Life-Shattering Experience
Mari Ying. Age, 18 years old, college student, orphan; for whatever reason, she felt horribly depressed. She doesn't know why, but for some reason, she just felt the need to just end it all. And the memories in her head, for some reason she's been thinking of the worst times in her life. The death of her parents, the loneliness she's always been in, her best friend's death, the feeling of uncertainty if she's capable in taking care of a young boy by herself… And now, she's standing on top of a building looking down.
A few hours ago, she was supposed to be volunteering for a medical project concerning people with mental illness and catatonic depression. She went in thinking she'd help out around for the medical project, but what she didn't know was that they knocked her out and stuck her on a strange chair where she's sitting in front of a patient who is unresponsive. The nurses then came into the room pushing a cart with two tubes and a pair of needles on it. She couldn't help but feel extremely worried and scared. She thought it would be an innocent volunteering, not this. She wanted to say something but the nurses pulled her head back, strapped it in place, one of them then took off her glasses off her face then placed it on the cart and took out the needles. Mari started struggling and started yelling,
"What is the meaning of this?! What are you going to do to me?!"
"Now now, you've volunteered to be part of the project haven't you? So, it will be a short one. Promise." One of the nurses said and she then pierced the needle into her, the other nurse did the same to the patient and they both then waited for the doctor. For what felt like hours, but was only a few minutes, the doctor came with a cart of his own with a cloth over whatever it was he's hiding under it. The doctor is a strange jittery man, who looked like he hadn't slept for weeks and his wardrobe looked decent enough to look like he's ready for an event, but not as neat as he thought, like he doesn't really know how to dress himself properly for that particular event. Mari could feel her breath getting short and she could tell she's hyperventilating; the doctor then pulled the sheet off the cart revealing some kind of weird machine that can be attached to the head. The doctor then spoke up,
"Hello everyone! Thank you for attending the lecture! Today, I will be showing my demonstration of my new invention!"
She didn't understand until she noticed the area she's in. it looked like there are an audience above them all around the room. She then noticed that what they're on is actually a stage. She then struggled against the straps as the doctor picked up one of the devices of his invention and placed it on the patient's head. He then picked up the second device and walked up to her. Her heart started racing as the doctor got closer, she tugged her hands as hard as she can, but he placed the head piece on her head which was actually very painful as the needles on it pierced through her head causing blood to fall. When he's done, the doctor went up to the machine,
"Now, it begins. Today, I will show you how we will help the mentally ill. Our volunteer will be reading this patient's emotions with the serum my nurses injected into them and now, the machine I've invented will project thoughts of the patient and we can see what her problem in her head is. We can see her thoughts, her memories, through our volunteer here. Our volunteer will sense the patient's emotion and our volunteer will show us what she's feeling!"
Mari could feel herself about ready to faint as the doctor started the machine. The head piece on her head then started glowing, then sparking. Whatever that machine is doing it's making her body feel strange, like it's heating up and her skin feels like it's getting burned off, she couldn't help but let out a painful scream as the machine then started expanding, the doctor and nurses stared at the machine and started running, the machine then explode. Mari didn't know what happened next, but after that loud explosion, she blacked out.
Mari stood over the edge of the building, shadows covering nearly half her view. Some people stared up at the building she's on pointing and screaming, she wondered why everyone is screaming, their voices are so loud and clear, as she threw herself off. She closed her eyes feeling about ready to die when suddenly, her feelings changed. She opened her eyes feeling extreme fear; she let out a scream feeling the wind through her body. She then covered her face waiting for the impact wishing she had never thrown herself off the building and wishing she could see her little brother again. When suddenly, she felt she was getting pulled and she could feel something pressing her to them as they both landed rather roughly. She pulled her hands from her face and opened her eyes to see a face looking down on her. It's a boy who saved her, around his teens. He has short black hair and a strong jaw line; his eyes are a piercing blue colour. His face is very handsome to what people will say, but to her, he just reminded her of her recently deceased friend. Neither of them said a word, until out of nowhere; she broke down and started crying into her saviour's chest wetting his black shirt until she blacked out.
The Justice League gave the young team a mission. They were given to investigate a building that holds suspicious activities; the team learned the sketchy activities were underground doctors and inventors demonstrating their research or inventions to the underground organizations hoping to sell their inventions for great sums of money.
