Power poured through Pacifica's veins, entering both body and mind. Pacifica had long since suffered from malnutrition and long-term stress, stunting her growth, weakening her immune system, and generally contributing to poor health. That weakness was burned away by the shining light, vulnerability scorched away in the throes of Exaltation. Her mind was one filled to the brim. Worry over food. Worry over her mother. Worry over the men banging on the door for money. Like a great wind, the light of exaltation entered, burning away all fear and doubt. Every fact, every figure, every scrap of information that she had seen before in her life, was collated and put together in a single glorious whole. Every single body had weaknesses. Genes that coded for long-defunct functions, or ones that made the carrier more susceptible to diseases. There were microfractures and miniscule tears throughout Pacifica's body, due to the constant work and play. A long healed fracture from when she fell and broke her wrist. Damage to the immune system due to lack of enough rest. All this was swept away by the cleansing fires.
For a moment, Pacifica was free. From weakness. From worry. From the petty vagaries of mortal life.
She started screaming.
As the room grew brighter and brighter, she realized that the light wasn't coming from the window, or from the torch, or even from the doorway. It was coming from her. And as the light grew and became blinding, she looked about in desperation, not quite knowing what was happening. She raised her hands, and saw, at last, that her skin was glowing. Running to the bathroom, skipping over the various mounds of trash and knocking over several piles of knickknacks and collectibles. There, in the bathroom, she looked at herself. Yes, she was glowing. Yes, she was giving off more than enough light to see herself by even without turning on the light, and yes, that was indeed, some weird circular mark on the center of her forehead.
Pacifica had been through many things. First was the death of her father. Then, the bills. And then, homelessness. She had been mocked, sneered at, and slept in cardboard boxes in the streets. She had awoken once to a rat attempting to chew on her fingers. And so, when she saw what was happening, she began to clamp down on her panic and compartmentalize, the clockwork mind she had used for so long to study medicine and science aiding her right now.
She is glowing. That was new. That came out when she was studying. But she had done nothing special in this study session, and so it was unlikely that it was this moment alone that caused it. She feels no pain. In fact, she feels great. In other words, she is either so insensate that she is about to die, or she is under no danger at all and there is no need to panic. She is glowing, and that means that the lights are showing. The lights… are bright enough to show up outside the window. That means that she is causing a disturbance, along with the scream. The landlord has claimed that he would kick out any who would cause trouble. Thus, to prevent herself from becoming homeless, she must clamp. Down. Now.
Over the course of half an hour, the light slowly began to fade, and Pacifica watched it slowly move from 'as bright as the sun' to 'dull glow in the light'. Now that the light was gone, Pacifica could focus on different things. Like how she felt. In fact, she felt… no pain. Actually, she felt great. Never this great before. She had always been struggling and trying to keep herself moving, always feeling a dull ache somewhere within her. The school counselor said that it was due to malnutrition and bad living, but how else was she going to afford food? It was either unhealthy food, or no food at all. She moved a limb, experimentally. She felt strong. Stronger than ever. Molten lightning flashed in her veins, as she clenched a fist, and saw a dull soft glow slowly appear around the trembling muscles of her hand, shining in the darkness. She held up her fist, and using it as a lamp, surveyed the mess she had made in her mad panic. Broken stacks of newspapers. Old plastic and stuff restored from the landfills and dumpsters. Old, ill-fitting clothing that they couldn't afford to throw away.
Sigh. This was going to take awhile.
It took 30 minutes for her to clean it up, and 10 more after that to realize that something was wrong. In her haste and her worry, she had not even bothered turning on the lights. And yet, even with the curtains drawn and the moon itself being covered by the clouds she had no problems seeing in the near-complete darkness of the flat she was living in. She picked up a newspaper, and experimentally read through it. "January 21st, Bow-ties in fashion nowadays…" she read, before throwing it back onto the pile. Alright, that was strange. She moved the curtains aside, and began to look down onto the street. She lived on the fifth floor. There, there was a pile of trash on the corner of the alleyway there, right across the street. And there, on the top of that trash heap, was a cigarette packet with red and white colourings. And there, on the top of the packet, was the brand name 'Malboro'.
She blinked, slowly patting her eye with her hands. That was… strange. Really strange. Ok, so she started glowing like the sun and realized that she was feeling much better, far stronger than ever before. She feels power pouring through her, and now she can see as if she has a pair of binoculars strapped to her eyes. What else can she do?
A coughing fit and much regret later, she realized she can do more. For one thing, she is stronger now, far more capable of lifting weights and jumping. The bad news was that she struck her head on the ceiling and now dust and plaster and other unmentionables had landed straight on her face. She shook her head to get rid of the filth, before brushing them away with her hand. Alright, she was stronger and faster. She had better senses. She had, for lack of a better word, improved. What about her mind?
She thought back, to her books. Yes, that one. Yes, that was the correct combination of blood types. Yes, usage of Oracort-E for mouth ulcers, as well as medicines such as Combiderm for eczema and other forms of skin inflammation. The standard methods of dealing with 3rd degree burns was to clean, put in fluids, antibiotics, electrolytes, and add in high protein and nutrient supplements. A tetanus shot is required… Then she checked her notes. Yes, right. All without consultation. She had a good memory, but the last time she studied skin care, was half a year ago. Not that good.
She grabbed her supply of notebooks. There had been a field trip, and her own movement had been paid for by some kind parent. The trip had been mostly fun, and the goodie bags they had been given had included notebooks. Nobody used the notebooks, tacky and garishly coloured they were, so Pacifica had gotten some. Not all of them, but enough to last her for several years at least.
She wrote down "Glowing light" and "makes yourself better." She thought to herself. What to do... and titled the section "That weird thing at midnight on the January 25". She thought to herself, meditating on what she had learnt. Her mother had always told her to take a deep breath and clear her mind, and so she did, concentrating on the power within her. Standing up, she began to take a walk around the house. It was time to experiment. First of all, what can she do with it? First of all, she needed… a light. Could she replicate what she had done before?
A light shone from her, and she smiled. No more spending nights using moonlight or torchlight to read, now. She used the light around her, looking at the piles of trash around her. Trash, was a misnomer. They were things they could use. They couldn't throw anything away, not when they could barely afford to feed themselves. Yes, the things were patched with holes and they were ill-fitting and smelly. But no, they couldn't throw it away. Because they might need it one day.
She grabbed a few of the less bad smelling ones. She had a knitting kit, and she had enough experience with arts and crafts to know how to embroider and knit. If this… power let her move stronger, faster, and see better, than it should, logically, improve her knitting and her arts and crafts skills.
She began to tear apart the cloth fibers. She had work to do.
a/n: word of warning. I really like explosions.
If it's a chance between awesome and RAW, I'm choosing awesome.