This is a work of fiction. All original characters from the T.V. show, Heroes, belong to NBC and MR. Kring(heh, that kind of rhymed).
"You've got to do something!" Celia pleaded with her sister over the phone. Sara sighed and tugged at the ponytail that was her plain brown hair. She could imagine her blond sister clinging to the cordless phone in their room, her blue eyes filling with unshed tears. They were as different as night and day, Celia and Sara. While Celia was an excitable, popularity figure in their school, Sara was the quiet reader who stayed in the background.
"Why is it every time I visit Abuela for a few days, Mother and Dad decide to get into a huge fight?" Sara asked as she tried to balance on the ladder that she was standing on. She placed her hand with the paint roller on the top of the ladder for balance.
"I dunno. Can I come over, please? I know my therapist says I need my own identity, but I can't calm them down like you can."
"No, you just short-out my electronics."
"I said I was sorry about your iPod!"
"Just teasing. Come on over. We're repainting Abuela's living room." Celia squealed in excitement and hung up. Celia's therapist, Dr Garrison, said that Celia depended too much on Sara for her own happiness, but it wasn't true. Sara just made other people happier just by touching them. Sara hung up, her phone automatically going back to Contacts. It only showed her parent's number and Celia's. She flipped her cell phone closed, tucking it in the pocket of her coveralls, and resumed pushing the paint roller across the wall. She absolutely refused to be depressed about her lack of friends. She had family, that was enough for her.
"Miaja, was that Celia?" Her tiny Mexican grandmother asked from her place holding the ladder. She looked slightly ridiculous spattered in paint and in the same coveralls/ponytail getup as Sara.
"Yes, it was. She's coming over to help."
"But I thought that horrible man told you two you couldn't spend any time together."
"We're not allowed to do anything recreational. This isn't recreational, is it?"
"Speak for yourself, Miaja. I used to do this kind of thing when I was a girl because I was bored. You should call her back and tell her to bring an umbrella." Sara finished the top section and climbed down.
"How do you know it's going to rain?" She asked as her feet hit the carpet, her hazel eyes squinting in mock suspicion. Suddenly, a clap of thunder shook the rain from the sky. Her grandmother smiled knowingly and tapped her temple with her finger.
"Abuela's intuition." Sara laughed, but cut it short when her grandmother's face drained of color.
"Abuela, what's wrong?"
"Nothing, Miaja. I don't think your cell phone will work in this weather. Use the kitchen phone." Sara rolled her eyes, but checked her bars. As she said, there was no service.
"How do you know these things?" Sara grumbled as she walked to the kitchen. She didn't see her grandmother turn to her front door to confront the dark figure standing there. Sara called her sister back and told her about the rain when she heard voices in the living room. There was a loud crash that sent Sara running down the hall to the living room. "Abuela? Are you alright?"
She entered the living room to see blood. Blood all over the floor, spattered across the freshly painted walls, pooling around her grandmother's smashed skull. Her eyes took in the scene, horrified, until she noticed the dark figure of a man standing over the body of her grandmother. She stepped back, terror fogging her mind. The man pointed a finger at her and she was thrown into the wall by an unseen force. She was somehow held there, a few feet off the ground with her feet dangling helplessly, as he stepped over the body and walked over to her. He was tall, made obvious by the way he looked her in the eye while she was two feet off the ground. She could see his features; black hair hidden under a baseball cap, thick eyebrows and a pronounced jawline, dark stubble leading the way. His dark eyes sparkled in a dangerous way. Any other time, she would have been attracted to this man's dark good looks. But right now, he was the scariest thing Sara had ever seen.
"Your grandma was a fool." He said in an smooth tenor that was the calmest, most soothing voice she had ever heard. It sent shivers down her spine. "She jumped off of that ladder and smashed her skull to make sure I couldn't take her power." He reached over and grabbed her jaw, forcing her head to turn left and right. "What about you, hmm? Do you do anything special?"
"I-I-I th-think you've muh-made a mih-mistake," She stuttered, trying to think calm thoughts. The only thing she could think of was {OH GOD DON'T KILL ME!} "Juh-Just kuh-calm down ah-and I kuh-can guh-get you suh-some help." He laughed softly, letting go of her face.
