HEROES

Chapter One: New Friends

Peter arrives at the Blue Juice bar in New York, he's depressed after accidentally getting Simone, the woman he loved, killed. He heads straight to a stool at the bar and slumps down on it. The bar tender notices Peter's sad face and approaches him.

"Lose someone?" the bar tender asks him.

"Yeah the woman I love is gone, just like that, I killed her with this curse!"

The bar tender looks at him strangely and automatically fills a glass with full strength scotch.

"Here this oughta' fix you up" he tells Peter, handing him the glass.

"Thanks, but I don't think anything will fix me up, or bring Simone back" says Peter, taking a sip of his scotch.

As he puts the glass back onto the bar and notices a woman out of the corner of his eye also sitting at the bar feeling sorry for herself, but what Peter sees makes his eyes grow wide, the lonely woman was making the liquor in her martini glass swirl up like a cyclone funnel and fall back down into the glass again. She seemed to control the liquor with her hand. Peter was amazed, was there really another super powered being like him sitting right beside him?

Peter picks up his scotch glass and moves across two stools to sit next to the woman.

"Hey, I couldn't help but notice you manipulate the liquor in your glass?" he says to her straight out. The martini woman throws him a strange glance.

"Do I know you?" She asks Peter in an Australian accent.

"Oh sorry, I'm Peter" he says.

"The woman offers her hand for a shake, "Taylor, nice to meet you Peter".

"Hey Taylor. I'm sorry for being so forward before, I've had… been through a lot, I just lost the woman I love"

Taylor stares into Peter's eyes emphatically,

"I just lost my fiancé" she tells him. "And the thing you saw me do to the martini, that wasn't you going insane, I can kind of manipulate liquid with my mind and hands"

"I don't think I'm going insane, let's just say I know where you're coming from regarding your fiancé and your ability" Peter tells her.

"Really, how?"

"Well I have an ability too"

"What can you do?"

"I kind of absorb the abilities of others"

"That's so cool; I thought I was the only one that could do this, until I met you"

"There are more of us out there, thousands more and all of our abilities aren't the same, my brother Nathan can fly, my niece can regenerate; heal herself, I know a guy who can paint the future…"

"That's amazing; I can't believe I'm not alone"

"So Taylor, if you don't mind me asking, what happened to you fiancé?"

"I drowned him, it was an accident, I don't deserve this thing, this curse!"

"That's what I thought when I got Simone killed"

"You killed the woman you love? So I'm not the only one who's cursed"

"No believe me Taylor, you're not cursed, you'll find a way to do good things with this ability, trust me"