NOT AN ORIGIN STORY
?You?re not interested in who I was before I got the powers. You?re interested in who I was before I became a hero.?
Forty minutes east of Trennorville there is a golden field of wheat.
A young woman in dirt-stained jeans and a baggy gray sweatshirt stands in the center of this field with her arms stretched wide. She has a round, shiny face with no makeup. Her eyes are closed.
She spreads her fingers, shifting them minutely. A light blue sphere held together by flickering veins of force begins to envelop her. Dark, wild, unruly hair stands on end - not by static, but a levitative force. Her feet leave the ground. The sphere moves with her.
Her eyes fly open. The sphere dissipates. She thuds back to the ground. She stands frozen, staring ahead, then down at the earth. Her breaths are shallow.
It takes her many tries, but hours later she hovers a few feet off the ground, the toes of white sneakers brushing the heads of wheat. Her face glows with exhilaration. The massive sphere around her is gone. Instead, each hand is surrounded by the blueish glow, in an orb the size of a fishbowl.
Some spark of clarity sends her crashing back to earth. She yells. She lands flat on her back.
Staring up at the sky, she gives a yell of frustration, then slams both fists into the earth.
The reaction is immediate. Spoil sputters, and her arms thud from recoil. Two mini-craters are left in the ground from her blows.
She scrambles to her feet at once. She locks eyes on a patch of earth, and curls a fist. There is a pregnant pause as she stands motionless, but then she lashes out in a purposeful jab.
The force knifes the earth, spraying dirt. She winces, but does not miss a beat. Wham. Wham-wham. Two more blows in quick succession, aiming for taller wheat.
The wheat bows.
Her eyes narrow. She turns her fist into a flat palm, and lunges forward, yelling. She whips her arm horizontally, and severs every wheat stalk in front of her that dared to stand tall.
And now the story can begin.
____
Trennorville?s south side was no place to wander once the traffic lights start flashing red.
He had been following her since she got off the subway. Every time she crossed the street, he did the same, gaining on her, block-by-block.
It drove her mad. She could hear him breathing, hear his footsteps. That?s how close he was.
She stops and turns. He is a shadowy figure with his hands in his pockets. He slows, but still advances on her steadily.
?Leave me alone,? she whimpers, holding out a palm, fingers curled.
He keeps at her, steps quickening now. She stumbles backward. Panic seizes her, and she strikes out like she struck at the wheat.
He goes flying backward with a yell of shock. He lands at an angle, but on his back, on the edge of an open dumpster bin. Something cracks, and he flops oddly to the ground.
Terror fills her. She staggers toward him, examines him. Blood trickles from his mouth. His eyes are open. She grabs a handful of his jacket, shakes him. He does not move.
A wail starts in her throat, but a flash of light cuts it off. A police cruiser rounds the corner; she is caught in its headlights. The siren chirps. She backs up more, turns, and runs.
As she gathers speed, the siren begins wailing in earnest. She runs faster, arms and legs churning. She races around the corner, a row of apartment buildings behind tall green fences.
Still she runs. She stares at the fences, remembering how she levitated in the field. They seem impossibly high, that field seems impossibly far away.
The cruiser gains ground on her, and she can see her own shadow spread in front of her, from all the lights. The officer shouts something. She can feel the heat of the engine.
Blinded by panic once more, she thrusts down at the ground with a spike of force, and pops herself into the air, very high. She clears the fence and its pointed ends but lands hard, on her shoulder, like a pole-less pole-vaulter.
She scrambles up and staggers across the courtyard, clutching her shoulder, towards the apartment building. The officer leaves his car and chases her, opening the gate with ease. She corners herself in a walled alley. Her back is against the brick. Both her hands are out. The energy sparks and flickers in her fingertips; her emotions surge. He approaches her, barking orders. Gun out, flashlight blinding her, demanding she stand down, lie down.
She makes no sense as she cries: ?Please, please, please, don?t, I don?t want to, don?t make me, no, no, no,? and as she yells, he yells. He takes a step closer. She wails. She has nowhere to go. Screams.
