Chapter 1: Awakening

Today had really sucked and it was only seven am. I woke covered in filth. My fish were dead, my dog was dead and on top of everything else, I had to quit school, just weeks before summer vacation. It was the Law...

But I didn’t need reading glasses anymore, that’s something at least. Thankfully, dad installed one of those always on, hot-water systems and after a short trip to the basement, I turned it back on. With all the dead skin cells and the black ooze that was flushed out of my pores all night while I slept and needed to be scrubbed off, the forty-minute shower would have sucked even worse if the water had turned cold. Admittedly, no more acne or glasses was a huge plus.

After Cheerios and a glass of milk, I grabbed my checkbook and headed out the door only to see that the rose bush in front of the living room window was also dead and blackened. It looked like the Sphere O’ Death from last night was at least fifty feet in radius. Since I was asleep on the second-floor last night when my powers Awoke. I could see the clear edges in the grass as I walked around the house. And a dead squirrel. Sigh. He was always cute to watch stealing seeds from the bird feeder.

Why, oh why, did dad have to turn himself into a statue?...

I walked out into the yard past the dead grass, clearly marking where my ability stopped sucking up Life energy and feeding it to me while I slept.

Oh Wow! Look at the Plum tree. The green Aura! It positively glowed with Life. The blooming flowers also sparkled with fragile Life. At least I received some beauty along with of all the death.

Placing my hand against the tree, I felt the Life flow inside of its trunk and branches flowing into the leaves. I visualized the sap flowing and the birds and bees above me pollinating the flowers. Walking around the yard, I scanned the side of the house and back to see what else I could sense. At least two dead birds on the roof over my room, dead earthworms and some sort of dead grubs under the withered lawn, a couple more dead squirrels in the yard and yet more dead birds in the bushes and the grass. I couldn’t even count the insects that were lying motionless, both above and below the earth.

I plucked one of the daisies that I had planted last month and did an experiment to see if I could control my new ability. The first one turned to ash, so did the second and third, but the fourth, fifth and sixth only blackened. With the seventh I concentrated more on flows as I watched the flower wilt. Same with the next couple in slower and slower motion.

Yes! I could control it, I think. Standing still in wonder, I felt the energy in me enhancing my natural Life Force ... I felt stronger, more awake, more aware. Gazing over my flowers I could feel one that was dying, I thought it was from a disease. I pushed some of my energy into it and it popped. Petals and the minute stem parts were scattered in all directions around the split leaking stem.

After getting off my butt from the shock, I tried to do the same to another but slowly feeding it my energy this time. Hmm ... this can work. I watched the daisy next to the blown up one come back to health and slowly straighten out. What was even better, was it didn’t feel like it took any energy to do it, just concentration. I needed to use this ability next time I bought flowers so that I didn’t get ones that already were infected with some strange hidden diseases.

School...

Sigh ... Stupid anti-powers law. It’s not like kids didn’t bring knives and two-hundred-and-fifty pound linebackers to school. The stupid government would try to put me into one of their programs or get rid of me unless they thought I could be controlled or was willingly work with them. Fat chance of that. They wouldn’t even let me see my dad. Assholes.

Three years since the Event, and the government was still trying to bag or tag all the powered. The only ones that we heard getting free of them were criminals that they hunted or the useless ones. Like Cathy who could make an illusion of a dot in a five-foot radius. And she was still kept for observation for a year. She barely talked to anyone since returning from the government camp.

I wonder what she was like before.

This wasn’t getting me to school. I was ‘dithering’, as dad used to say.

Unlocking the garage door, I took out my bike and pedaled the mile to school. I tried not to use the car too often. Insurance was half if I drove it less than three thousand miles per year and I needed the exercise. The ride to school today was a lot easier than it was yesterday. Way easier. And faster, not that I rode that much faster. I just didn’t slow down at all from fatigue. Less toxins in my system, I guessed. Or maybe none at all anymore. Maybe all that sludge I woke covered in this morning was from my powers cleaning out my system.

The internet said I needed to speak with the vice principal to withdraw. The students didn’t seem to like her, but I hadn’t dealt with any of the administrators before so wouldn’t know. I locked my bike in the usual place and doggedly entered the main offices after climbing up the twenty-six steps to the double set of glass doors. It was still twenty minutes before class, so few students and no teachers were around. Mrs. Cashman was in her usual place on the phone taking names from parents calling their kids in sick. I waved and went straight into the VP’s office. Seeing the stern matron on her personal cell phone, I closed the door behind me and waited for her to finish her call. Which she did abruptly.

