You know how kids are told that not listening to your parents can lead to dire consequences? Then when the kid ends up hurting themselves their parents have a quick look of I told you so written all over their face before assessing the situation. I guess that's how you can say I received my abnormality, or mutation, or enhancement, or whatever else you want to call it? I just try not to say superpower because then that makes me sound a bit full of myself.
I was six at the time it happened. I live in Maine, where I know it's to hard imagine something weird happening, like my story, in the place where most Stephen King novels take place. The stormy weather we usually have goes on and off through out the year. No one was caught off guard when the storm came a little bit after the beginning of October to our little wannabe city of Camden.
"Once it starts raining or that cloud comes over the house sweetie, head back inside because that," I remember my mom saying as she pointed to the dark purple clouds outside our house.
"That means a huge storm's coming with most likely thunder and lightening" she warned. I gave a shudder at the statement. I should've been used to the two natural occurrences by now that came with stormy weather, but the loud clap of thunder and unnatural lighting of the sky always made me uneasy.
"Yes mama" I assured her as I adjusted my hood that was resisting my grip as it was being blown back by the wind. My mom accidentally slammed the screen door shut as I turned around towards the little neck of woods outside our house. We live outside the town's main suburb in a almost rural area giving us a lot more space than we actually needed. Our backyard was open and lead to a small, but private piece of wilderness.
At that age I kind of liked to scare myself for the fun of it to make me feel like I was on a real adventure, whenever I wondered around on my own. Considering that it was getting near Halloween, I decided what could be even more spookier then an empty forest on a dark day like this? Once I had reached the tree line I let the wind push back the hood of my pink plastic coat, knowing the trees would cover me, and ventured in. The mood was kind of ruined though by the sound of my boots squeaking with every step I took. Things were starting to feel like this wasn't the most exciting idea. No tree's were reaching out to grab my hair like they did in Snow White, there were no snakes that I could run away from as they ignored my obnoxious screaming, no ghosts seemed to want to befriend me, and the cold was starting to make my hands go numb and ghostly pale. The back of my neck was also freezing so I took my chocolate brown hair down from it's ponytail feeling a relief from the cold as the curtain of hair covered both my neck and my ears.
Out of boredom I had looked up at the sky to see if it was time to head back and noticed that as I had moved through the woods, the cloud that my mom had pointed to earlier hadn't moved at all.
"Huh?" I said out loud making goosebumps rise on my arm as my small voice hardly even echoed in the empty space.
Now remember, I was six at the time this happened so I didn't really have that little voice in my head to tell me to turn around and run back, which means that instead of doing the safe thing by heading back, I walked further into the woods. It was almost as if the further I went in, the darker the clouds seemed to get. Finally I ended up coming out on the other side of the woods right in front of a chain link fence that blocked me from going any closer to the brick building behind it. I had seen this place only once before with my parents. We didn't really know what the use of it was for but we knew it was better to just pretend it wasn't there.
It began to rain and I heard the rumble of thunder. The building in front of me couldn't have looked anymore ominous as the dark sky shadowed the building and all you could see were the indoor lights shining through the windows. Suddenly a bolt of lightening struck down on the roof making me let out a little scream of fear at it's closeness. For some reason the lights inside began to get blindingly brighter. I pulled myself up against the fence to get a closer look and that's when it happened. There was another loud clash of thunder and in just a millisecond my vision was blinded and I felt a burning sensation as I was thrown backwards from the fence.
It was hard to breath and I couldn't seem to move at first. I looked at my hands and saw that they were fine but the sleeves of my coat were practically blackened. What had happened to my boots? Had I literally been knocked off my feet? Everything was starting to go dark. It was almost like that scene in Wizard of Oz, where Dorothy see's her world in color for the first time, except the opposite for me. The world was fading and out of the corner of my eye my hair seemed to have turned to white. I just needed to close my eyes, just for a second and then everything would be fine. I would get up and walk back home, right after I closed my eyes for a minute.
Practically, what felt like a minute later I was able to open my eyes again and saw that the stars had come out. The storm was gone. I heard voice's but couldn't find them as I sat up to see if that would help me hear those ginormous fireflies in the distance?
"DIANA!" I began to hear now, it was my mom's voice.
