A Heroes Season 5 Love Story
By Shiv Gupta
Prologue (Claire 1st Person):
After defeating Samuel's evil carnival and almost revealing my friends and family's abilities, I decided to attempt to normalize my life (for the umpteenth time). I left college in Arlington and went to New York so that I would be closer to my birth family (especially Peter-my awesome uncle). My grandmother urged me to apply to a plethora of colleges in New York City. I had originally wanted to go to NYU because secretly, I still had feelings for West. However, I realized that it would be awkward to go to the same university as my ex-boyfriend and decided to go somewhere else.
I tried to convince my mom and dad to come to New York with me. However, they all agreed that I needed some space and some time to get to know my birth parents. My dad moved to Philadelphia and my mom moved to Providence with her new husband. We had a family gathering each month in New York.
The first day at college was extremely tiring because of the incredibly challenging curriculum that I had. However, I would take this difficult curriculum over the crap that I had dealt with for the last three years of my life. The terrifying experiences that I had had sometimes flashed in my head while I slept. I remember the brutality and evil that I saw in Sylar's eyes as he sliced my head open two years ago. I remember those government officials who tried to commit a genocide to the people of our genetic code. One of the few good memories that I have from this time period of my life occurred when West and I were dating in California. He was just like me-different. He could fly while I could heal. West used to hold me tightly as we flew peacefully over the whole city. This relationship is a memory that I feel nostalgic towards and sometimes wish that I had never broken up with him in the first place.
Setting 1 (Claire 1st Person):
I exited the subway train at a Greenwich Village subway stop. Today was my first day at a part time job. Last month, I decided that getting a part time job would be another way to make my life more normal. As I walked up the stairs to enter the streets of Lower Manhattan, I bumped into a man. I quickly apologized and was about to leave. However, I looked into his eyes and realized that only one person could have those eyes. I had just encountered West. Both of us looked at each other speechless as if both of us expected the other to speak first. Finally, West broke the silence.
"Hey Claire," he said with the cute smirk that he knew I loved.
I shyly said hi back and we both just began talking about all kinds of things. We talked about using our abilities, talked about college, our family, New York City and many other random topics. What we were talking about was not as important as the fact that we were talking. It felt like the old times when we used to talk on the phone during the late hours of the night. However, in the middle of our conversation, I noticed that there was a strange scar on the back of his head. When I asked him about the scar, he looked taken aback and had some worry in this face. He decided to deny knowing about the scar and at that time, I bought his denial. Ten minutes later, we had arrived at the retail store that I was about to work in. As I was about to leave, he asked me an extremely unexpected question: "Will you go out with me again?" I was so happy and surpised and I quickly and enthusiatically agreed. He looked really happy, but there was something different about his eyes. We soon parted. At that time, I never realized that West had brought me to my part time job without actually knowing where I worked.
Setting 2 (flashback 2 weeks before the events; third person):
West walked from his late night writing class to his dorm building. He was so exhausted that he accidentally went into a sketchy, dark alley to get to his room. As he walked through this alley, he saw two young men come up to him and try to mug him. West tried to use his ability to fly in order to get away from these thugs, but he realized that his ability was not working. One of the thugs took out a gun and was about to shoot West. When suddenly, both of these thugs dropped dead.
"Hello West, I have been expecting you. Call me Grey," said a mysterious humanoid standing outside of the alleyway.
There was a sudden flash of light. West felt as if his body was shrinking. He soon found out that the alien humanoid was invading his body. West felt himself weakening as if his energy was depleting. He attempted to shout but when he tried, he could not hear his typical low voice. There was a silence, a silence that terrified West.
"Oh West, I should have told you that you no longer have control over your body," Grey said. "You will be able to see the outside world like you did before. However, I now control whatever you do. Please don't waste your breath yelling for help."
West braced himself for the torture that he was about to endure.
Setting 3 (Claire 1st Person):
I felt ecstatic. I was dating West again. I had always regretted breaking up with him in high school. It was a huge mistake and I wish I had the power to change it so that I could have had more time with West. Sometimes, I asked Peter to take me back in time (with Sylar's help, he could now retain multiple abilities, including Samuel's ability) so that I could keep myself from breaking up with West. However, he refused and reminded me of the butterfly effect that could occur if he did that.
The rest of the week went by with rapture for me. West and I flew all over New York City. We saw the view of New York City atop of the Empire State Building and flew to the restricted area of the Statue of Liberty's crown. We flew to Coney Island and Battery Park. Initially, I was just happy that I didn't have to take the New York City subways. However, I had forgotten how it felt to fly on West's back. I loved the wind that rushed past me and the beautiful view from a hundred feet above the ground. However, the best thing about flying with West was the feeling of security that I felt. When I was with West, I felt safe and at home as if he was the most perfect guy in the world. My feeling for him seemed to increase by a tenfold during our time together. Everything seemed perfect until I started to feel doubts about what West was going through.
At the beginning of the next week, I started to notice how depressed and frustrated West seemed to be all the time. I tried to ask him what was wrong, but he was angered by this and started yelling at me. Confused, I decided to ask Peter if he could get into West's head (using Matt Parkman' s ability) and find out what was wrong. He agreed and started psychoanalyzing West. After ten minutes, I tried to take Peter out of the Pyschoanalyzing but he didn't respond. Suddenly, I was teleported to a strange place. The world around me looked like dusk on Earth. The sun was almost set and there was a full moon. I saw both Peter and West both tied in chains near an alien-like creature.
"Welcome Claire," the creature said. "As you can see, your boyfriend and uncle are both in a rather sticky situation. You are free to leave because you have protection from your biological mother. However if you leave, I will kill both of these men. You must stay here too."
The creature's cronies sent me to a small room and told me that I had five minutes to decide which of the choices I would pick. I tried to decide how to save all three of us. There had to be another way out of this situation. I checked my backpack, which had conveniently teleported with me. At first, I didn't see anything that could save us. However, I soon realized that I still had a card to play: my wind chimes. These chimes could attract "The Haitian" from anywhere in the world. I played the chimes and waited.
After five minutes, the crony returned and opened the room's door. Thankfully, the Haitian came at that exact time. At first, he was about to ask me what was wrong. However, he saw the alien creature and just went after that creature. The creature started to freak out when he saw the Haitian. The Haitian cornered the creature and put his hand on the creature's "forehead" and started sucking the creature's memories. The creature started to yell for mercy until he turned into dust. All four of us were suddenly teleported back to New York.
"Those were grey aliens who have the same abilities as we do," the Haitian said. "Sometimes they invade Earth looking for a body to leech off of."
"Are they a threat to human society?" I asked.
"Usually they are easy to deal with," he said. "However, the magnitude of power that this grey alien had over West is a sign that they are getting more powerful. They may be a threat in the near future."
To be continued.