Prologue

It was a cold day in Georgia, the frigid air made my fingertips numb. I could not think right today. All I was worried about was getting somewhere dry and warm. Yet I stood in the cold rain with nothing but a long-sleeved shirt on for I had nowhere to go, no one to run to when I needed help, no one there for me.
  How did I get to this place? So alone. I needed someone to tell me it would be okay. Someone to tell me what’s going on but I made them all disappear and I don’t know if anyone would ever come close to me ever again. So, I stand here quietly with only the sound of the soft rain hitting the ground for comfort.

Monday

I’m 16, you would think I should go to class, do my work and be like any other teen annoyed with homework. But that was not me, I’m a high school dropout. Everyone tells me that I won’t be able to get a good job and I should think about my future and what I’m going to do with my life and to be completely honest I didn’t know what I was going to do with my life. I had to get out. I don’t want to hurt anyone else.

There was a girl you see.  She was just a normal girl, only not at all. She had something about her that was just great. The only person that would talk to me. Well. We got into an argument about the smallest thing. And I pushed her back thinking I was doing it gently and she flew to the other side of the room and hit the wall…

I feel so bad; she broke her arm and has a ton of bruises but she’s alive I guess…
Her parents pressed charges and my parents paid them off, but they are making me pay for it once I get the money to do so. So, I have to get a job. At least that’s going to have to wait a few months because I’m grounded. They took away my car and my phone. It’s not too bad I don’t need my phone that much. She was the only one I texted with. Cali Stride. Best girl I’ve have ever met. I can’t believe what I did. I don’t know what happened. I barely touched her. I tried to apologize but was too afraid to go see her. So, I Snapped her so I could see if she opened it but nothing so far. I even stole my phone back to do so.

So, I wait, at home alone until my parents come back from there grown up party. Fun, frozen pizza for dinner again. Just like almost every day. Should I feel worse? About Cali? I should really question my sanity at this point. Like… I threw her across a room and sure at the moment I freaked but now I feel nothing. Like it didn’t even happen, like I didn’t hurt my best friend, my only friend. As the night went on the lights dimmed slowly until it was time for bed.

Sleep overcame me slowly. Drifting in and out of consciousness. I woke up in tears, screaming so loud I’m surprised my neighbors didn’t call the police. I ran quickly to the bathroom and wiped away my tears, then I noticed they weren’t tears. It was blood draining from my eyes. I screamed again only remembering what I did to Cali. I felt all the pain at once, the pain of feeling the wall, feeling the broken bones, the bruises in excruciating pain. My body locked and I fell to my ground still screaming. The pain flooded into my body so quickly but would not go away.
The pain kept going so I grabbed a paper next to me and wrote with shaking hands,  “I’m sorry mom… dad… I don’t know what happened to me. I love you.” I then sat on the floor crying red tears until I went black.

Tuesday

Alarm clock goes off
I sat up in bed in a panic. Not knowing what was going on. I felt numb again. The pain of last night was gone. Slowly I got out of bed and walked into my bathroom, no blood smeared across the ground like I thought there would be. Maybe it was a dream… or I should say a nightmare. But…on my bathroom counter was a piece of paper…..“I’m sorry mom… dad… I don’t know what happened to me. I love you.”

It wasn’t a dream; the note was here. Was I hallucinating, what was happening to me? What if it happens again? What would I do if it happened at school. So, I promised myself to never go back. Even though I got expelled for what I did I will not go to another school. I can’t risk this happening again. I can’t go anywhere.

OK. OK. I can’t stay imprisoned in my room like a dog, can I? I will start small and only go out when necessary. I’m surprised my mom didn’t pick up this note and wake me up earlier. Where are they? I searched all around the house but found no one.

Although I should be worried I’m not. I feel nothing. So, I walked down to the gas station to get breakfast thinking it won’t be too bad, what could really happen? I was hungry anyway.

I walked down the gray road, no cars, not a person in sight at 6 a.m. I got close to the gas station and saw the glow of the store and the street lights. There was no one there but the man working there. I got those gas station breakfast sandwiches and an energy drink. The cashier gave me an odd look when I paid for it. I think he knew to that this is going to make me sick later but I didn’t care. I was an edgy teen boy who thought he knew everything in the world but I really didn’t.

I walked out and saw a singular car stopped a little way down. Black, old, cheap car. I didn’t think anything of it until a few minutes later when the same car kept going by the streets I was walking past.

Whoever is following me must be pretty dumb if they think I haven’t noticed by now.
So, I did what every edgy teen would do right (definitely not). I walked up to the car and smashed the window… only punching the window was not a good idea. The car flew across the street in a glassy rainbow of destruction. The scream of a man inside. Time slowed down as I watched the glass breaking, the man inside trapped and getting cut by shards. The car seemed to slowly float above the ground and I walked around it. Gazing at the broken car and man’s face I stepped back a step.  Time went back to normal. The car fell to the ground in shattered parts. I… I did it again.

As soon as it was over people came outside from the nearby houses to see what made such a loud sound. Running and screaming and people asking if I was ok, what had happened. I told them I punched the car and they thought I hit my head or something.

When I started walking away they stopped me but I didn’t want to be there anymore. I wanted to go home and enjoy my gas station food. A police car came and wanted to take me in to the station to tell them what I had already told the people there. It was a pain but I went anyway. Not going to be a rebel and get a bad rep with the cops. I don’t need anything more to get in trouble with.

In the questioning room, I told them again what happened. They didn’t believe me. I said over and over I was being truthful but with no luck. They told me I needed to see a doctor. Asked where my parents were. I called them on the phone there but no one answered. So, to the hospital I went to get my head checked with the policeman. I noticed he slouched a bit and his stomach hung a tad bit over his belt. His breathing was heavy.

