"Alexis, are you sure you don't want a ride? It's raining like hell out there," my best friend Katie remarked as she peered anxiously out of her mom's red Honda. I cracked a smile and replied,
"Yah know Kate, I'm pretty sure is doesn't rain in Hell. I'm not sure if you knew this, but Hell is supposed to be a place where 'sinners burn'. Not sure if that would work so well if it was raining" I watched in pleasure as her face flamed red to match her hair; Katie absolutely despised being outsmarted, since she had this illusion that she was some sort of genius.
"Okay, well, whatever! Have fun getting drenched, Asshole!" Katie's green eyes glared into my scarily dark ones as she rolled up her power window and gestured to her mom to go. Her mom, the beefy, soccer-mom type, gave me a filthy look before peeling away from the curb. I gave a sardonic wave as the car swung around the corner and out of sight, then sighed loudly. Katie was royally pissed off, but that wasn't an unusual occurrence. Not that I was worried or anything; it's easy enough to get rid of Katie's anger; all I have to do is blame it all on PMS. For some reason, this made every act of wrongdoing acceptable in Katie's eyes if it happened during this time of the month. Of course, it didn't strike her as odd that I used this excuse at least four times a month.
Don't get me wrong, Katie is a great… I love hanging out… She's very ni… Okay, Katie is a total bitch and I only hang out with her because it protects me from the cruel world of my high school. I prefer to hang out by myself, but of course an act like that would instantly get me labeled as either "emo" or "goth" which would then result in dead bats being hung in my locker and shit like that. Seriously, it's happened before and I'm pretty sure the victim killed herself. Anyway, I can hang around Katie without talking much because she usually does most of it. I should try to be nicer to her though; one more insult and I could find my walks down the hallway plagued with malevolent whispers.
While I had been musing over my friendship, the front of my school had slowly emptied of kids as they hopped into their cars of varying niceness and drove off. I stretched my arms over my head and peeked at my watch which showed that it had been twenty minutes since school ended. I decided to take an alley shortcut I discovered a few years back. Of course, walking a deserted alley in New York City while the clouds are blocking the sun is pretty much the stupidest thing a girl can do. It cuts my travel time in half though, and offers ample protection from the rain. Anyway, I'm not worried about my safety; I have a built-in protection device. As I began strolling towards the alley, conveniently located just a couple blocks, I remembered that faithful day just four months ago when I had discovered my true potential.
It was about a week after my seventeenth birthday and I had been wandering around the city with this boy I was really good friends with. He had told me just the day before that he was moving to Texas, so the air was filled with a spirit of melancholy. I couldn't stand the silence, so I started an argument, a very pointless one that I can't even remember. My friend quickly got irritated, it was a very stressful time for him, and stalked across the street. I watched him, with a scowl on my face, reach the middle of the street. It was then a large SUV came barreling around the corner, at least 25 miles over the speed limit and heading straight for my friend. The driver attempted to stop, but he was going too fast.
"No!" I screamed swinging my hand toward my friend as if to push him out of the way. I knew it was too late though; the car was going into a skid and my friend was frozen to the spot. He was going to die.
Suddenly, my hand seized up and started to tingle. I watched in awe as the car smashed against an invisible barrier and crumpled like an aluminum can. As I sprinted toward my friend still standing in the middle of the street, I could hear sobs issuing from the totaled car. Trying my best to tune them out, I grabbed the arm of my friend's jacket and tugged him after me. Miraculously, his feet followed my pace.
"What just happened back there?" he gasped out once we stood in abandoned alley. I bit my lip and shook my head.
"I have no idea."
The next day, I was watching the early morning news when a story came on about the car crash. The solemn reporter told about the mysterious circumstances that totaled the car and killed all three passengers. I sat on the couch and stared at the T.V. without blinking for the duration of the story. When it ended, I wiped the tears out of my eyes and vowed never to tell anyone. I didn't even try to forget about my abilities though; instead, I began to refine them.
I started out weak with no fear or panic to drive me, but my barriers soon strengthened with persistence and hard work. I went to deserted alleyways and empty parking lots to practice and soon learned my powers extended beyond defensive moves. I could also move objects and possibly people with extreme force. Just the other day, I had actually managed to pick up a junked car with only my mind and smash it against a brick wall so that it resembled the car from four months ago. I was currently working on lifting myself into the air so I could reach high places. I'm not quite sure what I hoped to accomplish by developing my powers, but my female intuition told me it would be important. Well, whatever purpose it might serve in the future, it did help in the present one way. I could go anywhere at any time of day and always feel positively safe.
I reminisced about these memories as I strolled down the familiar alleyway, staying under an overlapping roof that blocked out half of the rain. The other half I took care of with an invisible canopy over my head. I was so wrapped up in my own thoughts and concentrating on maintaining the force field that I didn't at first notice the two figures standing in the middle of the alleyway.
They were two men; one tall and black with a hard piercing look, the other bespectacled with a slight smirk tugging upward on his lips. Both of them were staring intently at me, like a crouching tiger would stare at a frolicking rabbit. A small twinge of fear stabbed at me, but it was just instinct. I knew that these men couldn't hurt me. I was invincible.
"Can I help you?" I called out to the continuously staring men. The tall one responded by stepping forward while the one with the glasses drew a gun out from a shoulder holster. I froze, every pore of my body tingling with alert.
"Okay, we can do this the easy way or the hard way," the man with the gun (the glasses no longer mattered) said in a very calm voice considering the situation. I sneered at him and prepared to levitate a huge garbage can into his head. With my mind, I found the garbage can's essence and took control of it. With just one little jerk of my hand, I could bring this perverted asshole down. I twitched my fingers and watched for the large metal cylinder to jump into the air. Something was wrong though, I could feel the can's essence slipping out of my mind. I was struggling to grip it, to keep control of it. This wasn't right; this trick should be simple for me by now. I squeezed my hands into fists and gritted my teeth, putting all my mental power into this one simple task. I felt something warm trickle out of my nose and down my face, but I didn't break my concentration to check it out. I was staring right into the eyes of the black man and I could see in them that something he was doing was preventing me from using my power. Finally, I couldn't take it anymore. I allowed my control of the trash can to flow out of my brain and back into the object. My head still felt like it was about to explode though, and nausea was rearing its ugly head. I crumpled to my knees and vomited up my lunch, now tinged with the pink of blood. Exhaustion swept over me and, shaking, I curled up into a ball in my own puddle of vomit. Before passing out, I stared up into the faces of the two men now standing over me and whimpered,
"Please don't kill me."