An introverted teenage boy with an unconventional superpower, Taylor uses his powers to find escape from a deeply unhappy and frustrated civilian life. His first attempt at using his powers for thrusts him into the midst of the local 'cape' scene's politics, crime, gangs, and drugs as he struggles to maintain his conscious and swallow his compunction as he swirls deeper into the pit of crime and corruption that is Brockton Bay. As he risks life and limb, Taylor faces the turmoil of having to do the wrong things for the wrong reasons.

ARC 1 : GESTATION

1.1

I stared at the clock on the wall as if I were a convict staring at a guillotine. Each infuriating tick counting down to the entire hour of hell that I would have to weather through. Five minutes until lunchtime.

In hindsight, coming to this class in the first place was a bad move in my part, but the time to regret that decision was long past. I could already feel his eyes piercing the back of my neck. It was only a matter of time until he caught up to me, and… well, if my bruised right arm tied to my neck with a sling is anything to go off of, beat me to a pulp and leave me near dead. Remembering that night brought a pang of sharp pain in my shoulder.

I tried to focus on Mr. Gladly to distract myself from the pain, but as he excitedly yammered on something relating to cape politics that we already covered years ago. But as he went on, my attention towards him continually degraded while the pain in my shoulder intensified.

I couldn't care less about schoolwork to be honest. I remember when school was life, I wonder how me from then would react to my grades nowadays.

I looked at the clock again, I felt my heart rate increasing with every lapse of the round clock head. I could feel my heartbeat in my ears. I could feel the heartbeats within the walls.

"And look at the clock, Sorry Class, but I'm afraid there is in fact gonna be a little homework for tonight"

Groans were heard throughout the class, although mine was more like the gurgling death rattle a dying antelope, tired with life but still not wanting his throat ripped out by the lion. Internally of course, I do not nearly have the self-esteem to groan out loud.

And all of a sudden, I felt a sharp pain in my right arm. I grunted. I looked back, trying to see who did it, I saw a tuft of red hair in the corner of my vision and immediately regretted it.

Looking back, that was a bad move on my part. I should have known it was Madison, the signs were there, who the fuck else would do something so stupidly childish? There was already giggling in the back, was that not proof enough?

Why the fuck did I have to turn backwards.

I already felt his stare on my neck, his stone cold stare. I stared at the shadow he cast from the back of the room. I could see him shaking with rage that had been building up the entire length of the class, that had just been released the moment I had committed the egregious sin of having his girlfriend in my peripheral. His shadow looked strangely smoky, like the source of the shadow had been slowly melting away in his own rage.

When Gladly opened the door, I immediately bolted out and didn't look back. It was futile, of course, it's not like I could out run a track runner.

I ran as fast as I could and acted on my instincts to find a room, a container, or something I could lock myself in.

In hindsight, that was a bad instinct to have when running away from somebody that could kick off every single door in the school off its hinges. Especially because it made me make the stupid decision of hiding inside a bathroom stall.

Great choice, Taylor. Now you've ensured that there are as few witnesses as possible see the pummeling that you are about to receive. Why don't you kick your own ass while you're at it, save everyone the trouble.

It was 10 seconds or so until I smelt him, or, they smelled him, the things scurrying inside the walls and in the ceilings.

Those ten seconds lasted a lifetime as I felt my life up until that point flash in front of my eyes. I was almost pissing myself with fear, I tried counting, breathing exercises, fucking anything.

I then heard him, then I felt him. There was a bang, a loud one. It was several stalls away from mine, but it shook even the ceramic toilet I was sitting on.

"IN THERE, YOU FUCKER, I KNOW YOUR HIDING IN THERE, GET THE FUCK OUT FACE ME LIKE A MAN!"

I heard each stall being being kicked open violently in succession until he kicked mine. He kicked the door so hard, but amazingly, the lock help up. But the screws holding the thing together were shaking, it would not withstand another kick.

"OPEN THE FUCK UP YOU FUCKING BITCH!" Another kick landed against the door, and the hinges shot off into the ceiling, and the door went flying everywhere in pieces, chipped wood and sawdust fell to the floor as I was face to face with Solomon Hess.

I did not have the chance to process this when he pulled me up by my collar and threw me to the sinks, only to pull me by my collar again.

