Three days after what I had dubbed "The Incident," I was huddled in the corner of my bedroom, shivering from the freezing cold. As I hugged my knees to my chest, I could hear my teeth chatter slightly. For a few seconds, nothing happened, but just as I began to let my guard down, I felt the heat begin to burn within my body again, and my voice came out in a weak groan. "Oh God, not again…"

My skin itched as I felt the heat within my body rapidly grow to unbearable temperatures, as if I had just swallowed a miniature sun. Just before my vision went white, I looked down to see my body burst into blue flames. I let out a hoarse scream as I felt my eye sockets and the back of my throat burn as if white-hot coals had been stuffed inside them, and I threw my head backwards towards the ceiling as I heard the wind howl inside my room. Then I felt the soles of my bare feet hit the soft carpeted floor, and I barely managed to keep myself from falling over.

As I steadied myself against the wall, breathing heavily, I looked up to see that my room had been turned into a war zone in a matter of seconds. My stuff lay scattered all over the floor, but to my relief, there was nothing that couldn't be fixed easily. After I had finished putting everything back where it belonged, I cautiously went to the door in case my newfound "gifts" started acting up again. Touching the doorknob within an unharmed hand, I barely registering the electric shock that passed through it as my skin came in contact with the metal, which was something I had gotten used to over the last few days.

I walked through the hallway to reach the bathroom, getting another shock from the doorknob as I went inside, and I took a good look at myself in the mirror. My hair was a rat's nest, and my eyes were wild, but other than that, I hardly looked like I had been burned, frozen, and electrocuted all at once, and for those of you who are curious, it is not a pleasant experience.

Ignoring the shock of static as I touched the metal handle of the faucet, I splashed myself with ice-cold water and ran a hand down my wet face. I stopped my hand in its tracks as I looked up at the mirror, where a single dark eye stared back at me, the other obscured by my long fingers. Just what the hell was I turning into?

I sighed as I cut off the flow of icy water, getting yet another electrical shock as I touched the metal of the faucet handle, and my fingers gripped the edge of the sink's ceramic bowl. Reaching for the hand towel hanging from a peg on the wall, I dried my face before throwing it over my shoulder and closing my eyes.

Slowly exhaling through my nostrils, I calmed myself down and let my mind go blank and dark. A few seconds passed, and in the darkness of my mind's eye, my face appeared, clear as day. Equally visible was the muzzle of the gun pressed against the side of my doppelgänger's head, but his face was unconcerned, his eyes closed. Then his eyes shot open, and the gun went off with a bang. From the other side of my clone's face erupted the gun's muzzle flare, which manifested itself as glowing blue shapes that looked like pieces of shattered glass flying through the air.

Back in the real world, I opened my eyes, and I saw that the man in the mirror was staring at me with a determined look in his dark eyes. With a snap of my fingers, a blue fireball burst into life and burned above my palm, and as I clenched my hand into a fist, the fire escaped from the gaps between my fingers. As the lips of the man in the mirror curled up into a small smile, I decided that it was high time for me to learn control.

Two days later after school, I was humming "The Power" by Snap! as I made dinner in the kitchen. As the gun in my mind's eye went off with a bang, I opened my eyes and held my palm up. The moisture in the air froze to make neat little ice cubes in the palm of my hand, which then fell into the pitcher of amber-colored iced tea with a few splashes. Now that the drink was taken care of, I could focus on preparing the main course.

When I had finished putting the ingredients into the pan, I raised my hand, and it glowed a bright electric blue as a tendril of electricity the same color as my hand arced itself towards the spatula lying on the counter. I caught the spatula by its metal shaft as it was pulled through the air towards my hand, and I then turned my attention back to the frying pan. Well, what can I say? With great power comes great perks.

After dinner, it was playtime with my new powers. Sure, using them was painful, and the apartment turned into a complete mess whenever I started messing around with the fireballs, but to be honest, I was having way too much fun to care. Snapping my fingers to conjure up another fireball, I began tossing it back and forth between my hands as if it were just a tennis ball. As the fireball landed in my right hand, I willed the flames to crawl up my arm as I did the wave. I couldn't help but smile as I felt the now-friendly warmth of the fire move across my shoulder blades to the other hand.

As the flames reached their destination, I held my hand up in the air to gaze in awe as they burned bright blue and flickered merrily. All good things had to come to an end, though, and I snuffed out the flames by clenching my fist. This made way for the thin layer of white frost that began to cover the back of my hand like a glove covered with ground diamonds. I examined my frosty fingers for a moment before burning away the ice with a quick burst of flame that enveloped my hand.

Closing my eyes, I began to focus on the tingling sensation that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. Blue electricity like barbed wire arced from my bare skin and writhed in the air like Chinese dragons as I raised my hands with their palms up towards the ceiling. The lightning then jumped from one set of fingertips to the other, and it began to move up and down my body like a glowing snake. Wherever it went, I could feel my skin tingle, and the hairs on my body stood on end as the electricity spiraled back up to my hand.

I quickly seized hold of the lightning, heedless of any risk of death by electrocution, and it was absorbed back into my body through my glowing blue hand. There was a slight numbness in my extremities from the pain my body had gone through from using my powers, but other than that, I was just fine. "Alright, I guess that's enough practice for today…"

The next day, I was busy fooling around with my powers again. It had been a productive day, and I had learned several new things about my powers, namely, that while I was invulnerable to my own flames, I could accidentally burn other things if I wasn't careful. That lesson was learned when I thought it would be a good idea for me to try juggling multiple fireballs at once, despite being unable to juggle even regular balls. Not my greatest moment of genius, as you might've guessed.

After a panicky minute of desperately beating out the flames, the fire had finally gone out, leaving an ugly black burn on the living room rug, but luckily for me, it was double-sided. Breathing a sigh of relief at the thought of not having to come up with a very creative lie to explain why Mom's favorite carpet had been burnt to a crisp, my thoughts then turned to how other people might react if I ever decided to let them in on my secret. To be honest, I didn't know if they would accept me for my powers or call me a freak, or worse, do that and then call the government on me so that I could be sent to a lab to be dissected. As I played around, I had a mental debate over whether or not to show Mom my powers when I got home, but at the moment, I was still on the fence.

An icy hand of fear then seized my heart as the doorbell rang. I froze in shock. Mom wasn't due to come home from her business trip for at least another few days. I didn't really have any friends that I felt comfortable inviting home, nor any money with which to order something, so who the hell could be knocking at my door? I forced myself to take a deep breath to try and steady myself before heading towards the door to answer it.

Setting upright a lamp that I had accidentally knocked over, I took slow steps towards the door, like a condemned man walking towards the gallows. Nervously peering through the peephole, my fear only intensified as I saw the stranger standing outside my door. It was a woman, with dark eyes and equally dark hair cut just above her shoulders. She was wearing a white pantsuit that must've been a pain to keep clean, but what got my attention was the necklace hanging around her throat, whose shape reminded me of the cross of the Knights Templar from the Crusades.

My hand hesitated for a moment as it reached for the doorknob, and it wasn't because I was scared of getting shocked again. Mustering my courage with one final breath, I gripped the doorknob hard enough to turn my knuckles white. There was no turning back for me now.

With one final twist of the wrist, I opened the door for her, and did my best to smile welcomingly and not look guilty of being caught at a bad time. The woman nodded politely towards me, and she opened her mouth to speak with a slight accent that I guessed was Hispanic. "Good afternoon. Are you Chase Mercer?"