A scraping sound echoed from behind Jason's door as soon as his finger left the button. The entire back of his wall started to lift up, sliding into the ceiling. He stumbled backwards in fear of what might be inside the now open dark corridor.
Jason could not see anything inside the dark room. The sun was just peeking up over the horizon, so he figured the Night Dragon was off to wherever she went during the day. He felt his pocket for his flip phone. His parents couldn't afford to buy him a fancy touchscreen one like the rich kids.
The dark corridor lit up as he turned his phone on and shone it into the pathway. In the secret hallway, the walls, ceiling, and floor were all polished metal. Jason nervously sneaked through the hall, afraid of tripping a wire or something flaming shooting out of the wall.
Jason wasn't exactly sure why he was anxious about traps, if he hadn't ever been in this corridor. However something felt oddly familiar about it. The cold metal radiating, a faint hum of electricity, and the eerie quiet. He just shook it off, people get déjà vu all the time, right?
As he reached the end of the hallway, a giant steel door stood in his way.
Next to it was a small control panel, the screen was heavily dusted over, like it hadn't been used in years. Jason blew onto it, dusty particles puffing up. He confusingly pressed his index finger on it. A number pad appeared on the screen, with a five digit requirement. With a defeated sigh, Jason crossed his arms. Maybe he hoped this chamber would lead him to his parents, or answers to the Night Dragon.
At first he though maybe it was her base, but quickly he realized he couldn't use his room as a base for that long. He would've noticed at some point, he had lived in his apartment for...a year and a half maybe. Jason didn't remember his old house too well before his apartment. Only a few images of a small house in the suburbs. I shouldn't be thinking about my old houses, my parents are dead, and I don't know where to go!

"Brian's," Jason muttered, his voice creepily carrying down the metal chamber, "I guess that's the only place I can go right now."

He began making his way out of the eerie metal hall, the déjà vu feeling finally starting to leave his body. Jason wondered if the Night Dragon has lived in the apartment once, or if it was just an old building room. Maybe he would never find out.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

"Jason!" Brian cried as he walked into his house, "where have you been? Your building caught on fire! Where are your parents?!"

"I-I couldn't get to them in time," Jason choked out, the grief blazing again in his heart.

"Jason I'm so sorry," Brian pulled him into an awkward hug then let go, "where was the Night Dragon?"

"She was busy saving other people Brian," Jason shook his head, his eyes slightly misting over, "and I wasn't strong enough to save them."

"Don't say that!" Brian stared his straight in the eyes, "nothing could have changed it."

"Someone caused it though," Jason realized, "wait, the guy who killed Black Skull. The killer, he was known for fires. She was looking for him, to exact vengeance. He caused this, I'm going to stop him."

"This is inspirational and all," Brian plopped down on his white crinkly couch, "but we don't even know where to find him. I can't track someone who doesn't have a real name! Plus the fire could have been a wiring problem, or a gas leak. You might just be chasing wind."

"It's worth a try," he protested, raising his hands, "even if he didn't cause the fire, this guy killed a vigil-hero."

"If we go to the place where Skull was incinerated, maybe I can find fingerprints or some clue to use," Brian shrugged, "but that's about it. You better realize that you have  had no food, water, or new clothes in about 3 days."

Jason looked down at his sooted, torn clothes and cringed. Brian gestured towards the kitchen "C'mon, lets go tell my parents."

"You go," Jason pleaded, "I don't think I can talk about this right now."

"Ok," Brian walked out of his living room, shutting the door gently behind him.

    Jason ran his hand over his forehead, staring at the floor. His life went from normal to chaos in a matter of days. Just talking with the vigilante seemed to put his life on a roller coaster and send it soaring off the tracks. Now that Jason knew the pain of loosing someone close to you, he couldn't imagine bearing it without Brian. His best friend seemed to be holding onto the string that was his hope.
    As he adjusted his position on the couch, Jason felt a square object pressing on his hip. He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out the thing he really didn't need, Jason's journal. Bored, he opened it up and flicked through the pages. Most was strange, random dreams, like all dreams were supposed to be.
    Just conjurations of his subconscious that appeared when you go to sleep. However a couple things were shockingly like things that happened to him in the past few days. On one page was a startlingly realistic drawing of a symbol. Jason remembered it from a brand on the Night Dragon's gloves. It was a large diamond with a smaller one below it. Two curved triangles stuck out of the top of the top diamond, almost like demon horns.
    A crescent moon was in the middle of the large diamond. He figured out, it was the Night Dragon symbol. The two diamonds were its head, plus the horns. Of course the moon represented the night time. Under the symbol were the words, "Sidekick of ________"
    Jason knew the blank space he'd forgotten was "Black Skull." The Night Dragon hadn't been a sidekick for 3 years though, since she was 13, he figured. If she was 12 when she ran away and worked with him for a year, that meant she was 13 when he died. It must've been hard on her, Jason was 16 and he still felt a throbbing mental pain. He turned the page of his journal, doing it delicately. Sketched onto the next page was another symbol. It was basically a black skull, but with the eyes a startling white. Under the skull, flames were drawn, scorching the bone. A small note was written on the bottom of the next page.

"Find Akillah"