying to rid herself of them.

Unbalanced but able to see again, Taylor clambered to her feet just as Vincent ducked into the stairwell, and the flame from the lighter hit the gasoline fumes. The world exploded into a wall of fire. The shock of it struck her and she crashed back, banging her head.

Stunned, Taylor found herself on the floor once again, searing heat converging on her from all sides. Her heart pounded frantically in her chest, fear surging through her. When she tried to stand, her legs crumpled. Tears of exhaustion and panic spilled down her face. As she pushed herself up again, a hand grabbed her arm, pulling her up.

She lifted her head, finding the same hooded figure standing beside her.

"Come on!" he said. "We have to go!"

As he tried to drag her to the stairwell, Taylor nodded weakly and jumped them out of the building. When the hooded figure spun away from her, Taylor sank to her knees, hunched over, trembling. Sirens roared in her ears, men shouting to each other. At the sound of the chaos around her, Taylor realized she couldn't be there. Couldn't be seen.

With that thought, she jumped herself back to the rooftop across from the courthouse. She sucked in a lung full of cold night air and coughed again. Lightheaded, she rose and leaned against the ledge of the rooftop.

Below her, she watched as jets of water attacked the fire, forcing it back and making it hiss like a pissed-off cat. Firefighters and ambulance medics moved around the stricken and soot-faced crowd, wrapping them in blankets and checking vitals.

A familiar black Charger pulled up the curb and she watched as Detective Weston climbed out. Taylor coughed again, sagging against the brick. Her limbs felt rubbery and she found her thoughts moved with the speed of a snail.

As she surveyed the scene, she spotted the hooded figure again. He stood in the shadows of the neighboring building. But in a blink of an eye, he was gone. Bleary-eyed and half-dead with fatigue, she wondered if he had been there at all.

With one final glance at the dying fire, Taylor vanished. Her room formed around her and most importantly her bed stood waiting. Bone-weary, reeking of sweat, and smoke, Taylor crashed onto the covers, asleep before she could remove her shoes.

**********************************************************************

POW! WAM! BAM!

That's right! Boom! A super hero story! You know what that means right...

WE GET TO PICK OUR SUPERHERO NAMES!!

Okay, name, ability, outfit and what you fight for! Go! 🦸🏽🦸🏿‍♂️🦹🏼

Oh and yeah I guess you can tell me how you liked the chapter and all that good stuff if you feel like it!

Now back to the real issue: superhero identities!

Honestly, I'm not strong enough to go fight off bad guys so I think I'm going to take a more sidekick type identity. That's right! I'm going to be Sunshine Girl! I'll spread happiness and happy thoughts wherever I go! My outfit will be cheery and definitely with a cape! Cause capes are awesome!

Let's face it, I would make a great sidekick to some other superhero because when all the destruction is over, I'll help improve people's moods! I'm really a good asset to the team!

Let me know if you want to team up and be my superhero that I support!

Vote, comment, follow but only if you stand for peace and justice!

(I am secretly evil at times too, so if you're a villain and you want a sidekick we can work something out. Though with my powers I might ruin all your plans because I make you content with life and you no longer want to be bad. Maybe I wouldn't make a good sidekick for a villain then.)