The team managed to find the founder of the underground business; they took his guards down just fine, until they heard the sound of the fire alarm and explosions. Aqualad told Kid Flash and Artemis to tie the founder and his guards up and take them to a safer place as the rest went to search the area for survivors. Superboy followed the team out as they round up the survivors, but stopped when he noticed something strange about his shadow. His shadow popped out of the wall and started flying to the direction of the stairs, he decided to follow it. The team managed to get the survivors out of the building and all was well, Miss Martian then noticed Superboy was missing and was about to ask the team where he was when a survivor started pointing out at the building screaming at whatever they're seeing, the team turned around not really prepared for the surprise in front of them. The burning building looked like it was getting engulfed in a large shadow, but keeping the building from being engulfed was a figure on top of the building, Miss Martian looked closely and could see clearly that it's a girl, about 5'4 and around their age. The girl stood there for a for seconds until she threw herself off the building, Miss Martian let out a gasp and was ready to catch her when Superboy then jumped after her. They watched him catch her mid-fall and landed. The team ran up to them as the girl in his arms fainted in his arms after her break down,
"Superboy!" Miss Martian called out when she made it to him. Superboy stood up from the ground holding the unconscious girl in his arms. The rest of the team reach them when Kid Flash spoke up,
"Well, that was interesting. What do we do now?"
"Of course we need to report this to the Justice League, we obviously got more than we came for and it looks like she won't wake up any time soon." Robin told them as he started calling for Batman. As he was doing that, Artemis looked at the girl in Superboy's arms and spoke,
"Have to say, she put up quite a show. I haven't seen anyone lose it quite like her before."
Aqualad told everyone to move out from the site and arrest the ones who were participating in the sketchy presentations, they all then decided to head back to Mount Justice where they think it'll be a little safer to keep the girl.
Mari abruptly shot up from bed gasping and soaked in sweat, completely disoriented. She touched her forehead and could feel bandages wrapped around her head now remembering the device from before and shuddered. She looked around the wondering where she is and what's going on. She could see that, she is in a bedroom. She couldn't help but get scared and scrambled out of bed,
"W-where am I? W-what's going o-on?" She stuttered as she looked around some more getting overwhelmed, she then headed to the doorway out to the hallway. She started hyperventilating and turned left running hoping to find the exit. It's been maybe an hour looking for an exit when her breath was getting short and she needed to stop to breathe. She cupped her hands over her mouth to calm herself. When her breath became calmer, a hand roughly grabbed her by the shoulder,
"What are you doing?" looking up at the face of the one who spoke, she could see it was the boy who saved her. She gasped and quickly backed away scared,
"Who are you?! Where am I!?" She demanded as her heart rate picked up again. The boy didn't say anything and just glared at her which isn't doing anything other than making her more agitated than she already is, then a second boy in yellow came running to them at an inhumanly fast speed,
"Oh! Superboy, you found her, good job!" The boy in yellow said as he patted him on the back, Mari then started to inch away from them as the boy in yellow tried approaching her,
"Hey, its okay, we're not here to hurt you. We're here to help you out, okay?" The boy's words eased her a little bit until a voice suddenly spoke up from out of nowhere,
"Hello, Superboy? Wally? Did you find her?" A female voice from nowhere spoke causing her to scream,
"Wha- Who's there?!" She yelled holding her head, the boy in yellow could see, very clearly, that what the voice in their is really not helping at all, and tried to tell the voice not to use her telepathy right now,
"Uh... Megan? I don't think you should use your telepathy right now..."
"Hmm? Why not? Is everything okay?"
"Yeah... No. Not really."
Unbeknownst to Mari, a huge bunch of shadow tentacles was forming from behind her, looking about ready to attack. The one called Superboy growled at her getting himself to attack as well, but the boy in yellow now known as Wally turned to him and shook his head to him,
"Don't, Superboy! You'll just make it-" he tried to tell him, but ended up getting hit by one of them to the side of the hallway. Mari turned around and sees those tentacles in shock. She then backed away from it, but unfortunately, it's following her. She let out a scream and started running from the opposite direction of the shadow and passed the two boys, Superboy tried chasing after her, but ended up getting hit by one of them as well.
