Sat high above the city, perched atop a famous landmark building over a hundred storeys high, eyes looking left then right, his head turning slowly as he scanned the impressive skyline and sunset horizon. Domingo was pondering his potential new life in the beautiful city of New York. The sunset brought with it shades of violet and yellow, the thinly scattered clouds reflecting the dying sun’s final glory, sapping as day became night. The air was getting chillier, colder, or sharper even. And a chill rolled down Domingo’s spine like a tear from a crying eye.

’Time to get back. Don’t want to be seen sitting here, people might start thinking some weirdo superhero’s hanging around.’

The young would-be adventurer stepped into the ever so thin air, and began to descend aside the building, slowly and carefully, lower and lower. As the ground got closer, voices could be heard in the streets below. Yellow taxi cabs got clearer and more definable as they sped away after picking up a new fare until finally, Domingo landed on the pavement in perfect silence.

A couple of hundred yards down the street, Domingo paced hurriedly to his temporary home, head down, hood up, eyes focused firmly on his surroundings. He walked past bars, where drunken squabbles spilled out onto the street, the smell of danger (or was it beer?) passing into Domingo’s lungs causing him to clear his throat of the scent. He walked past the homeless, pleading with him to give up any loose change that he could, or couldn’t, spare. He walked further up the street and passed a liquor store that was closing up for the night, the owner at the door snarling Domingo to ward him off robbing the place. Domingo looked away quickly and nervously, turning to face towards his path ahead. He carried on a few more yards and decided to glance back. As he did so, his path was blocked by a gang of angry looking youths, all dressed in dark clothing, hoods up and appearing to be carrying something in the dark recesses in the front of their baggy jeans. As Domingo bounced off one of the large men, another pushed him back towards where he had come from and sent Domingo tumbling to the ground, a few yards away from the liquor store, into which the owner had scrambled back inside in fear.

“WATCH WHERE YOU’RE GOIN’, FOOL!” One of the men screamed in Domingo’s face, the rest of the gang laughing, looking down at the shaken tourist lying sideways on the dirty ground. The young Domingo got himself to his feet and moved toward the side of the pavement to let them pass, his head permanently bowed in an effort to avoid further confrontation. He wasn’t confident in himself at all. Not in his powers, nor in his street fighting capabilities. Nothing near enough to take on the gang of five or six that had halted his rush to get back to his hotel room.

“Yeah that’s right, you better get out of our way, little bitch,” one of the gang spat directly into Domingo’s face, eyeballing the trembling youngster into submission, before pushing him into the hard, cold wall behind him. The man, dressed in dark, baggy clothes with a baseball cap and a bandana covering his face, all except his hollow, furious eyes, then turned to catch up with his fellow gangsters who had walked up ahead. Domingo watched them head up the street for a second, and turned toward the direction he had originally been headed, breathed a huge sigh of relief, and plodded on.

Less than two minutes later, Domingo was at the other end of the street from where the fracas had occurred, when he reached into his pocket to check his mobile phone for the time. The black jacket he was wearing had two pockets on the outside, which he checked first, patting them before delving his hands into them, his jacket a flurry of activity as he tried desperately to find his phone. He stopped dead in the street and began patting at his pockets on his jeans. A young couple passed him as he was in the middle of slapping away at first his front, then back, then front pockets again in what looked like a strange Maori tribal dance. As Domingo realised he must have dropped his phone when he was pushed over, he looked up slowly at the couple, who put their heads down and scurried off giggling to themselves. He realised he’d have to go back.

’Sure they’re far away by now, seemed in a bit of a rush. They’ll be long gone.’ Domingo considered the whereabouts of the gang in his mind as he turned full circle and hurried back toward the scene of the tussle. ’Just find the phone and get back to the hotel, simple.’ His eyes were slightly squinting, alert and attentive as he passed the nearby alleyway and found his way back to the area, just a few yards from the liquor store. He scanned the ground in the darkness, unable to make out anything lying around. ’Its got to be here, somewhere.’ He thought loudly in his mind, although the words may have escaped his lips subconsciously. “C’mon, come on!” He said out loud, before out of the corner of his eye, he noticed the reflection of the streetlight on the now cracked screen of the phone. “Yes, thank you, thank you…” Domingo whispered to himself, before realising the crack on the screen and groaning in disappointment. He picked up the broken phone and went to shove it in his jacket pocket, but as he did he put his hand through the fabric, the tearing sound followed by the thud of the phone bouncing on the ground once again. “Give me strength!” Domingo shouted, and he turned to trudge back up the street once again. And then suddenly, he heard a shattering noise and rowdy yelling coming from the liquor store behind him...