"Did I not FUCKING tell you!" He growled at my face. I was not facing him, instead I looked to the side where there was an audience forming outside the bathroom. They wouldn't do anything, of course, or say anything. In fact, I saw light reflecting off a camera that was being used to record me. " Did I not fucking tell you to not even LOOK-"He socked me in the nose.

I felt an explosion of pain as my glasses snapped in half, and the frame dug into my cartilage.

"AT HER" He finished the statement by punching me above the stomach, but beneath the chest. I felt the air go out of my lungs. I wheezed, and wheezed further before dropping to the ground.

My vision was blurry, and my pain was dull as the noises began to intensify. A thousand feet scurrying, a thousand teeth gnashing, a flood of grey fur within the walls.

I was dragged up by the collar again. " I even see you near her" his arm in one movement switched from grabbing my collar to grabbing my throat " I'll put you in a more comfortable box than the dumpster I stuffed you in a month ago"

I wheezed, my air intake had gone from little to none. My vision was blurring, I could feel my pulse stopping at where his hand was around my throat. I wheezed harder, but it was cut short as no air would go down. My head was getting lighter, the scurrying in the walls were getting louder.

I saw two tiny blood red eyes, the size of droplets of ichor attached to a rat with a coat as white as snow, staring from a crack in the ceiling. It was baring its fangs, ready to pounce, rip something to shreds.

And so were hundreds of other rats, hundreds of them from throughout the school. Young, old, black, brown, white, grey, all with teeth and claws bared. Ready to eat a living man from skin to bone, and after that, even the bone. To climb down someone's throat and eat them from the inside out, to pile down from the ceiling and walls. To flood out and kill every single uncaring motherfucker inside the school. But starting with Solomon.

A hundred would be dumped over him, and a hundred more would gather and gouge his eyes out, travel in every orifice imaginable. He would be unable to shout with the thirty rats I could plausibly force down his throat, buried under a pile of fur, flesh, teeth, claw and bone until they ate him to the marrow.

And the best thing, I would feel every single part of it, I would taste his blood, taste his brain, taste his eyes, feel the vibration of him attempting to shout with rats inside and outside him. And finally, consume him bit by bit until a skeleton framework remained.

And after I killed Solomon, then Emma, then Madison, then everyone. Sure the PRT would catch me, but I would already be dead by then, and I would die satisfied, knowing I dragged these wretched souls to hell with me. Fuck this, I began to give the command-

"Solomon! Stop!" I heard from across outside the bathroom. A voice I recognized, a voice that was very familiar to me until recently. Memories of the days when things were good came and wiped away all of the homicidal thoughts I had at the moment.

The grip on my throat was released, I began to swallow in the air as if it was the most precious thing. I dropped to the floor, and closed my eyes. I heard the crowd begin to disperse. In a short while, I was there by myself.

I rose to the sink, using my good arm as a leverage. I took off the glasses which had made an indent into my nose. The sink turned crimson as I cleaned my face in its refreshing cold embrace. I bent my glasses into shape and looked at myself in the mirror.

Taylor Hebert. 15, Lanky, short curly hair, wide mouth. The textbook definition of average, not handsome by any definition of the word. I stared to inspect the damages. The frame of the glasses had made a crimson indent into my nose. My nose had a slightly bluish tone to it. And had started to swell. Of course, my arm was as fucked as ever, and now I had a matching bruise on my abdomen to go with it. Just another injury to add to the ever increasing list.

I began to clean the blood off my hands, and the soothing sensation of the water gave me some moment to think through what just happened. How the fuck did this happen? When did it all go so painfully wrong? It was a foolish question to which I knew the answer.

Emma. It all began with Emma Barnes. We were friends, childhood friends, best-friends even. My only friend, now that I think about it. When I think back, way back. I begin to remember the golden days, when we talked without secrets, played without expectations, and laughed without insincerity.

Which is what made it so painful when it, just, stopped. A few years ago when Dad … dad … ah fuck. My eyes began to water, and I pinched my eyes shut, and breathed deeply through my nose.

Anyway, I had not seen her the whole summer. I had switched schools just to be close to her, not because I wanted to be with her or anything, just for the fact she was my only friend. I had been excited to start the school, it had been the only thing I was looking forward to after I spent the whole summer mourning. But when I came back, everything had changed.