"I don't need help." He raised his hand, two fingers pointing at her. He slowly brought them down, making Sara slide down the wall so that he could tower over her. She felt her feet touch the ground. " You do, though. Don't you?" He leaned so that they're faces were a mere inch away from each other. She shook her head, then quickly raised it and head-butted him. It was the only thing she could think of at the time. But when their foreheads connected, there was a bright pulse of light and the sound of magnesium phosphorous going off. A strange sense of happiness filled Sara's mind as the light dimmed into darkness.
Sara woke up in a hospital bed, hours later. Remnants of that pure happiness was still sticking to her mood. She looked around to see Celia sitting in a chair on the right side of her bed.
"Hey," Sara said sleepily with a smile. "What's going on?" Celia shook her head.
"Someone killed Abuela. Pushed her off the ladder. Didn't you see anything?" Sara's happy mood disappeared, replaced by a sick burning in her stomach.
"No. I-I..." Overwhelming grief made tears course down her cheeks. She covered her eyes with her her left hand. "I don't remember. I don't want to remember. What happened to us?"
"Well, the police found you with a concussion a few days ago. The police are kind of confused why the person...you know...why he left you alive. There was an FBI agent here a few days ago, but she had to leave for some reason. They say this guy has done it be-"
"You can stop talking now." Sara snapped, still crying. "How long do I have to stay here?"
"The doctor says a couple more days, after a psychiatric evaluation. DR. Garrison is coming over tomorrow to oversee it. I got you a soda." She handed her sister a perspiring maroon can of Dr Pepper. Sara took it.
"I don't need a psychiatrist. I need to kill the man who murdered Abuela." Sara said coldly. Celia shivered as a cold fury rolled over her as their hands touched.
"Um, visiting hours are over. I have to go." Quickly she left Sara alone to deal with her thoughts of vengeance.
Sara spent the next three days in the hospital. In that time, she went through a transformation. No longer was she the bland-faced people-pleaser that sat alone, reading a book. In her place was a woman whose fierce intensity gave her a strange loveliness. Everyone who saw her was drawn to the fire in her eyes, only to be flat-out rejected. She stalked the halls of the hospital like a demon. At her best, she was cranky; at her worse, she would lash out physically, throwing things and hurting anyone who tried to calm her down or was in her way. The schoolwork that her teachers sent were soon getting her grades to perfection while she ignored anyone who visited.
"She's a little lost," one of the nurses explained when her old book club buddy, Midge, tried to go into her room during visiting hours only to be driven out by Sara throwing her lunch tray at her. "Her grandmother was murdered right in front of her. Give her time to process her situation." DR Garrison arrived a day after. She sat silently in the psychiatric office, glaring at a calm Dr Garrison, who was sitting behind a desk.
"I hear that you've been a little abrasive since your grandmother's death." He said in a smooth tone. Sara didn't answer. "Do you know what abrasive means?" He asked gently.
"I'm not stupid." She spat. "'Abrasive: using friction and roughness of texture to smooth or clean a surface. Harsh in manner: aggressively direct and insensitive.' Another term for it is being a bitch or dick."
"Well, you are smart. Your parents told me about how you like to read."
"Like they know me. They only care about Celia."
"Is that what you think?" Sara snorted.
"I don't think, I know. They didn't tell you that they wanted to cancel my adoption when they found out Mother was pregnant. But it was too late, so they kept me. Like a pet."
"I see. Do you think that you might be purging some repressed emotion caused by your grandmother's death? It is commonly known as a catalyst-"
"Can you stop calling it her death! ! ? ?" She snapped, jumping to her feet. "She didn't die peacefully in her sleep, OK! ? She was murdered!" Suddenly, all of the loose paper in front of Dr Garrison flew up in a mini tornado. She stare as he tried to catch all of them.
"They must have turned on the cooler," He said nervously, straightening the papers back into their proper place.
"That wasn't the cooler..." She muttered. She flopped back down on the couch, suddenly exhausted. {Please, just let me go home} She thought strongly. {Just say I'm ok and send me home} Dr Garrison got a funny look on his face.