The immediate reaction of Domingo upon hearing the commotion so loudly and suddenly behind him was for what felt like his soul jumping right out of his body and his heart to pop up into his throat. He'd jumped into a position reminiscent of a 90's boy band popstar performing a choreographic routine live on stage at an international music awards show. He relaxed his body after a second, slowly turning around as if he didn't really want to look. As his eyes met the door of the shop, through the window suddenly he noticed shadows interspersing like demons dancing a jive of death. As Domingo's eyes focused, he saw what truly appeared to be two or maybe three rather large men grappling.

'Jesus, what the hell am I supposed to do?'

Domingo stood motionless with a cartoon horror face, eyes wide and shocked, mouth open and stiff. He stood there staring at the window, waiting for more movement. What had happened in there? The owner closing up only ten minutes before had seemed like he could handle himself, like he knew what precautions to take to avoid or deal with a robbery.

Another two or three seconds passed and then again, the deafening smash of liquor bottles hitting the floor, hitting the counter, hitting a head? Then, a horrible scream of "Nooooo!" shrieked and reverberated onto the pavement lit only by fading street lights and moonlit glows, disbanding light photons slaughtered by the over-powering darkness.

It was at this moment Domingo's mind subconsciously decided to move his body closer, to walk toward the shop. To make his move. His steps were strong and careful, and he avoided a broken glass bottle on the floor. His hands were squeezing fists, his heart was beating at a rate he hadn't experienced before, his jaws were rigid, teeth clenched and bared. Adrenaline was giving Domingo an uncharacteristic kind of courage, and he was edging closer and closer, nearer to the door, the crashing and shouting within becoming clearer by the inch.

As he was about to touch the door to push it gently, suddenly and with a hard thump it burst open. It was the bandana adorning gangster from earlier and he flew through the door, screaming maniacally and on fire. The smoke was spilling into the air like a weakened version of the tail of an aeroplane as he darted down the street, his voice a chilling and awe-disturbing screech of horror and pain.

Domingo clambered back to his feet after being flown backwards by the impact of the door. He stood up straight and faced his fear. Again, he reached to open the door.

Then came the crack of a gunshot from inside. And another. A thunderous roar. A third shot. And then the explosion.

He was on the street, lying on the ground, the base of his spine hurting from the impact it had made with the pavement. The side of his head was bleeding from the nasty graze made when he connected to the hard ground. All that he could hear was a loud screeching sound, the kind that he'd got when he'd been to watch rock concerts, only a hundred times worse. All that he could smell was burning, smoke spilling out of the windows of the shop and into the dark, lifeless street. His eyesight had temporarily blurred, and he looked around to try to make sense of what had just happened. He stared hard at what was in front of him, and soon his eyes began to adjust to the bright, burning flames dancing around in the windows of the shop. The door had been blown off its hinges, glass had shattered everywhere. Then, Domingo remembered. The place had exploded. Some kind of ignition inside must have caught the bottles of alcoholic liquids inside. Enough fuel to blow a shop like that easily. Suddenly, another noise rose above the screeching in his ears, a totally different kind of screech. A passing taxi cab had skidded to a halt in the road, only a few metres from Domingo. The taxi driver was shouting at him.

"Hey, man, are you okay? What the hell just happened?" Domingo sat up and turned to see the man, about forty-ish, with a black baseball cap and a beard darkening his face in the shadows they created.

"The place just blew up! I think there's people in there!" Domingo shouted back to the driver. There were people in there. Domingo realised what he'd said, and what it meant. The hooded gangsters were left inside, the shopkeeper also. A look of horror came across Domingo's face as he stood up slowly. The flames were growing, and Domingo could feel the heat on his sweating and blackened face. And then came a shriek from inside, and the jet black shadow of one of the gangsters fell out of the door, holding his hands over his face to avoid smoke inhalation as much as he could. As he stumbled out, he fell right in front of Domingo, right at his feet, and from his kneeling position he looked up at Domingo.

"You gotta help my brothers in there. You got to help, man. Please!" Domingo bent down to reassure the man, as he recognised this strange new feeling inside of him. The feeling that he must do something. The feeling that he had a chance to be a hero...

Domingo ran towards the burning building, flames spitting at him and hissing at him as he got closer to the doorway. He whipped off his jacket and wrapped it around his face, allowing a little room to see his way. Just short of the doorway, he stopped a brief moment, as he heard the taxi driver shouting at him. "Don't go in there man, you're crazy! Its a liquor store, it could blow again at any moment!" The eighteen year old Spaniard pondered the tax driver's words for a split second. The words then became Domingo's father, and he was telling Domingo to be strong and to be brave. Domingo turned back to the door, determined to try to help the men inside. He took a massive, deep breath, ducked just a little to get closer to the ground, and stepped slowly into the inferno before him.

