NOTE: The first part of this story (before the first chapter mark) is written back in May and the story has changed a bit since than in my mind but I hope you will like it.
You think being a hero is stressful? Then try to be a hero with a new job, protect your city and always be careful not be seen by anyone in the same time.
Being born as a meta is the worst thing that could ever happen to you and keeping it, as a secret is even a harder pain. Not being able to tell anyone will drive you insane and figure out how to deal with your powers alone and people would wonder why you weren't. But that is how my life is. No one dare to help you because everyone is afraid. They are afraid of the Lords.
The Lords think powers are something that needs to be controlled and take advantage of and if you aren't willing to sign up by yourself, they will force you to do it.
Rapports about metas disappearing are not uncommon and your worst nightmare is to be the next one in line.
Being on your own is the worst part, not trusting anyone with your secret. It's just you vs the world.
My name is Wally West, and I'm known by no one to be the fastest man alive.
My goal: To save my city and protect its citizens. In people eyes I go under many names such as "the ghost of Central" or "the Streak", and the Lords are still running in my dust. But lately they have come closer and I'm afraid someday I won't be the one to cross the finish line.
Chapter 1:
Before the mask
Being the oldest had its better sides. You are allowed to come and go as you want and you have more freedom. But that meant more responsibility too. Granny except more from me, like helping her with the young kids and go buy things from the store to special equations. That what it feels like being a teen and growing up in an orphanage.
Normally you don't stay here more then a few months until some relatives find you or someone else decides to adopt you, but in my case there were no none. Central City's Orphanage was my home since I was three and my whole family died in a house fire at a family reunion. The only time the whole family came together for a nice weekend and a lightning strike burned the house to the ground. How I survived is a miracle, but unfortunate it left me with no one to take care of me. All I remember from that time is how Granny smiled at me when I first stepped inside the orphanages walls and how it became my home.
I never left the orphanage. Sure people talked about adopting me a few times, but it never became more then that. At the age of eleven I gave up the hope about being adopted and I celebrated my eighteenth birthday with Granny and kids still living in the orphanage. I moved out on my own the week after and I found an apartment not far from the collage I went to. I got a job at the police department, helping out with some small stuff to keep me on my feet until I finished collage and got a better job.
You could say my life sounds pretty normal for a kid who grow up at an orphanage and goes his last year at collage at only the age of nineteen, but all teens got their secrets even I and no one can know about it. If someone knew it would be a danger for both them and me. My secret is that I'm a meta-human since birth; my power just didn't develop until my teens. I woke up one day and everything around me went so slow. The kids playing outside seemed to run in snail speed and it's just like watching everything in slow motion. My whole body went into super-speed and I reacted much faster to thing. I had to learn to control my powers on my own and I knew showing then off was a bad idea.
You see, a team; we call them simply for the Lords, are powerful beings, both humans and aliens, who have sworn to protect the Earth from all sorts of threats. They were beloved and a sign of peace and order.
Everything to big for the cops, the Lords could handle. They put an end to bad guys such as the Joker, some crazy sociopath or Lex Luthor, who had hatred towards the Lords leader. The Lords even fought a mind-controlling gorilla and a zombie.
Back than, they didn't have a name like the Lords. Newspapers used names like "super-friends" or "the guardians". "The Lords" just became a name everyone grow to fear.
They were our hope, until the day when an unknown meta-human killed one of its members. They brought justice to their fallen friend in a horrible way and the Lords never became the same again. They rule the world with an iron fist and it became illegal to be a "free" meta-human, so all humans with meta-human abilities must be apprehended and registered by the Lords or they will face that same justice as they who were unlucky to end up in the Lord's rampage.
I want to put an end to people's fear and show them just that you got power doesn't mean you got to use them to gain more of it. That's just what the Lords do, using their power to control people and bring fear around them. They were once heroes and I still believe they are deep inside, someone just need to show them to let go of the past. What happened to their member, and probably friend too, but it was long ago and they need to let it go, they got their justice. Don't let the planet suffer from what some meta-human did over 15 years ago.
I wish someone was brave enough to tell them that, but accusing the Lords is as bad as being a meta-human. They got too much power and no heart. I wish I could be that person to tell them, but I got people I care about and they need me here. Even if the Lords doesn't kill me, who knows what they going to do to me when they got me in their territory. I got no chance against them on my own, and that's just what I am, I'm on my own with this…
Wallace West's log – August 18th
Dear Diary… ahh…Hello Dairy...? …S'up!
Don't think for a second I become some sort of teenage girl who has a diary hidden under my pillow. I saw a program about some cop that kept a log over all his work and I thought I would try it out because I have made up my mind! In the last week it's been three reports about caught meta-humans, the youngest being only 12 and I have had it enough! This can't continue. I won't allow it!
