Thunderbolts

We were criminals. Men on the run from the law. Before, it was easy. Escape was always possible in some way. But then the law changed. No crime would go unpunished, and no crime did. Eyes were everywhere, but we thought we could escape them, find their blind spots and once again flee justice. We were wrong. The heartless cowboy found us, and iron bars made a new home for all of us.

Well, almost all of us. Turns out the eyes couldn't see all, and a single rat escaped the trap. He found their blindspot. And he also found an arsenal. He thought he could save us with it, and he damn sure tried. It was a ruckus like no other. Spacers fell left and right, and when he reached us, we were each given a boom stick. We raised hell, and even the old sheriff was having trouble with our like. We were free and unstoppable.

Then he appeared. The kid. The whirlwind of vile justice and control, flying in on mechanical wings. We opened fire and unloaded all manner of lead into him. It didn't seem to matter, he just kept standing there. It took a point-blank shot with a shotgun slug to finally make him stumble, just a little. He walked towards us, and the only thing we could think was to run. To get away from the Killer Kid from Mars. One of us tried to slow him down and threw a rock at him while running. It ended up being the unluckiest lucky shot he ever made.

The kid's helmet came clean off, no cracks or tears or anything, it just popped off. We saw his face, the face of a new god so obsessed with keeping it hidden. It was an infantile face, one that didn't fit his proclaimed age of 16. He barely looked 14, to be honest. His hair stood on end, perpetually kept up with something clearly stronger than hair gel.

His most striking feature, however, was his eyes. Or rather, the area around it. Surrounding his eyes were solid black markings, it was almost impossible to tell if they were bags or scars. Whatever they were, they extended in jagged, haphazard lines up to his hairline and down to his chin. They reminded me of something, but I couldn't tell what.

I didn't have the time to consider, and how I managed to get all this from a brief glimpse I'll never know. As soon as I saw his face, he vanished. Within that same second, our heads were slowly rolling off our shoulders. It was in the last seconds before the light left my mind that I realized.

"Ah... they look like thunderbolts..."