Mari then made it to what looks like the center of the unknown place, she ran to the center quickly looking around for an exit when that shadow thing followed close behind, she quickly ran away from it, she noticed it getting bigger. She couldn't help but start crying,
"AHH! HELP ME!" After that, she tripped and fell on the spot. She got up from the ground and turned her head to the shadow and suddenly turned to a ball, hoping to shield herself from any attack from it.
Megan flew around the hideout, looking for the girl, when she could hear panicked thoughts screaming in her head. She knows the girl is scared and confused and she knows she needs to find her and calm her down. She then could sense the girl stopped at the center of the hideout and decided to gather everyone together,
"Everyone, the girl is in the center of the hideout."
And, so everyone then headed to the center of the hideout, which was surprisingly difficult since the shadows were in the way and attacking the team in such a frenzy way; they all made it to the center and could see the girl huddled into a corner covering her eyes, and face away from that huge shadow standing over her. The shadow then turned itself into tentacles and attacked the team once again; Robin dodged two or three of the shadows and threw three of his batarangs as Aqualad cut a few as it tried surrounding him. The shadows tried getting Kid Flash but he of course is too fast for them, Superboy just charged at them head on and punched two or three of them. Megan could see through her mind that the girl is denying what's in front of her and she could see in that girl's mind that she had no idea of the power she has. Megan then concentrated to the girl, hoping to reach her,
"You must calm down." She told her, the girl shot her head up after hearing Megan in her head. The girl then held her head tightly quivering,
"P-please! Stop this! I can't take it anymore!"She told her sobbing; Megan dodged some shadows and responded,
"I can't, only you can stop it!" The girl stopped crying and just looked confused,
"What?! Me?! How?! I don't even know what's going on let alone know how to stop this thing!" Megan understands the girl is confused, but if she doesn't do something now, the hideout will collapse and everyone will die. She dodged a few more and spoke again,
"I know you may not believe this, but it seems these shadows are your powers. You have to find a way to control it."
"What...? B-but... How?"
"Please, we don't have much time!"After she said her piece, Megan had no choice but to cut off and defend herself when more shadows came her way.
Mari watched those strange people fight completely dumbfounded. All her live, she never would have thought how her life would turn to something out of a comic book... Getting suddenly involved in some horrible experiment, getting into a freak accident, achieving powers, meeting superheroes... It's all too farfetched! Well, she knows superheroes exist and all, but her meeting them just feel like one in a million. What Mari would ever thought she'd ever be in is a normal life. Well. What she'd thought a normal life would be. She just hoped to live with her brother happily and support him as much as she can, and even maybe, she gets a better job to support the two of them by getting a better home and she would help her brother grow to be a fine adult in the future. The shadows are getting even worse now and Mari is now starting to lose herself inside her memories or even her 'what if's and 'should have's.
Superboy turned to her and ran to her direction, thinking if he went to her he'd stop her somehow. As he made it to her, he pulled her by the collar making her snap out of her trance.
Mari stared up at the boy surprised by his sudden pull at her collar. The boy just glared at her, looking as if to find a way to stop this whole mess. Mari just continued staring at this boy now remembering how much he almost physically looks like her dead friend. His black hair in the same haircut, the same strong jaw line... It's funny, especially how their physiques are similar, but obviously this boy is a lot fit than he was. She remembered teasing him about that and he wouldn't even be fazed at all, just good-heartedly brush it off as if his little sister was teasing him. She remembered how happy her little brother was and how he used to cling and looked up to him all the time.
Superboy was thinking of knocking her out, when he noticed the shadows stopped attacking his team. He then also noticed the shadows are getting smaller. He let go of the girl's collar as she collapsed to the floor. The Team sheathed their weapons as the Shadows disappeared. Megan then went up to the both of them and checked to see how the girl was doing; she could see the girl is in a dazed state, looking relieved. He turned to her wondering what he did to stop it; she didn't look at him and just sat there looking at the floor. Aqualad then went up to them,
"Good job, Superboy." Superboy looked at him not knowing what to say and just responded,
"Uh... Yeah." Megan held the girl up and told them she's going to bring her to the lounging room for her to sit down and rest as the rest of the team will clean up the place after what just happened a few seconds ago. Superboy just stood in place a few seconds just watching Megan and that girl head to the lounging room. The girl then turned her head to him see him just staring at her. She noticed and meekly turned back forward, as they finally left his view he went ahead and helped with the cleaning.