In the hospital, they said I was fine. Still the cops didn’t believe me. Not one scratch on my body. Somehow I was even shocked that I didn’t get the least bit cut from all the glass.

I told the nurse I needed to use the bathroom and walked toward the restroom but walked out instead. I was going home. No need to stay when they already checked everything and said I was fine.

At home, I missed my food, I wanted it back but the policeman took it. So, I didn’t eat today, that’s okay. To bed to bed said sleepyhead, oh no said slow, fill up the pit said greedy gut and we’ll eat before we go, I repeated to myself as I went to sleep. That’s something, my dad used to say before I went to bed, yet my parents were still not home.

And again, I woke up in my own blood, blood seeping out all over my body in little holes and cuts. The pain was excruciating, even worse than last time. I cried the red tears again and it felt like my screams for life were silent. I could not take the pain of this. It felt like I as dying. It felt like I was getting cut many times… just like the man from the car. I cried all night, why did I do that? Did I kill him? Why do I keep hurting people? Where are my parents? How can I fix myself? I hated myself. All my emotions flowed in at once and I couldn’t handle it. The pain of the day, the fright, the guilt.

Wednesday

Alarm clock goes off
I wake up and scurry out of bed, checking my body for cuts … but nothing. What was happening to me? I didn’t know how to comprehend what was going on. But I didn’t care anymore. So, what if I hurt them, so what if my parents are gone? I have their money to feed myself. I’ll be okay.
On the door was a paper. I walked over and picked it up. It said:

“You. William, you did that. I know who you are. I know that you hurt your only friend. I know you hit that car and it broke to a million pieces. If you thought he was following you, you were right, he was one of my guys. I’ve watched as you hurt and not care for anyone or anything. I bet at night you think you have nightmares about what happened and all your emotions come back don’t they? Well you were exposed to a drug called PsO6. We don’t know how it got into your system but it makes you a psychopathic during their day and your strength is heightened by 100 times if you’re not careful. You brain can work 100 times faster so it seems like you can slow down time when really you’re just processing everything at a lightning speed. You can now only feel emotions on your sleep.  It’s not safe for you to be in public. We have never given it to a human before and don’t know the affects. We have your parents. Please come to the 7th Avenue as soon as you read this. Come too late and your parents won’t be here anymore. You have 24 hours. It’s you or your parents. –E”

Hmmm. They forget I don’t care during the day what happens to my parents or not. Not very smart people. At least know I know though. Thanks for the information E guy.

Another note was tucked under it, it read:

“P.S. you probably don’t care about what happens to your parents right now but we have your gas station food, if you want it you can come pick it up too – E”

That changes things… so I walked out of the house bed head and all to go get my food. It was an 8 mile walk but worth it, my stomach sounded so loud and I wanted that breakfast food bad. I actually walk past the gas station to 7th Avenue to get the gas station breakfast food from yesterday mentioned in the letter.

When I got there it just looked like an abandoned building. As the doors creaked open I walked in.  The dust got in my nose and I sneezed. I walked through rooms but nothing was there. Then I felt a slight tickle in my back, someone behind me stabbed me. I took it out and dropped it on the ground while saying “can I have my breakfast?” then realizing it was a syringe.

A few seconds went by of me looking at the syringe and then I felt heavy. My upper back felt warm and wet from blood and then pain. The wanting to see my parents, the pain of hurting my friend, the guilt of hurting that man in the car even if it was one of these guys who just infected me with something new.

I fell to the ground in pain and cried. I didn’t stop crying and this time I knew I was awake. This was not just some weird dream. I was hurting people and could not stop.
A long while passed as a dark figure looked at me screaming.

Two people were brought in, my parents. My mother’s voice trying to scream for me. My tears were not blood but my back was in so much pain.  The syringe was thick and ripped into me.

They threatened to take them away forever. But I loved them. Something I had not felt in days. I would fight for them. The drug they gave me, gave me my emotions back but did not take away my strength.

I focused only on my loved ones as I jumped up and fought the guys to get my parents back from them. With one hit they all were down, some ran away. Again, it was not very well thought out. And all left but this guy that went by E. He sat and did nothing watching all of it happen.

My parents were now safe and that’s all I cared about. They called the cops and E went to jail. Without a word. Nothing came out of him but stares and smiles. He was crazy. But so was I. My parents and I went to court for this and my emotions never went away. The government has been looking for this illegal drug for so long and finally found E who made it.

But claimed I was unsafe and needed to be locked up. They didn’t understand everything that could happen with this drug yet and I agreed to be put in a nice locked up facility where I could not hurt anyone ever again. Where they can teach me to be gentle with my new strength maybe. So, one day I can go back in the world and not be afraid to save people again.

-years went by-

I’m 27 now. I go by Will and I’ve been out of the facility for a year. I can be a normal person now. I’m the first one out but somehow 476 other people were infected with this drug. It was spread by dust in the air but only people with a special blood type can process it.

I use my strength to help and serve people. I have a wife and son and always stop crime in my state. I will always be there to help and right wrongs. They can count on me to do the right thing even with more people getting infected. Having to fight them to calm them down and getting them help is the hardest thing I do. And maybe one day more people can help me. But for now, I keep everything safe as I can until more learn how to use their new strength. No one has figured out what drug E gave me to get my emotions back and scientist are working hard on getting it. It makes it impossible for anyone to get better.

But one day they will be better. And fix the world. I will find a cure.

It’s my life’s work.