"DIANA!" my dad shouted along. I got up and followed the voices. The outlines of my parents bodies were visible now as I realized the "fireflies" were just them holding flashlights. I didn't care that I was getting mud all over my socks, I just wanted to get back to them.
"I found her!" my mom had exclaimed as she dropped everything and ran to me.
"Your hair" she gasped out looking at a piece of hair hanging by my face. I looked at it as well, it was white, actually white. Why wasn't it brown anymore?
My mom pressed the back of her hand to my forehead and grabbed my hands.
"She's freezing, Jake" my mom spoke to my dad as he caught up to us now. He immediately stripped off his jacket and picked me up. As we made our way back home I noticed headlights driving away from the brick building, a lot of headlights to be specific.
"They're leaving, they're all leaving" I had whispered into my dad's shoulder. Both my parents looked back and noticed the sight before us but didn't say anything as we started heading back.
"Are you ok?" my dad seemed to repeatedly ask me, to which I would answer that I was feeling a bit funny but fine. Once we had reached inside, I told them everything that happened. When I had finished they had looked at me like I had told them I had flew to Disneyland and back, literally, and that's why I had ran home late. They acted funny then as they let me go to sleep afterwards but stayed in the room with me.
The next day my doctor visited. He ran tests and commented on my hair asking me if I had broken into the bleach. He had concluded just as I had said that I was fine. Throughout the day I could hear my parents almost arguing and saying things like "miracle" and "blessing" that I was alive. Why would that be though? It was just a shock wasn't it? I mean my hair was going to turn normal again right? Things only got even weirder after that.
We had carpet floors in our living room and as a kid, of course I got a kick out of that trick you could do with wearing socks. Things had finally been getting back to normal now as my parents began to let whatever it is they had been worried about at the time go.
I dragged my sock covered feet across the floor and while my dad had been watching TV, I had snuck up on him. While he was distracted I touched his foot and a visible spark practically threw him backwards in his chair. The act had caught me off guard as well as I backed up to the TV and ended up somehow making the screen brighter.
"Honey" my dad said keeping an eye on me. My mom had run into the room at that point, once she had recognized the tone my dad was using.
"What?" she asked trying to catch her breath.
"Sweetie can you do that thing again?" my dad asked.
"Are you sure?" I double checked with him. He nodded cautiously.
"Jake what-"
"Just watch" my dad assured my mom. On command I drag my feet across the floor then stopped.
"Touch the lamp" my dad informed me. I reached for the desk side lamp we had by our couch and before I could even touch it a stream of lightening shot out of my had bursting the light bulb inside the lamp. My mom's jaw flew open at the sight. Then basically long story short that's how we discovered I have superpowers. I can manipulate electricity/lightening when I'm surrounded by it. Which means we had to say goodbye to carpeted floors, goodbye to any sort of sweater or sweater vests that caused static, and goodbye to any cool science day experiments that involved electricity at the time. Honestly it's still a mystery to exactly how this happened, but we at least know when.
Now I'm sure you're probably thinking this is the point where I launch into a sob story about how my parents then thought I was a freak and left me to fend for myself, giving me a tough kick ass persona right? Actually no, they went for the more "Incredibles" route where they told me it wasn't really a necessity to tell anyone. They did a good job of helping me, as much as they could with, learning the basics of it all through little at home DIY ideas. Now as for using my powers in public and at home they were fine with it as long as they were for a good reason because you know, say it with me everyone...
"With great power comes great responsibility" and anyway even if someone saw what I could do? Who would actually believe them.
Well turns out probably quite a few these days with the events like Tony Stark being Iron Man, Manhattan, and London. They have all given me a good chance to be myself basically and take up a spot as a hero amongst them all. Turns out when you live in a tiny town of about 5,000 though there's no need for a crime fighting superhero, heck there's not even real crime here. The most I get out of these power's is that my family and I never have to deal with the electricity bill running out. As of right now let's just say that I am pretty much the most average and let's be honest laziest superhero out , things seem to have changed though.
It all started with that man on the train. Well actually it started when I was six but going for a more dramatic point in this origin story lets just say that it started with the man on the train.
I will just say right now I know nothing of Maine I just needed a town for this all to take place in so if I offend anyone from here on out for describing their hometown wrong I'm sorry. Other than that I hope you enjoyed this and another chapter will hopefully be updated soon!