Empowered

Chapter 1: E is for.....

When you're a child, everything is bigger than you, and the world is a bright, shiny, and endless place of exploration and wonder. At least, that is how Ember looked at the world when she was little. She loved playing and adventuring out into the garden, forest, beach, and any other place you could possibly think of. Honestly, she just loved being freaking alive! Sadly, this is the day Ember would stop feeling so optimistic about the world. Allow me to set the stage for a momentous event in the life of this eleven-year-old girl. The characters are a bunch of children, Ember included. The scene itself is the best place to go when you're a kid, and you love being alive – no, not Chuck E Cheese's (America's home for pedophiles) and not some shitty amusement park where you know several kids had their heads chopped off – the regular good ol' park of course! Where else can you breathe in the fresh air, burn off some of your abundant energy, and of course, generally and liberally exude that optimism that only a child could possess.

Alas, when you're a kid, as happy as you may be and as incredible as the world may seem, some shit can make you feel terrible, and sometimes those things are other people. Those people don't have to be adults; they can be kids just like you. When Ember was nine, they made her fourth-grade class watch something called "The Bullying Movie," or I think that's what it was called. Mainly I think its job was to ''shock" children who have the inclination to "bully" others into ceasing and desisting by showing them the mangled, broken, and fucked up body of this kid who they painfully portrayed as the victim in this film – and when I say painfully – I mean this kid was literally referred to as a "broken toy" in the movie so yeah he got fucked up by the "bullies" in this movie a lot. Anyway, in Ember's school, every once in a while, one of these little douchebags who thought he was some sort of hot shit thought it a fantastic idea to come over to where she or one of her classmates were playing and essentially take a dump on whatever they were doing, and I don't mean literally take a dump (because that would be too disgusting even for New Jersey, well, ok maybe not), I mean they just acted like a little tool and would say some nasty shit, or kick dirt on someone, or do something else shitty. Kids, indeed, can be the stuff of nightmares.

Anyway, every momentous event needs a villain. So, allow me to tell you about a boy named Josh. Josh was a fucking little brat, to say the least. He wasn't an evil boy, but he was spoiled, mean, and his parents, quite frankly, seemed unconcerned with how he treated his peers. Perhaps their inattention caused him to act out, and their good wealth allowed him the resources to inflict his little tortures on his classmates without real punishment. However, I am merely speculating. Whatever Josh's problem was, his petty little crimes did not warrant the punishment Ember would inflict upon him that day in the park. Oh, I see; you thought I was saying Josh was the villain; well, that's not exactly the case.

The weather that spring day in the park was quite sunny. It was a good day to be a kid and to honestly be alive. There was a slight breeze, the flowers were growing, the birds were chirping, and humidity wasn't a word in the day's vocabulary. Naturally, Ember felt pretty good, and to make this day even better, Ember wasn't alone in the park; she was there with her friend Morgan. Now, Ember tended to be a loner most of the time. Not caring about other people's opinions definitely does not foster a sense of camaraderie for a child. Perhaps it was also because Ember knew deep down in her core that she didn't belong to the "normal kids club," that she was weird or "other," that she would one day bring ruin to the Earth, but whatever she thought, she also knew she wanted to be a normal kid – you know – have friends, sleepovers, feel like you could tell someone anything, and they wouldn't judge you. It was hard for her, though. Something about her – the way she was – made the other children keep their distance for the most part. Maybe they could sense the danger there – a dark side to this odd yet otherwise happy little girl. Anyway, I am trying to make the point that Ember found it hard to make friends except in one case. Her name was Morgan Dao, and she met Ember in pre-school. Over the years, from pre-school to fourth grade, Ember and Morgan grew closer to each other, and by fifth grade, they were basically best friends who would hang out all the time. Ember became almost wholly content in her life because of Morgan. That idea of having someone she felt such a deep and sanguine friendship with made her happy and aware that she wasn't alone. Unfortunately, this friendship wouldn't last because that lovely spring day in the park was not only a defining day in Ember's life but the end of the lives of Josh, Morgan, and all the other children in the park except for Ember.