Eian parked his bike, he took parking between two haphazardly parked vehicles.

'Fuck good thing it is open.' Eian sighed mentally, many businesses had not been open.

"Are you sure that's fine?" Elisa asked him eyeing the small area.

"I don't want to park too far. Let's hurry my stomach already feels weird." Eian urged her onwards.

Elisa got off from the backseat and waited as Eian turned off the key off and setting the brake.

Eian looked at the supermarket, it wasn't overly large, but they usually did all their shopping here due to proximity, besides it had a little of everything.

The parking lot was also jam-packed with cars filtering up and down with some trouble.

Getting to the supermarket had actually been a hassle, people were bustling about like a kicked ants-nest, so much, in fact, a couple cars looked dented.

Eian had seen a car blocking traffic too for some reason, everywhere in the city was hectic.

He could only imagine how the really big cities were, Los Angeles, Sacramento or San Francisco must be jam-packed with crazy people.

For once in his life Eian had been glad he was too broke to afford the mileage on a car, the drive was a lot less stressful.

"Shit. Let's split up." Eian grimaced at the crowd.

"Words sweet-heart, I will grab the food, you grab as much water as we can take and anything else we might need." Elisa grabbed a cart and was zooming off.

"Bye!" Eian got to work.

Eian noted a distinct lack of many employees and many items were scattered along the floor in haste.

Arriving at the water supply he found out things were getting bad quick.

'Shit.' Eian ran, abandoning the cart.

People were ganging up on the water, Eian nudged a guy out of his way.

He grabbed three packs of twenty water bottles, ran to his cart, filled it and then got closer.

The occupied carts were being watched by ever-present eyes from theft, Eian could relate but he saw the last one be grabbed a random guy.

"No bright ideas bud. Get your own." The guy shrugged him off and went away with his cart.

'Well this will have to do.' Checking the nearby shelves Eian spotted a few bottles here and there scattered.

Going over to the hardware section, Eian grabbed a utility hammer, a small compact garden shovel.

"Cool." Eian smiled.

Grabbing a utility axe, Eian tested the weight, it was small enough to hold on one hand and it had no spear tip, but it was nostalgic.

He also nabbed a utility multi-tool, mostly because he didn't want to forget anything.

Feeling a bit crazy Eian grabbed a twelve pack of duck tape, who doesn't grab duck tape?

He grabbed a heavy-duty baseball-bat did a quick mock swing to get a feel, then he grabbed two football helmets, as well as two lengths of relatively cheap nylon rope testing the tension and how smooth it was.

He grabbed two hand-held flashlights, those things would come in handy if anything crazy happened at night, like a power outage.

'I might be crazy.' Eian laughed a bit.

Thinking it through a little, Eian grabbed a large camping bag.

'That'll be useful if I need to stuff everything into something.' Eian shrugged.

"Damn." Eian looked over the small array of items.

Struck with sudden indecision he closed his eyes and threw out thoughts of cost.

'One last stop.' Eian moved his cart to the food section.

His feet couldn't move fast enough as he had to maneuver out of the way of the other customers, some were swooping past with carts filled with miscellaneous junk.

Impatience was getting to him when finally he eyed what he needed, snacks, his favorite tart-snack, he almost licked his lips in anticipation.

His stash back home had already been depleted.

"Stupid hunger," Eian grumbled, patting his stomach.

Good thing he remembered to both eat and shit before coming here.

Beelining his way, Eian searched the food section, not finding her there he made it to his mother quickly whom was already at the register.

As he passed the others in line he saw a few customers moan or complain at his passing, Eian ignored them.

"Ma, I'll have to do two runs with this much. Maybe even three." Eian observed both their carts.

"I know, but we might need it. Sweat heart I'm sorry but I don't have enough for all this." Elisa bit her lip and looked away from him.

"Yeah, I got it. We talked about it before remember?" Eian didn't let his mental sigh show, his mother would already feel bad about it, no need to make it worse.

The line was long, and it seemed only one employee was at the register, a middle-aged chunky lady with a cap featuring the supermarket's logo.

Eian noticed something, the tag on the cashiers uniform said manager, that made him raise his eyebrows a bit, the store must really be understaffed.

After a long wait there was only one man in front, Eian took a deep breath, he was getting impatient.

"Sir this card is not going through." The female cashier or manager looked annoyed.

"Try it again!" The guy was pushing the card at this face.

