I live in a little town called Lutterworth. If you haven't heard of it, you probably won't want to. People comment on how nice a place it is, but they obviously haven't lived here long. That, or they haven't lived here at all. Lutterworth may have a nice sort of 'front', but it's society is messed up big-time.
Lets list a few types of people. You get slutty people, sexually failed people, demented people, too-normal people (which is also demented in a sense…), you get anorexic people, fat people, obese fat people (which is like a kinda 'super-fat'), depressed people, hyperactive people, nerdy people, chav people. You get old people, young people, old people who think they're young. You get over-worked people, under-worked people, whores and hoes, bartenders, crack-dealers and free riders. I even have a guy that's insanely happy living on the next street. He'll smile all the time, even when it rains or hails or whatever. This might be ok, even considering the people mentioned above.
Except his wife and pet dog of twelve years died a week ago…
So you see, Lutterworth is really not the nicest place on the earth to live in.
And it's about to get a whole lot worse.
See, imagine all these people. Every single crazy, messed up person living in this town. Now give them all terrible, insane abilities and leave them for a few weeks to their own devices. Yup. Insanity.
I lived with my family, like most fifteen-year-olds. It was alright, but there was a lack of feeling free, being able to do whatever you want. I didn't have to worry about that for long, and yet I realise that with this new-found freedom, I began to lead a dangerous life.
I remember the night it happened. I'm sure everybody does who saw it, it's not something easily forgotten. Everyone remembers, except the many killed by it. I still wonder to this day why I'm not dead with them. Everybody my age, save a few, were killed. It's not as if I'm extremely strong or buff or anything like that. I suppose I just have a tendency to survive and prosper.
Anyway, as I was saying, I remember. I had been at home, it had been 8:47. The curtains to the living room were still open, even though it was almost dark. It let out a view of a long street which ended with another street and more houses like mine. I lived at the middle of a sort of T-junction, with houses to my left and right, and a road in front of me.
The television was playing some stupid show which every other demented soul in the house seemed to like but I hated. We were all sat on chairs or the sofa, except for my mum, who was in the kitchen. She shouted something at me through the door, but I didn't catch it and so ignored it like I do if I don't hear something. She called again, but again I didn't hear, and didn't care.
She suddenly slammed open the door and shouted something at me. It contained many swear words, so I ignored that too.
We began to argue and, as always my older brother and sister started having a go at me as well. This continued for a few minutes, escalating all the time until it reached the point where I'd had enough. Just had enough. This had been going on for so long, that I was just sick of it. So I got up, and punched my brother full on his jaw. It was no light punch, for I was strong after going to the gym for way over a year, and it sent his twenty-one-year-old body sprawling across the room.
I even surprised me how quickly he was up again and holding me down against the floor after punching me in the side of the head. I would have been able to beat him easily if we'd been on even ground, but his weight was pressing hard on me. I struggled and managed to gat an arm free, which I then used to hit him in the ribs with. Winded, he fell to the left. I got to my knees, spitting a bit of blood because he had hit me in the mouth while I was down. There was a distant sound, and I turned towards the living room window.
There was a rumbling boom, and the earth began to shake. In the distance I saw something light up and begin to pulse. It was like a force field of some kind, but beating with electricity. It expanded quickly, throwing up debris. It had the effect of a bomb, wiping most things away that it touched. It came over the street opposite me and the ground began to tilt and bend and shake and rumble. And then it hit me, the electricity coursing through me as if I was a live circuit. My vision white and blinded. My muscles spasmed and died on me. The electricity was all around me, consuming me. I let out a silent scream of agony, then sudden blackness.
I woke where I had fallen, my eyes opened blearily. My body stung, but was sort of muted, as if morphine had entered my body. And, as I looked around me and registered the people in white coats working at me and the machines all around I realised it probably was. The doctors were murmuring to one antother, and one was clutching his hand.
"He's still alive after that blast; he's bound to have some electricity remaining in his body," one of the doctors told the man who was holding his hand as he began to rant.
"That wasn't a tiny spark!" the man was shouting. "There were a thousand volts in that! He almost killed me, and I didn't even touch him!"
"Then it probably wasn't him." the first doctor said calmly. "It was probably from some destroyed electrical device. If that had come from this young man, he would have died long ago from the electricity within him. Besides, if it was even possible that there's much electricity in his body, the electromagnetic force form his body would have disrupted all nearby electrical devices. Including the machines attached to his body."
"I sup-" the wounded man was about to say when the machines went haywire. One moment they were working, and then next half were on red lights and the other half were beeping emergencies. I looked in alarm at the doctors assembled about me as electricity surged through my body. It sparked and flashed lightning-fast over my bare chest and sank deep into my skin. The cables jolted as the massive charge burst through the plastic and openly skittered crazily over the metal. The shards of power were instantly absorbed into my body.
Every single bolt. Nothing wasted.
And I felt the power within me. It tingled in my fingers and heart and mind. I felt it consume me, and flashes of the electric bomb-like thing went off inside my mind. There was a cut open in my chest, but after letting some electricity run free through my veins, the shards attached and bounded like stitches across my skin and pulled and healed.
I couldn't hang onto the electricity though, and a moment after absorbing it, my body let it out. It flashed in arcs across my skin and the floor and some of the doctors and the machinery and bare broken wires and there were sparks and screams as the power flowed in massive bursts from my body and laced across everything. And it was a burst. The shock was at least three metres in diameter and continued for several seconds until I stopped it with what I could hold on. A measly amount, compared to what I had had. But still power.
The electricity faded into the ground and the doctor's bodies. Three lay dead on the floor, but the other two appeared to be fine. They stared in amazement at me.
"My! That must have been the attraction of the rest of the electricity on your body. Are you alright lad? That was several thousand volts! I do hope it's all gone!"
I nodded to the doctor and sat up. I felt the electricity inside me still, only fifty or so volts; a small store. But I still had it. I detached the cables which were attached to me and stood. The two remaining doctors stood too. I felt a sudden urge, a sort of sense. I felt the electricity residing in all of the objects around me, and how much there was in them. It pulsed within the objects, mostly tiny amounts, except for the three dead bodies which housed still some of the massive discharge.
The two doctors rose too. "Don't worry about them, sonny. There are plenty others dead now. They don't make anything significant. Are you sure you're alright? It seems from the position we found you in that you were caught by the full blast. Its amazing; you should be burnt to a crisp like your family, but there isn't a scratch on you! We even had to cut in the same spot three times to make an incision in your chest!"
The two walked off and I crept towards a body. Putting my hand near it, I drew in the flow of electricity. It jumped from the dead body to my live one until I had almost drained it. I felt as if I'd eaten a full meal, but wasn't bloated. Apparently four hundred or so volts was the most I could absorb at the moment. Yet.
I let out a burst which shattered a piece of machinery and smiled as the electricity sunk into the earth. I had power. I rose my hand and drew a little power from another body and it jumped across the metre space into me. It flickered and spiralled down my arm and into my body.
I had a lot of power.
But so did many others…