A gunshot. Her power explodes to life in a pure strong blue, the strongest it?s ever been. The flare punishes the bullet and its sender, shattering windows. When the blue subsides, there are car alarms, muffled yelling, radio squawks, and a still body thirty feet away.
She squats, crying, fingers curled in her hair, refusing to budge an inch to check on the officer, remembering only the dead man?s expression from earlier, by the dumpster.
But she looks up. Walls, sheer brick walls. She imagines again the safety of the field. She imagines levitating herself, but the fear of falling stabs her clean through.
She hears more sirens.
With nothing else to do, she rises to her feet. She is trembling, but centers her feet, directs her palms towards the ground and lifts herself slowly, ever so slowly. The flickering blue returns.
She tilts her head back and looks up at the sky, focusing on the stars, ignoring the brick even as it begins to drift downward. She levitates. She grabs the roof rail, clambers her way up.
She is on top of the building, now, and walks to its opposite edge. The route is not direct. There is uneven footing. Wind turbines churn. Gables here and there. Trennorville?s skyline is afire in front of her, muted orange in a dull sky.
She slides down into a seated position, hidden from sight - safe, for now. She draws her knees to her chest and sobs, wiping her nose, wiping her eyes on sweatshirt sleeves. Her shoulder, head, and heart ache.
Minutes pass, and she stops crying. She creates tiny, marble-sized force orbs and flicks them away.
The sirens are still approaching. Again, she gathers herself and stands. Nowhere to go but across. She puts one foot onto the ledge and peers over. A lower-story gable separates her from the next building; she could not walk, as the roof is angled.
She licks her lips and creates a shield below her, and tests her weight. It holds. She stands on it completely. There is nothing underneath her white sneakers but the energy.
She moves the force field with herself on it across the gap. She keeps her eyes focused on the other end.
She gets one foot onto the opposite side, home free, but the shield breaks as she leans her weight back.
She falls.
Reflex causes her to break her fall with a field, deflecting her into some bushes. She is stunned but not hurt, tangled.
She limps off, walking back the same way she had run earlier. Police cruisers whizz by to investigate the explosion around the corner - they pay her no mind.
She crosses the street early and refuses to look at the body by the dumpster.
She walks for a long time, mind churning, arms wrapped tightly around herself, returning to Trennorville?s downtown area.
She walks by a convenience store. It is jarringly bright inside. She notices a stand of superhero comics by the window. Someone exits, brushing past her. She stops walking, turns, pushes the door in, enters.
The bell dings.
The man behind the counter is Indian. She walks up, and speaks in a monotone.
?Can I use your bathroom??
?You have to buy something first,? he replies.
She casts about, snatches up a 5-Hour Energy from the rack, and sets it on the counter. She fishes out some crumpled bills and toss them on the counter.
The man takes her money, runs it through the register. He gives her a curious look. ?You lost??
She thrusts out a hand for the key, and her change. She shoves everything into her pockets, and heads to the bathroom.
The bathroom is equally bright. She relieves herself. She hunches over, curling her fingers, snaring them in her hair, exhausted, overwhelmed. She gets up and approaches the sink.
She stares at herself, vacantly. Chapped lips. Flat, greasy face. Weary eyes. Thick, poofy hair. The horrors of the night echo in her mind. The sirens, the screams, the sick feeling of terror.
As she washes her hands, the hair tie around her wrist catches her eye.
She removes it, and ties her hair back into a loose ponytail, just to get it out of her face. Dissatisfied, she does it again, this time pulling it tight, painfully tight, taming the mess, wrestling control over it.
She stares at her reflection again. Her breaths are shallow. She huffs. She pushes back the sleeves of her sweatshirt. She huffs again.
She clenches her fist, and gives a gameface snarl.
Ripping the plastic off the bottle, she downs the 5-Hour Energy and slams it in the sink.
She erupts from the bathroom, striding with purpose. Her eyes glitter. She tosses the key back over the country and hits the door hard on her way out.
Her stride turns into a jog.
Steps later, the jog turns into a sprint.
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