"Sir, I already did it three times. Something might be wrong with it. Please try another, there are more customers." The cashier looked gaunt as she observed the long line.

Eian felt a brief flash of pity for the manager.

He himself and his mother had not even gone to work today, it was Monday, but the crisis was much more important to them.

Pondering he wondered if the fast-food joint he worked at even opened, most places were closed from what little he noticed on the ride here.

"Fine! Here!" The customer dug through his pockets withdrawing money.

The customer carefully chose a few items, separated them and paid with what little money he had on hand.

Eian briefly looked over at what the guy had left, finding some water he grabbed that too.

"Next!" The cashier urged.

Eian and Elisa quickly started unloading their stock, he grabbed one thing and placed it before moving on to the next item.

The cashier manager lady dealt with it like a pro, she scanned each item faster than both of them could actually load it.

Eian noticed most of it was canned goods, his mom had stocked up quite a few gallons of vegetable oil too, along with a few lighters and lighter fluid.

He smiled as he noticed plenty of chips, his mother had a fondness for the cheesy variety.

"How comes the stuff here's not spoiled?" Eian asked the manager.

"Generator." The manager didn't even look him in the eye while answering.

Paying actually hurt his wallet, a month or two of salary gone like nothing.

"I'll get the bike." Eian left Elisa at the entrance.

When he returned with the bike he saw someone bothering her, the left the bike middle street and hurried over.

"Just a little please!" The random dude was almost yelling.

"Hey back off," Eian warned.

Turning the man stood a few inches higher than him, wearing almost purely ragged clothes.

"I just need some money for a taxi." The man raised his hands defensively.

"Liar, taxi's aren't responding. We already tried." Eian frowned, irritation growing.

"Look midget, scram or give me some money." The asshole's face grew beet red.

"Fuck you. Stop bothering my mom or I'll fuck you up." Eian grit his teeth at the nerve.

"Eian!" Elisa shrilled, probably at his language.

Turning the man looked, ready to leave, but Eian felt something off about his body language.

A flash of black validated his paranoia, Eian's body moved taking a half-step half-jump to the left, dodging then balancing off quickly.

Snarling Eian felt the random hobo's face give, the body dropped cold.

"Ow-A-wow." Eian fanned his wrist, knuckles hurting.

"Oh, God!" Elisa set down everything checking the guy.

Elisa fussed over the asshole.

"He'll be fine mom." Eian felt apprehensive, a little miffed too that she was tending to him, he didn't regret it but his mom might still chew him out.

"Fine! Eian! You just, just..." Elisa seemed at a loss for words.

"Ma, relax. Look you see that black thing he threw at me?" Eian explained Elisa seemed to be stunned.

Seeing her nod, Eian continued.

"I think that would've killed me if it hit." Eian gauged her reaction, she seemed stunned.

"What?" Elisa's brow twisted.

"Death element. Alex told me that killed him....well in the dream anyway." Eian felt a bit strange about the last part.

Elisa's face went completely blank, she brushed her jeans got up and looked down at the man on the floor.

"He just tried to kill you?" Elisa's face had a look Eian hadn't seen since he was a little kid.

Slowly, Eian nodded.

"From now on just assume anything people throw at us can kill us," Eian explained.

"Asshole!" Elisa kicked the unconscious man in the face.

"Woooow, easy there Ma, I don't think he's dead, but I don't want to get in trouble either." Eian grabbed her and pulled her away.

"We have to report him!" Elisa yelled.

"To whom?" Eian asked.

Another customer walked out.

"What the hell?" A spooked middle-aged man jumped at the sight.

"Hey. This guy tried to assault us." Eian got up and raised his hands in a calming gesture.

It took some time, but they managed to report the incident to one of the few employees.

They called the police, but the line was so busy.

In the end, Eian and Elisa just left, they had other things to worry about and the personnel had surveillance which testified to their claims.

Eian figured the employees could deal with it, and if not well it wasn't his problem anymore.

*****

Elisa finished organizing all their food supplies, she snuck a look at her son.

Eian was munching down at food wearing an undershirt revealing most his upper-body-shape, it was disturbing how quickly his muscles were gaining shape, just this morning he was her normal son with a bit of a gut.

The icy spikes her head was experiencing once more were surreal, from her baby told her she wasn't looking forward to gaining powers.

Her time with Micheal, Bianca and Selma had also been surreal, seeing Micheal display frightening control over fire and gain muscle reminded her these changes were not entirely a good thing.

