From what I've been told, I guess it started at Star Labs. The accident. You remember it, I'm sure everybody does. I know I'll never forget it. The day I became a killer. The day I should have died.

I was in Central City for the comics and games convention. I'd saved all year, working every evening at Burger Joint after school. I didn't have to worry about homework anymore. Senior year, and I was pretty much guaranteed to graduate, as long as I showed up for classes.

It's one of the very few perks of being a charity case. Every teacher felt bad for the boy who's father murdered his mother. And with the trial being publicized to the point of HBO announcing a made-for-TV movie about it, every teacher knew who little Barry Allen was.

Horrible attention span, but I somehow finished all my schoolwork in half the class period. A scrawny kid, slightly shorter than average, with dark, stringy, unkempt hair. Ratty red hoodie with my favorite skateboard brand's logo. Over-sized ripped jeans dragging the ground around secondhand store shoes.

Sorry, I'm off topic.

I was at the CCCC, the Central City Comics Convention. I had made it to day 2 in the Spellslingers tournament. The deck I'd built managed to squeak by under the meta, and I'd secured a spot in the top 16 with only one match loss. They never saw it coming.

So, anyway, I had already bought a TPB of Punk Rock Jesus, as well as a HC Special Edition of JTHM, signed by Jhonen. I decided to get something to eat, and a CC local told me to check out the cafeteria at Star Labs.

Weird, right?

But apparently it's got the best selection of local food. The laboratory provided spaces for food truck vendors to have an indoor kitchen, promoting their business. Kind of a cool idea, really. The lab didn't have to staff a kitchen, and the small business owners were definitely profiting.

I was eating a grinder (chicken, olives, mushrooms, and provolone, delicious), and going over my deck list. I was checking the other decks in the semifinals to see if I stood a chance. Then it was like something grabbed my ankle, and I was just... gone.

I keep remembering this family vacation we took to the beach, back when I was a kid. Back before dad killed mom. Mom had warned me, stay close to the shore, keep the beach umbrella in sight. The ugly red and yellow umbrella, bleached by years of use. She always worried too much, about sunburn, sharp shells in the sand, sharks...

But that was boring, I didn't want to go stand in water up to my bellybutton, I wanted to swim. I wasn't even out that far, not really. I had only been swimming a few minutes, diving under the swells and bursting out the other side.

It's stupid, but I liked to pretend I was a dolphin, like that old SNES game. I would try to get airborne breaking through the surface, but I could never get past my thighs.

Sorry, I'm off topic again.

So there's this thing called a riptide, right? It's where a current of water under the surface moves really fast, rushing back out to sea from the incoming waves. Incoming water up top, outgoing down below, simple, right?

So this riptide, this little tentacle of extremely quick-moving water, it kind of wrapped me up. Like, it twisted around my ankle, pulling me further out, and under. I thought I was going to die. It wouldn't let go, I was drowning. But then an arm grabbed me under my armpits, wrapping around my bony chest, and the thing finally let go. And dad was there to pull me back.

It let me go.

But I've always wondered, what if it hadn't? What if it had fought my dad, kept pulling me down? What if dad hadn't been there? What if...

Sorry, off topic.

So one minute I'm enjoying my sandwich, planning upgrades for the next day's games, and then I was Elsewhere.

I was drowning. Drowning without dying, stuck in that same damn riptide.

I panicked. Stupid.. slow... I flailed around with no idea where I was. I was reminded of the old bleached umbrella, red and yellow and ugly as sin. I didn't know where the hell this place was, or how to get back.

People have told me about what happened, how long I was gone, but I don't know about that. I know it felt like forever, but so did that day on the beach. I don't know if it was seconds or years, but I found a "surface."

I made it through, past my shoulders. I was free, I could see trees around me, beautiful shades of green and brown and any color other than that damn red and yellow. I was finally free.

Then it pulled me back under.

That rope, that snare, that damn tentacle of a riptide pulled me down again. This time I fought back, even if I was alone, I wasn't going to give up. I don't know how, but I made my way back. I surfaced again. On purpose this time.

I was in the middle of a simple, dirt floor hut, a sleeping woman beginning to open her eyes.

And then I was gone, back to Elsewhere.

But I wasn't dead yet. I kept fighting the current. I kept pushing back through, over and over again. Couldn't say for how long, felt like eternity. But then I saw Him.

Superman.

Then He was gone, just like every other time, but it had definitely been Superman.

THE Superman.

He could help me. I pushed back up, still panicking, but now I had a purpose. I had to grab Superman. He's invincible, he's perfect. If anyone could save me, it would be him.

I surfaced, breaking through further than I had before. But everything below my knees was still Elsewhere, that damn riptide still latched on. I'd finally made it past my thighs, but I wasn't airborne.

But He was right there. My hands reached out, closing around him before I was pulled back under again. And then...

It let me go.

I didn't care that my clothes were smoldering, or that the firefighters had to smother the flames with a blanket. I didn't care about the broken city around me, or the reporters shoving microphones in my face and asking a million questions at once.

I was free. The sounds of the ambulance sirens sounded like music after the nonstop roar of wherever I had been.

It had let me go.

But I swear I can still feel it there, waiting. It's not grabbing me, not tightly, but it's there.

Even here, on Themyscira, I can feel it. Bruce says there's no scientific proof that anything is different, but it's there. Maybe we just don't have the ability to test for it yet.

S#!%, can I call him Bruce? This is supposed to be a diary, but still, it's supposed to be a secret.

Whatever, it's not like anybody is going to want to read about poor Barry Allen anyway.

This was a dumb idea, I don't care what Diana says.

- Entry 1 of the journal of Barry Allen.