An adaptation of the video for David Guetta & Sia's song, "Titanium", dropped into Lilith Langtree's Center universe.

(Inspired by a conversation over on the forum)

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The fire alarm is blaring. Its ear-splitting howl drives its way into my brain like a freight train, forcing me awake. I blink, sit upright with a start. I’m sprawled in the middle of the corridor at my school, or what’s left of it. Lockers have been ripped from the walls, their contents scattered. Tiles from the drop ceiling have been blasted free and flung down the hallways. The door across the hall was torn from its hinges, and the room beyond it is a wreck, too. (Was there a bomb or something?)

As best I can tell, I’m the only one in the hallway. (Where is everybody?) My head is pounding. I lean against the wall, heavily, and slowly drag myself to my feet. A smashed clock is lying on the floor next to me: it’s well after four. That's right--I had detention, again. Everyone else left hours ago. (Why would a bomb go off now?)

I look around, my head slowly clearing (no thanks to the fire alarm). Everything seems to have been blasted away from where I had been lying. Why wasn't I hurt? If I was next to the bomb when it went off, I should be dead. Right? (What is going on?)

A feeling of dread falls over me. I have to get away from the fire alarm. I have to get away from this wreckage. I have to figure out what happened. I start shuffling down the hallway, my feet becoming more sure as I walk. My backpack is on the ground, and I snag it as I head to the doors. (I hope no one sees me.) As I walk by one of the classrooms, door hanging crazily from the hinges, I hear someone's voice over the alarms. A teacher? I stop, about to enter, when I hear what she's saying.

"Yes, some kind of explosion! I don't know how he did it! There was this flash and everything went flying! Please, you have to beli-"

She stops suddenly, cut off mid-word, and I realize I can see her reflection in the window of the door. She’s staring at me in the glass. And she’s terrified.

"...he's right outside... Oh no..."

I pull on my backpack and run, almost tripping in the debris. I hit the double doors at a sprint and made a beeline for the bike rack. Away from the fire alarms, I can hear sirens--lots of them.

I fumble with the lock on my bike, stop, force myself to take a breath, then yank it open. Five seconds later, I’m flying out of the parking lot in top gear, heading for an alleyway that cuts away from the school. I need to get away, and quick. A police car zips past just seconds after I turn down the alley; I hope they didn't notice me.

~You shout it out, but I can't hear a word you say...~
The first five blocks fly by in record speed. Not directly home; I hadn't recognized the teacher and I'm pretty sure she didn't recognize me, either, so I don’t want to lead people straight home. Once I’m sure the cops aren't in hot pursuit, I ease off a bit and start circling towards home at a more sustainable pace. Thankfully, the house is mostly downhill from the school, so I can catch my breath and plan my next steps. Our neighborhood is right by a state park--miles of forest that Dad and I had hiked in for years. Until the accident, at least. My foster parents can't stand hiking. I can cut through the park to the next town over, hop a bus from there to... where? I sigh, pedal harder. It won't take them long to figure out who I am. There are only so many students in the school, and they certainly have my photo.

Five minutes after my dramatic exit, I’m home. It usually takes me twice that. My fosters' car isn't in the driveway, but they won't be home for hours--the restaurant doesn't close until ten o'clock tonight. I’m actually glad, for once--this way they won’t be involved. I don't even bother with the kickstand; just dump my bike by the back door and bolt inside. Run upstairs and down the hall, dump the books out of my backpack, stuff it with clothes, my laptop, my spare cash. Sprint downstairs to the kitchen, grab a couple granola bars, some fruit, a couple bottles of water. It's a few hours' hike to the main bus station, and I know there are late buses. Still, it will be dark soon, maybe three hours at best.

Knocking at the front door. I see a flicker of red and blue from the windows. Police. Faster than I expected. I grab the knob for the back door, but it locked behind me when I came in, and my keys are still in the lock, outside. Crap. I whirl around, scanning frantically. The spare keys are on the counter, back in the kitchen. I don't know how or why, but I reach for them, then reach for them. The ring twitches once, twice, then flies through the air, smack into my hand. A crunch, and the front door slams open. I hear footsteps in the house. Think about it later. Run now.

A small, crazed part of me is laughing at the back door with a set of keys in both doorknobs. The rest of me is glad I run track. I sprint across the lawn, vault the back fence in one motion, and cut through my neighbor's yard to the back street. No shouts, no one saw me. Small favors. I dial back the sprint to a cross-country lope, but the backpack throws my stride off a bit. Snugging down the shoulder straps helps, but I'm glad the park is close. Three minutes later and I'm in the woods.

I wish it was summer--three months ago the undergrowth was so thick I would've been entirely out of sight just ten feet in. Now everything's dead, and there's not a lot of cover. I pull a bottle of water from my pack, take a long drink, start hiking. The sun makes a great compass; I start heading south. I'll turn west in a bit, but first I just need to get clear of my house.