The biggest and most obvious change was Solomon Hess, up and coming track star and amateur football player. She had started going out with him over the summer, and she had changed. She was colder, more spiteful and much more materialistic.

I attempted to make friends with her again, sit with her during lunchtimes, talk to her in the hallways and hang out after school. A few weeks after I came to school, I was waiting outside the doors of Winslow like I did every day. Emma did not show up, Solomon did.

Hey beat me up badly, broke my arm, and then locked me up inside a garbage dumpster.

They found me the next morning when the dumpster was getting emptied into the back of a garbage truck. I was rushed to Intensive Care where they pumped me full of antibiotics for four days. I was comatose for a week afterwards.

Nonetheless, I entered that Dumpster without powers, and came out with the ability to control rats. Yes, that was my power. Rat Control. Rat. Control.

After I left the hospital, I couldn't sue Solomon, or do anything against him, really. The hospital stay and the antibiotics had cost my mom dearly, and any more funds out of her savings for something as inane as justice would have financially broken us.

After that whole bullshit, I would avoid Emma at every cost, even if it was a patch of red I saw in a hallway, I would avoid it. Of course, that streak of avoiding redheads seems to have been broken today. Otherwise, I wouldn't have been beaten the shit out of today.

Emma wasn't the only one who changed through, I realized I've been having much more homicidal thoughts that I had before I triggered. Could that be related to the power? Or have I been a sociopath all this time, just without the means to carry out my tendencies?

Well, in any case, I can't leave the bathroom wound up like this, I might end up stabbing somebody with my broken spectacles. Or make some rats act erratically and reveal myself, Anonymity was a personal quality that I heavily valued.

My adrenaline was on overdrive, I sat on the toilet and closed my eyes. I breathed deeper and deeper. This was a technique to calm down I discovered in the first few weeks from when I gained my power.

I closed my eyes and counted, and breathed deeply. I detected rats in a radius of around one block or so, one and a half if I stretch it. I detected around 357 rats around me. I had them gather around the cavity of the ceiling around me.

I separated the strong ones from the dregs, the old, the young, the weak. I then had the able and strong rats surround the dregs.

See, One aspect about my power I found out was that my control over each rat increased the more time they spent under my control.

The rats I contacted and mastered today, giving commands was the extent of my control over them. Perhaps I could pick up a few smells here and there from ones I had with me for a few weeks, but nothing substantial.

But the white rat, who had been with me since the day I was stuffed into that dumpster. I saw inside the ceiling through his red eyes, smelled what he smelled, tasted what he tasted.

And I tasted blood, as the white rat began to dig into a smaller rats. More rats followed, all of them feasting on their still-living brethren who were immobilized by my command.

It was an absolute bloodbath. A gnashing pool of blood and fur. I could hear the squirming of the rats and the pitter-patter of the rats as they wrestled each other, scratched each other, killed each other, ate each other. Every time, a rat killed one of the dreg rats, and feasted on its flesh, its brain was jacked full of pure dopamine. Pure dopamine you can only get from having successfully killed and feasted on a prey while hopped up on adrenaline and endorphin.

I was ashamed of the high I got from the dopamine of 200 rammed into my brain. It was euphoric, it felt like I had climbed the tallest mountain or slain a thousand enemies and bathed in their blood. It was just pure joy at having overcome something.

This was how I got over shitty days like this, it disgusted me that I relied on the joy of rats killing and maiming each other to feel good. But it's not like I was proud of it or anything. And hey, it took a boatload of stress off me, so I won't be stabbing anyone anytime soon.

I stood up from the toilet and washed my hands in the sink again. I didn't have to, but I just felt dirty.

From the corner of my eye, the red eyed white rat slowly crept up the sink, though now its coat matchet its eyes, it had been completely coated in rat blood and organs. It took it only a few seconds under the faucet to regain its pristine white coat. I nestled the white rat and put it inside my shirt's front pocket, it was the only rat I felt comfortable doing so, mostly because it just felt purer than any other rat I have ever come across, most people, even.

With the white rat inside my pocket. I decided to head outside and leave school, there was a class or two left, but I didn't feel like staying a second longer. I charted a path outside of the school that had the least people in it and began walking in the general direction of home.

Fuck this place.