I have promised myself that in the end of next summer the Lords will be no more!
I just have to figure out a way to do it…
(Sigh…) I didn't know what I was thinking. How can I stand against the Lords alone? I will be Wally pie before even I get close to the tower they are known to be at, and who knows if they are even there? Some rumours said they got a new station in space and no way I can get to space by myself. Maybe I should just give up on this idea before I even start and do something stupid…
I sighed again and looked out the window. They could fly, shoot lasers from their eyes, walk through walls, create unbreakable light constructs and they're smart. All I could do is run fast.
Suddenly an explosion could be heard from inside the building and not soon after my apartment started to fill up with smoke so I evacuated and ran out on the street. My neighbours did the same and I could count every single one of them. We weren't many in my apartment building, me being the youngest except for a family living on the top floor with some kids, but I knew they weren't home for the moment as they were out of town.
My building weren't the only one being attacked. People from buildings close by also started to evacuate their homes, and that was than I saw the smoke. It looked like it came from downtown, a much popular place to live if you had kids. I ran toward the smoke and I could soon see the flames that already surrounded three buildings and busy fire fighters helping people out from the burning buildings. Everything seemed under control until one little girl, couldn't be more than four, started to scream for her mommy. She pointed towards the fire when a young man picked her up trying to comfort her, but the man looked as scared as the little girl.
I dashed into action, without thinking I grabbed a red cap and a red jacket from someone's backyard to protect my hair and arms from the flames and rushed into the burning building. I was going so fast I didn't even feel the heat from the fire once I was inside and found what I thought could be the young girl's mommy. We were outside again before she could even blink and realise what happened. One second she was inside and in the next she was outside hugging her daughter, unharmed. I watched them from a safe distance unseen and hoped they would be okay. They home was burning none stop while mine only was filed with smoke, if I was lucky and the smoke wasn't toxic I could return home the next day, but they wouldn't have the same luck.
It was than I got an idea. I had read somewhere if you could ran fast enough in a circle you could create a vacuum in the middle of it and vacuum equals no air, no air equals no fire. I only needed to be sure no one was in the house nor in my way. I started with clearing the area. Easier said than done, but by the look on the fire fighters' faces it seems like it was hopeless to kill the fire and I took my chance to look through all of the buildings. They were all empty, so I could begin moving the fire fighters out of the way. Three seconds later all fire fighters and people standing to close to the building now stood 170 feet away from the fire and I starter running.
I calculated I have to run close to 7 times the speed of sound to create a vacuum and I have never done anything like it before, but it's worth a try.
I began circling, but nothing happened. I ran even faster so I felt the jacket began rip into pieces by the high speed and could I smell burned shoes? My guessing I wasn't even close to mach 7, but the fire suddenly started to fade. Yes I did it, I thought until I realised a something like green box surrounded everything, shivers going down my spine. My luck I wasn't inside of the box so I took my chance to run away from all the action. My existence was gone, but not my cover. I fast running to fast for the naked eye to see, not even a high-speed camera would have been able to get a clear photo. The light source, which I guess came from the sky, could not see me from that angle, but I was lucky as the owner of the light is one of the Lords.
I came to a stop and to catch my breath. From where I was standing, the buildings were still covered by the green box and I did feel the smell of burned shoes because when I looked down my shoes was smoking and really hot. I had to find some water to make them stop smoking. I might not have been the one stopping the fire but I was the one saving the mommy from the fire. For me that's good enough for my first day and I could really get used to calling myself a hero.
The next day I was back in my apartment, the smoke wasn't toxic and nothing in my apartment was taken or damaged. I had just made some cereals when I turned the TV on to watch the news. Of cause yesterdays fire were the big topic, but the thing that came after almost got me to put the cereals down my throat. A blurry video showed red horizontal lines against the dark, smoky background and it was clear something or someone was creating the lines. Witnesses reported they had seen a red blur or something around the fire and it was superfast. They seemed grateful for there being someone out there helping people in need. I warmed my heart to hear and some even gave me a name. It was even " the Ghost" or "the Streak". I didn't like any of them, but it will work for now. I was just about to shut the TV off when they pronounced they got a comment from the Lords about the events in Central City.
Up on the screen came none other than the leader himself, Superman. He didn't seemed so pleased knowing somewhere down on Earth, someone ran around, thinking he could be a vigilantly. Superman said Central City now was a priority to find whoever this was and that wouldn't stop until they found him.
This is not good, I thought. Not good at all…
Please leave a review, all respond is great but please be nice.
Note that English isn't my first language and I'm still learning. Help me with what I can do better if you want.
Respond means Chapter 2 and it will most likely be much shorter than this one. Busy weeks in front of me so update so soon as possible if you so like ;)