The first thing that hit Domingo as he walked through the door into the hell before him wasn't the intensely burning heat, that felt like a thousand cigarettes held too close to the skin. It wasn't the black, angry, consuming smoke that surrounded Domingo's body, sucked into his mouth like light into the singularity of a black whole, filling his airways like the black death creeping across the landscape of his lungs. It wasn't the horrible scream of pain that he could just about hear over the earthquaking rumbling noise that the inferno itself created. It wasn't any of these things. It was the sight of the gangster on the floor in front of him, the skin on his face bleeding red and black and blistered, the smoke rising to become one with its omnipresent, older brother. The man was screaming in agony, his whole body on fire. He was lying on his back, and it was a horrifying scene.

Domingo whipped off his jacket from around his head and moved quickly to pat out the flames flickering on his legs and torso. The man shrieked as the jacket made contact with what was left of his skin, pieces sticking to the black fabric. He was much too hot to touch, but Domingo tried to pick him up anyway. As he gripped the man under his neck and knees, again the man screamed, this time the pain was too much for him, and he passed out altogether. He slumped to the floor, a deadweight, and Domingo nearly fell himself as he was almost dragged down with the unconscious, nearly dead criminal.

At that moment, Domingo heard a shout from behind the counter further ahead. "HEY, YOU, GET THE HELL OUTTA MY STORE, JUST GET OUT!!"

He squinted as he tried to make out who had shouted. The confusion of the situation, of what this man had shouted, in spite of the terrible devastation all around. His eyes began to focus on the figure, and Domingo recalled the man's face from not half an hour before. It was the shopkeeper, and he was standing there, absolutely still and calm, the skin on his cheeks and forehead blackened by the smoke, a look in his eyes of absolute sociopathic insanity, and a big, black shotgun in his unpredictable, trembling hands.

The pairs eyes were locked in together. Domingo was at a loss as to what to say back. The man stood perfectly still, the gun aimed straight at Domingo, knelt next to the dying, unconscious robber. Slowly, the youngster stood up straight, his arms held out and up, his face a picture of shock and fear. Once stood up, he turned slowly head-on toface the man, his arms now brandished up and above his head in a display of attempted calming submission.

"Hey there, listen I'm not one of these guys... I saw and heard the explosion, I want to help..." Domingo's voice trailed off as out of nowhere, one of the robber's appeared from the smoke, and tried to make a run for it. As he got to the doorway, Domingo saw out of the corner of his eye the shopkeeper take aim... and fire.

Onto the hard floor, the man fell as he was caught by the bullet. It hit him in the side of the neck, and there was no sign of movement by the body as it slumped onto the ground. Domingo's eyes were filled with dread, as he turned back to the shopkeeper.

"What the hell are you doing? I think you scared them enough, why are you shooting them?" Domingo stood motionless as the shopkeeper dropped his rifle to the floor. He was staring down at the gun, resting on the floor. Another bottle exploded unexpectedly, and Domingo ducked swiftly to avoid being hit by glass. The shopkeeper looked at Domingo. He was a relatively old man, possibly pushing sixty, with a world weary face, lines all over, grey-haired stubble covered his chin, his eyes were dark and morbid, the remnants of a hard life. He spoke with a deep croak, the result of years of smoking.

"You need to go, now." He coughed hard, then carried on speaking. "The reason these guys came in here, they weren't robbing the place, no... They came for me. I knew they would sooner or later." Domingo spluttered a nasty cough, as by now his lungs had filled with the horrible black smoke. "Y'see, son, I'm a mutant. Always have been, but no'one round here ever knew. All my customers, everyone, they didn't suspect it for a second. I'd even join in with anti-mutant banter now and then. Until they found out." The flames seemed to rise higher all around the pair, Domingo knew he'd have to get out soon. "I can't take it anymore, son. The beatings, the abuse, nobody buys from me anymore. Its not worth it. I'm sick of it all."

At that moment, the man picked up the gun again from the floor, and turned it on himself. "Go on, get out, leave me." Domingo stood in terror and stepped towards the shopkeeper. "No don't do that, c'mon, we need to get out of here, now. We can talk later."

"Ain't gonna be a later for me now, son. I've lost everything now. My store's gone, this was the last thing I had... Now go on, GET OUT!"

Domingo's mind raced, what could he do? He had a split second to make up his mind. But it wasn't long enough. The trigger pulled, shot fired, and the back of the man's head blew open as the bullet sped through his skull. The rifle again fell to the ground, as the man's body slumped down with it. Flames surrounded where the shopkeeper's body was lying, just behind the counter he had spent his working life. Domingo stared blankly, his body paralysed after what he had just witnessed.

A groan came from the body below him. The gangster, the mutant-hating, trouble-causing oppressor was still alive! How the hell was this horrible man at his feet still breathing? Domingo snapped into action now, he knew that all was lost for the shopkeeper and his store, but Domingo could still help this guy, he didn't deserve to die. Did he?