Chapter 2 One Breath

One scream, one breath.

That's all I heard as my arms covered Penny's body. Next thing I know, I'm shrugging off what remains of the ceiling and lifting her up. She clung to me like a newborn kitten, still trembling from the aftermath.

"Are you a superhero too?" She whispered, finally able to look up at me.

"A superhero? No," I snorted, keeping the smirk off my face. "I don't think I'm qualified enough for that."

People still have their vision when I smile at them.

"But you have superpowers too! You pulled me out and protected me." I smiled at her insistence.

And I shouldn't have done that much. People who step up to help often get shamed in our society. I don't know if it's because that's the culture here in The City but shame is a great deterrent.

Since I don't have the Superhero Class, I am not allowed to even dream of saving lives. It's not like I had a choice in my class though.

"Penny, I do what I do to help people. I'm just a janitor. Plenty of people are strong, but we don't wear capes. Like cops and firefighters." Jobs that were all but obsolete in this day and age. Seems like every emergency had a caped crusader handling it.

Never cleanly-there are always casualties. Like Penny.

"Penny," I try to change the subject, "where is your mother?"

Her nose wrinkles, and she frowns. "I don't know. She went to the store right before the big monster came in and Guy started punching it and–"

"Okay! Guy saved the day, got it." I had to put a pin in her adorable play-by-play.

Carrying her through the crowd, I stopped when someone tapped my shoulder. As soon as I turned around, Penny jumped out of my arms into those of a crying woman. Same brown skin, emerald green eyes, ginger pigtails, and freckles.

And I thought my combination was unique.

"I take it this is your mom?" I say, hiding my smile behind my hand. I'm supposed to stay professional on the job, dammit.

"Mommy! This is Sapphyra; she has superpowers–"

"Shh!" I held a finger to my lips, motioning for her to stay quiet.

"Oh, sorry. Um, so she saved me." Penny quietly whispered to her carbon copy mother.

Meanwhile, the mother-also as thin as a rake-nodded towards me.

"Thank you for saving my daughter! I didn't know there would be an attack today otherwise I never would have..." she hesitates. Shaking her head, blinking the tears away she continues. "They normally happen around 3 pm on the dot so I thought...today I just thought–"

"You thought that today would be different?" I helped her along.

"Yes. How foolish of me."

"...It shouldn't be like this," I quietly whispered to myself, hands clenching into fists.

"What?" Penny curiously asked, big green eyes blinking at me in concern.

"Nothing! I'm just talking to myself. Listen, you two stay safe, alright? I have to get back to work."

It hurt to watch them hold hands. Never has my side felt more empty.

I started walking off before they could interrupt me, wading into the crowd once more. The crowd was slowly dispersing without their favorite superhero to hold them together.

"Of course Guy's gone. All the excitement is too." I grumbled, heading back to where I started the day.

A pressure formed in the back of my head as I recalled today's events. Monster attack, heroic rescue, casualty. Like clockwork...in fact it was clockwork-almost like it was all scripted. And now Penny and her mom don't have a home to go back to. They have to start over too.

Unless I did something about it.

"Keep your head down, don't interfere. Things are the way they are for a reason." My boss's mantra. Seems like he'd tell it to me everyday I noticed anything weird.

Like the fact that more people are dying than being born. Or that half the city is in ruins and no one's fixing it.

Keep your head down.

They wanted it clean though. Wanted all the debris removed; didn't care how it was done. They didn't care how many memories and mementos I vacuumed up into the void.

Don't interfere.

I saw it once-right when I started the job. A group of kids were about to get mowed down by a city bus-sized feral goat. Guy Dynamo hadn't appeared yet. I didn't know what I was doing but I kicked an old car in the path of the goat, knocking off balance. That gave them just enough time to scramble out of the way. Guy swooped in and did what he does best.

He smiled for the camera and saved the day.

Things are the way they are for a reason.

But they don't have to be-I once countered.

He docked my pay for 5 hours for that.

Something snapped. I looked down at my hand, examining the industrial mop now splintered into pieces all around me.

"Fuck! Thats the third one this year." I whimpered. It was absolutely coming out of my paycheck...again.

"Vacuum." I mumbled, sucking up the heavy metal device the same way I do all my cleanups.

A thought came to me. I had more than one ability as a Battlefield Janitor. Vacuum was just the first; it let me clean up any debris near me as long as it wasn't too big. It was stored in a void within me, sort of like a pocket dimension. But I had another ability; I just didn't use it often because it tired me out.

Recycle.

I shouldn't use it here. I know what it does to me but Penny's family will be without a home. Guy won't care, neither will the city.

"Screw it." Marching back to the rubble that is Penny's apartment, I took a deep breath and concentrated.

"Vacuum." Air pressurized. Steel bars, old carpet and splintered wood danced in a twister before entering me-landing inside my void. The ground was clear, save for the holes where plumbing would go. Inside me, I could feel each piece separating itself into a stack, something new.

My stomach itched–that was probably normal.

I was dropped to my knees by a sudden pain in my gut. My abdomen clenched like a cramp from hell as I tried to keep it down.

Had I taken too much?!

"Yuck...Recycle!" I yelled just as my void emptied itself. Instead of slightly beat up versions of everything I'd just taken in, the apartment pieces came out sharper than ever-like brand new. And not only that...

They'd assembled themselves into a brand new apartment building.

I blinked twice, watching the building turn translucent for a single heartbeat-nearly convinced I was crazy. It turned back to normal as spots danced in my vision.

I'm on the ground, drooling on the floor like I'd had one too many drinks at my local bar, Ernie's. An orange softly rolls across the ground and hits me on the head. More groceries soon after. I cursed whatever weather was happening, not realizing someone had dropped a bag of food near my head.

Looking up, I finally saw who it was. I gulped; what little was left of my stomach dropped as we made eye contact.

Flying over me was none other than Guy Dynamo with the world's most puzzled expression.

Maybe I'm overreacting. He probably didn't see me upchucking a house.

"Cleanup girl? What the hell did you just do?!"

"Fuck!"