"You know I can't control it. Why help me?"
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When the particle accelerator exploded, it hit Ryker. But also killed her brother, mother and father. And with that, her life, her existence... was gone in one fell sw...
It had been... what? 3 months since I left S.T.A.R Labs to mourn. And I still couldn't get over it. I always sat down at the table we ate at, the sofa we watched movie together on, slept in the bed that Mum always kept religiously tidy just in case I came home from my shift and needed a good night's sleep. I removed every mirror in the house because I couldn't look at my own face. Because...
I did this.
But after 3 months of self-assigned house arrest, I decided that why shouldn't I take a step into the unknown streets outside. I opened the door, the bright stream of light hitting my face. Stepping out onto the porch, I looked around at the different houses, taking in how much people changed in this short time.
"Who are you?" I heard, so I turned around and faced my neighbour, Mrs Ramirez. "You couldn't possibly have this house, it belongs to someone else."
"I... own this house." I replied, furrowing my eyebrows.
"Ryker! I can't believe it's you. It's been such a short time since Ian, Rebecca and Kieran died, of course you'll be in mourning. I didn't recognise you with the black hair and purple eyes." I froze.
"What, sorry?"
"Oh, it looks like you dyed your hair and got contacts! It looks beautiful, don't worry." I took a strand of my hair and looked at it. It was, indeed, black. As soon as I saw this, I rushed to the car and opened it, getting inside and driving off without a word, pulling up at S.T.A.R Labs. I stormed inside, seeing Caitlin in front of me.
"Caitlin!" I exclaimed, hurrying towards her.
"Ryker?" She gasped in response.
"I need your help."
We were in the lab, and she'd finished running tests.
"You're good and healthy, but almost... too healthy. Your strength, speed, durability, IQ, power, everything has increased. By a lot. Working on the particle accelerator did something to you. The radiation helped you survive because you were already akin to it's destructive capabilities. Your purple eyes and black hair aren't for nothing, Ryker. Your skills are now on a metahuman level. I think it's safe to assume you are one, but I'll need Dr Wells to confirm." Caitlin stammered.
"I don't think you need my confirmation." Wells himself was wheeling himself towards us with a smile. "It does seem as if you, Ryker, have developed metahuman abilities. What abilities, of course, we're not sure of, but there's certainly something." He smiled, nodding. "It's good to see you back in action, Ryker."
"The only action here is figuring out what's wrong with me." I blinked, looking at my watch. A gasp fell from my lips and a tear rolled down my face, dropping onto the floor.
"It's exactly three months after they died." I wept, covering my mouth.
"Oh, Ryker." Caitlin sympathised, rubbing my shoulders.
"If you do need someone to talk to, we do have a man who's in a coma. He has been since the explosion. Struck by lightning." Dr Wells suggested while wheeling forward.
"It's worth a shot." Caitlin shrugged, tidying her papers. I thought for a moment, before asking about where he was and taking a file on the patient, walking in.
"First person ever to survive a lightning strike. It's phenomenal. Well, I'll leave you in his immobile hands." He left the room, leaving me with the comatose man. I sat down beside him, flicking through the files and clearing my throat. The only thing I could tell about him was that he had well-set features, brown hair and a calm expression. I couldn't sense anything else.
"I don't know if you can hear me or not... my name is Ryker Hathaway, I'm an employee here. And I know your name is Barry Allen. Cool name. But I wasn't here for the last few months because... because..." I struggled to get the words out of my mouth, as if it was forbidden for me to mention the words after three months. "I was in mourning of my mum, dad and brother. I read here that you lost your mother. Whenever someone talked about loss or something, I could never imagine. I didn't know my grandparents because my dad's parents died before I was born and my mum was an orphan, so I didn't really know real loss until now. And every time I looked at anything or thought anything, my train of thought would always come back to them. About how the last thing I did was yell at them and now I have no chance to say sorry. I should have died instead of them..." I sobbed, the tears falling thick and fast. "Why did I survive and they didn't? Was there a reason? Anything?" I looked at my hands, which were pulsing with purple. I looked in the glass and saw that my eyes were glowing and purple streaks were appearing in my hair.
"Dr Wells!" I yelled, panicking. The doctor rolled in and saw my hands, immediately beckoning me to the test room.
"I would run scans on you, Ryker, but I think we both know the only one who can run those tests on you."
"Cisco?" I replied, trying to ignore the worrying purple glow around my hands.
"Of course not. You're the most accomplished scientist in S.T.A.R Labs. The particle accelerator hypothesis and foundation research was conducted by you. Your IQ is an outstanding 297 and I'm not surprised if you have the intellect to carry out this project on your own. Something fascinating is happening to you, and it's right if you're the one to discover it." I nodded, before getting to work and attaching scanners on my arms as well as amplifiers. I turned them up, and for the first time found that I looked different (apart from the black hair and purple eyes). Sure, they were glowing and there were purple streaks in my hair, but as well as that, there was this symbol in glowing purple over one of my eyes, but in thinner lines:
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It was like the energy was leaking into my face like it did in that Dark Phoenix movie the author watched, but over my right eye was this. I wrote down the numbers and took the amplifiers off my arms, making the mark and energy disappear and therefore concluded my research.