The day had been excessively dry and she felt a bath was in order, Eian had his eye's fixated on the Television.

"Sweet-heart, I'm going to bathe," Elisa called out.

"Please don't take too long ma, I'll want to use it soon," Eian said, his eyes not leaving the Tv.

"I know." With that Elisa grabbed a change of clothes from the dryer.

Once in the bathroom, firmly locking the door, Elisa stripped into her birth-day suit.

Eyeing herself in the mirror she sighed, the wrinkles on her face were becoming more evident each year.

Eian teased her sometimes and she disliked it, it was partly his fault after-all, not that she blamed him but teasing was just mean.

'I should have found a husband a long time ago.' Elisa closed her eyes at her 34C, her vibrant-light-chocolate hair flowing down to cover the nipples.

Her arms had grown a bit chunkier now than when she was younger.

Habitually she hurriedly plucked the rare white-hair that sprung up, there weren't many, but stress had a way of aging you up faster.

'Maybe that would have solved everything.' Elisa sighed regretfully over the past.

When she had first come here, she had been so insecure, men would flirt with her, but she was self-conscious of her status as a single-mother, men find that unattractive right?

That and the disaster of her previous relationship had frightened her at the prospect of dating, her brother lived more down south of the state with his family, but he was hardly better off.

Recently she realized the problem, there had been plenty of men, but she had been too insecure, now here she was having hardly had any boy-friends since then.

Snapping out of her day-dream she turned the corroding shower nub, making a note to change it once things went back to normal.

Straightening as the ice-cold water poured down her back she repressed a tiny shriek, her soap, which was pink slowly scrubbed away the layer of sweat.

She basked in the feeling for a time.

'Right. No time for that.' Finishing up she stepped out, quickly proceeding to dry herself and change.

She had to be strong for Eian, no time for distractions, first thing is to realize what to do now.

Looking down at her bare arm her tattoo marked: Body:1, Mind:6, Spirit:0.

'Two more to go.' Elisa sighed at the low numbers.

Fully clothed, her clothes stuck a bit to her figure and her hair was still moist, but she emerged.

Eian was still staring unblinkingly at the Tv.

"Is anything on?" Elisa asked.

"....I blocked the door. People've started rioting." Eian's eyes had a hard glint that reminded her eerily of his father.

Unsettled at the comparison, Elisa blinked, realizing the resemblance was beginning to show now that his face was skinnier.

Fear briefly bubbled up before her mind caught up, Eian was a grown man now, even if He found them, there wasn't much he could do and little reason to fear.

Briefly, her eyes saw a random piece of old furniture blocking the doorway.

"What are the police doing?" Elisa wanted to know.

"So far, they're urging 'civilians' to stay at home or at least off the streets....I didn't think this would happen so soon and I guess they didn't either." The frown was evident in his voice.

Something was moving out of the corner of her eye, Elisa blinked and it was gone.

Turning she found nothing out of the ordinary, everything was fine.

'Stange.' Elisa tilted her head and focused her eyes.

Smoke, that was her first thought, but upon closer inspection, she noticed it wasn't dissipating.

Sniffing and realizing there was no scent of it either, she focused seeing it edge towards Eian.

"Baby! Something's moving towards you come over!" Elisa raised her voice, hackles raised.

"What?" Eian turned to looked at her surprise.

Surprising her, Eian was up on his feet and throwing himself across to her in an instant.

"Where is it?" Eian's eyes were scanning back and forth.

"There!" Elisa pointed at the smoke by the sofa.

"Where?" Eian asked.

"The smoke over there!" Elisa pointed.

Eian turned to look at her, concerned.

"You sure? Ma you okay?" Eian looked at her with concern and confusion, at the same time he kept an eye where she had pointed.

More smoke appeared to be phasing through their blocked door, Elisa grew hysterical.

"Ma!? What is it?! What are you seeing?" Eian's voice was gaining an edge.

The smoke jumped at her and she recoiled, afraid.

Eian tried to catch her, and she screamed when she saw it touch him.

It was as if his body drank it up, one minute the smoke was there, the other it was absorbed into him.

The effect was immediate, Eian fell down clutching his throat.

Elisa raised her hands to her face, belatedly realizing she was screaming hysterically.

Suddenly, something invisible was grappling her.

It felt as though an invisible arm had her in a head-lock, closing her eyes she screamed in her head.

Her legs were dead and her vision went dark.

'Is this how we die?' Elisa's thoughts were in shambles.