"Yes, well, I think you're perfectly fine. I'll schedule your release for tomorrow." He said uncertainly. Sara stared at him curiously, but was out of the office in a flash.
Sara was confused. She had always known that she could make people feel what she was feeling to some degree, but it was as if it was amplified recently. If she concentrated hard enough, she could make people do whatever she asked them. She tried it out several times at school until she got bored. There were other things, too. Like that incident with the papers in the shrink's office. She had a suspicion that she was the cause. She started researching it. She wasn't much of a studier, even though she liked to read, so Celia noticed it when she caught Sara at it.
"What are you doing?" She asked when she saw Sara sprawled across her bed with a pad of paper, taking notes from a book called 'Activating Evolution' by Chandra Suresh that she checked out of the library.
"Finding some answers." Sara said.
"What kind of answers?" Celia asked, leaning over Sara's shoulder.
"To what's happening to me. To us."
"Nothings happening to us." Celia said. She hadn't commented on Sara's sudden change in personality. She was just happy to have her sister back.
"Yes, there is. I don't fully understand what it is, but I do know it's not normal. Why is it that I can control what other people feel? Why do you destroy everything you touch? Here read this," She handed the open book to Celia, pointing to the passage.
"'What else could the human body accomplish with even the subtlest changes in biochemistry?'" She read aloud. "'Teleportation, levitation, instantaneous tissue regeneration, precognition, telekinesis, and even invisibility are within the realm of possibility.'" She lowered the book and stared at Sara. "What does this have to do with us?"
"Don't you see? We're those people! We can do those things!"
"So your saying we have super powers?"
"I know it sounds ridiculous when you say it like that, but think about it. Really think about it. There's a chapter on Vector Telekinesis and Tele-Persuasion.
"Tele-Persuasion?"
"I don't really understand all of it, but the long and short of it is there's something in my mind that persuades other people's brains that they feel how I feel. If they're in danger, they can persuade others to do whatever they want." Celia nodded.
"I know what this is." She said sagely. "Dr Garrison told me all about coping mechanisms-"
"This isn't a coping mechanism!" Sara snapped angrily. "The man who killed Abuela pinned me to the wall without even touching me, and I'm going to find out how!" Celia stared at Sara sadly.
"We all loved Abuela. It's hard, I know-"
"No you don't! She was my only friend! I could be myself with her!"
"And who is that? Huh? Who are you really? You've changed so much lately that I'm not sure that you can answer that question!"
"Well, I can't All I know is that I'm not just Celia's sister anymore." Celia had a hurt look on her face.
"Is that who you think you are?"
"What do you think?" Sara said snidely. "Mother and Dad are so preoccupied wit how you're feeling. You aren't adopted, have to see the therapist, you have to be the genius. I'm just the extra that they couldn't get rid of in time." Celia didn't answer. "What no argument? Because you know I'm right." She got up from her bed, grabbing her blanket and pillows. "I'm sleeping in the living room.
"Sara, wait-" But she already stormed out the door.
Sara spent the next few days avoiding Celia. She ate before everyone so that she didn't have to eat with the family, practically lived on the couch and rode the bus home instead of hitching a ride with one of Celia's cheerleader friends. It took twenty minutes longer, but it gave Sara time to think. She was sitting, curled on the seat sideways, when her backpack fell accidentally. She was still lost in her thoughts, so she contemplated the the effort of getting up and picking her backpack off of the floor. as she thought of it, her backpack lifted itself off of the floor and deposited itself back onto the bus seat. She snapped back to reality when she realized what she did. After a bit of examining, she thought about getting a pen from her front pocket. Nothing happened. She concentrated harder. Slowly the zipper unzipped itself. She imagined reaching in and grabbing her red pen with the blue ink next to her Rug-rats eraser that she had since third grade. Equally slowly, it rose from the pocket and hung there. Trembling, she reached out and plucked it from the air. She stare at it. It was the only pen she used, since blue was her favorite color. It just sat in the palm of her hand, but she knew how mind-blowing it was. Excitement coursed through her. Finally, she had proof! She'd show Celia what she could do and they could search for answers together! It was at that moment that the bus cruised by her house. Police and ambulances were milling around her house for some reason...