“Excuse me.” And of course, my voice cracked. Wonderful. I withdrew my printed form letter for withdrawing from school and handed over a check for $315.

“The check is for the books. I don’t plan on returning any and we were told each would cost $45 at the end of the year unless we did.” My hands were sweaty. Traitorous sweat.

“It says your reason for quitting is ‘personal’. Mr. Stevens, why are you leaving school if there are only seven weeks left?” Demanded Ms. Ryarson, but she didn’t sound hostile.

“Family issues, ma’am.” No voice cracking this time.

“You know I will have to report this to the Agency.” She looked determined. “Can’t you not use whatever it is until the end of the year. It might be safer.” The stern school official actually looked and sounded concerned for me. Who knew?

“For me yes, but not for them.”

“Oh.”

“Can you send my stuff home with Cheryl Moore? She’s my next door neighbor.”

“Hold on, Nathan.” Ms. Ryarson did something on the computer. It was facing her so I couldn’t see what. “All ‘A’s’ since you started here. Do you think you would have gotten the same grades if you stayed?”

I almost snapped ‘of course’, but something held me back, besides general politeness. I shrugged instead and said “Might get a B in art, my face didn’t turn out too well.”

“I will mark you as graduating from this year early then. It will be up to your teachers if they down grade you or not, but you will get credit.” Ms. Ryarson swiveled and fed my letter into the shredder. “Do you have anyone you can go to, Nathan?”

“No, ma’am. Father was an early casualty of the Event.” For the millionth time I wondered if I should have a card made up saying that and hand them out instead of the usual spiel. The nation had too many instant orphans and scionschip was easiest that way to deal with the countless kids like me. The courts had no way of dealing with the backlog of cases that cropped up. So, I blended in with the others. Mostly.

“Yes, I remember.” Her countenance softened further. “There were fifteen million instant orphans and homeless across the country and fourteen became the new age for Scionship.” The Scion Law covered a gray area for a person who could live as an adult and sorta legally be treated as one. Not completely. It was a manufactured loophole.

Just then, the first bell went off making me jump and her eyes widen alarmingly. “Nathan, you glowed white for a brief second there.” Saddened I turned to leave but she stopped me. “You might want to wait until after the second bell. Let the students clear out of the halls and into their classes.”

“Thanks,” I replied, misunderstanding what she meant.

“I meant it might be easier on you since you aren’t going to class.”

“Oh, sorry.”

“Nathan, if you don’t end up going to the Agency, try Dr. Parson in Westmont Hospital. 555-1943 Tell her you just Awoke and are a bit confused. She will take it from there.” The surprisingly nice vice-principle wrote down the phone number on a card and handed it to me. I was too self-absorbed at the time to understand her meaning. But I thanked Ms. Ryarson anyway and waited until the second bell rang before trudging through the office for the last time.

Half way into town I saw two bright red helicopters fly straight to my school. Which boded ill for me. Very ill. Horribly ill. Sigh. I kept pedaling to the bookstore to get the anatomy and botany books that I would probably need in the near future. Exiting the bookstore, I headed through the park hoping to avoid the Feds. I wasn’t in any mood to deal with the Agency or any government employee today, tomorrow, or ever really. Unfortunately for me, one of the helicopters was at the exit of the park and five men in full enviro suits were waiting. It looked like the usual team consisting of leader, engineer, and three soldiers, or so the NY Times said.

The Captain, not even bothering to raise his visor, said, “Citizen, come peacefully or we shall take measures.” In a tone that would raise the hackles of anyone alive. He wanted a confrontation.

“I’ll pass, why don’t you take a Dale Carnegie course. Sheesh. Or go harass someone else?” No way, no how.

“Umm, Captain.” A Sergeant began to speak, only to be ignored by the officer. “Private Jin; trank the mutant.” Lovely. One of the soldiers did as ordered. I felt a mild punch in the chest and a light burning sensation. I looked down and saw and felt the grass die in a two-foot radius around me.

“Get the coffin boys, he will be out in ten seconds.” Funny, I didn’t feel like I was drugged. The burning sensation stopped even before it really started, kinda like a mosquito bite without the after itchiness once the pain faded from the initial punch. I looked back up and the Sergeant took one, two, three-steps backwards. The Captain, meanwhile, started toward me only to be stopped by the worried Sergeant.

“What are you blabbering about, he is only a lowly, Class II Elementalist.” I looked at the Sergeant, then at the idiot Captain, then the soldier still aiming his weapon at me. Dumbfounded, I pulled the trank from my chest and dropped it.