~Raise your voice, sticks and stones may break my bones...~
A few hours later, I stop in a copse of trees. Take a breath, stretch, eat one of the granola bars. The sun has mostly set ahead of me, but, there’s still enough light for me to see without needing my flashlight. I'm just pulling my bag back on when I hear something in the distance. Barking? Oh, no. I peek through the bushes, see a light flickering in the twilight. A flashlight. Oh, no. Oh fuck. I keep looking, hoping it's just the one. Hope falters--another flicker, and another. North and east of me, mostly, but on my trail. With dogs. At least half a mile back, though--if there were leaves on the trees, I would have never known they were there.

I book it. Speed over stealth, distance over cover. There's a ridge just ahead of me, over that and it's a mile downhill to the edge of town, another mile to the center, and I can get lost and find a ride to, somewhere. Still haven't figured that out yet. Probably should, at some point. First bus to anywhere, really.

I crest the ridge, and there are lights ahead. Close. Very close. I've been flushed like a bird, straight into a waiting net. I swing south, just past the ridgeline, but suddenly the woods around me light up. Someone's got a spotlight on me. I sprint, ignoring the shouting. I see a creek bed up ahead, drop down into it, out of the light. It's dry at this time of year, just a road of smoothed rocks, leading down towards town. I make a hard right, follow the bed down towards safety. I hope.

A bit further on, and there's a cutback. The creek-bed turns and starts heading back the other way; some fluke of geography. I swear, grab a brush, haul myself out. My backpack snags, and I pull it free. There's a clatter; dry wood on dry wood. I pause for a moment, look back, heart pounding, head thudding. There's a shout. The beam of light swings towards me. I take off again. Wrong move; the beam finds me again. More shouting. I'm trapped. I can feel a cramp forming. Track or no, hiking or no, I'm running out of run. I'm almost blind, too, sweat falling into my eyes, making them burn.

A root snags my foot. I stumble through a clump of bushes into a clearing. Not just any clearing, though--the cops looking for me must be using it as a base camp or something. There are a couple jeeps with big light bars parked next to me. A bunch of SWAT-looking guys that I didn't even know we had in our town are standing around, looking at maps or jabbering into radios. It takes everyone, myself included, a few seconds to realize what's just happened. How screwed I am. Then there's a lot of shouting. A lot of guns. All pointed at me. I raise my hands, slowly. Slowly let them drop enough to shrug off the backpack, step away from that. Slowly kneel, then lie down on the ground, hands behind my head.

I feel tight all over, all the running catching up to me at once. So tight, like a giant snarled knot.. Something building, straining in me. I realize I've felt this before. This afternoon, in school. After detention. After the stupid fucking detention for Billy's stupid fucking prank. After getting laughed at by the entire class. After wanting everything to just go away. And then I realize I'm glowing.

There's more shouting. Scared shouting. They say they'll shoot. Let them. I don’t care. I let go. Everything goes dark.

~I'm bulletproof, nothing to lose. Fire away, fire away...~
"Johnny? Are you alright?" A girl’s voice, well, a teenager. Not one I recognize.

I blink, groan, move a bit. I'm sore all over, even worse than before. Every muscle is burning or cramping.

"Hey, Liz, is he okay? He doesn't look so good."

There are footsteps next to me. Someone rests a hand on my forehead, and a wave of something slowly washes over me. All of the knots slowly release, from my neck all the way down to my toes. Everything hurts, briefly, as the tension burns away, but I feel so much better after, like I'd slept for days. I moan, roll over, start sobbing.

"Nah, he’s not hurt, he's just really, really sore. He'll be fine in a minute, though." Another girl. Liz?

"Okay, I'll let Max know we've got him. How are the officers?"

"They're all fine--no major injuries, thank God. Ray and Rita are dealing with them. I think their jeeps are probably both write-offs, though."

"Yeah, no kidding."

I push myself up to my knees, look around. A couple girls about my age are standing in front of me, one of them on a handheld radio. Both are wearing authentic-looking fatigues, although I don't know if Army regs allow bright-red hair. Off to one side, another redheaded girl and a guy with bright green hair--also about my age and in fatigues--are talking with the SWAT guys that had been pointing guns at me not long ago. Behind them, the two jeeps are upside-down--smashed wrecks, with one of them half-wrapped around a tree. The trees all look like they’ve been blown outwards; smaller ones are uprooted, bigger ones are missing bark. (Just like the school again. Was that me?) I’m kneeling in a circle of clear dirt a good thirty feet across or more.

I look back at the girls in front of me.

"What's going on? Who are you?"

The redhead smiles. “Hey, I’m Lara. We're with the Center. We're here to take you home."