Kor

Prologue

            The first thing they showed me was the videos.

            There must’ve been thousands, a copy of nearly every recording of anything having to do with what I was. Since I already knew all the history, I don’t remember very much of what I was actually shown; only that spark of hate developing deep inside me, fanned to life by the torture of it all. Hate for all these people that were doing this to me. What, exactly, do they think is so wrong about me? I deserve this life just as much as them. No, more than them. How could they do this to anyone, especially innocent children? Not that I would bother counting myself among the innocent any more.

            The first recording sticks out in my mind. It was the first time I’d actually seen the original broadcast about Via. Via Hernandez, a beautiful, intelligent girl fresh out of college, and the first victim of these awful people. They found out Via was pyrokinetic after she accidentally lit someone’s hair on fire while they were being all stuck up at her, ran their mouth a bit, and said too much about a certain boyfriend. Via and the charred-head girl were on every channel you flipped to for weeks. At first people were simply baffled. Then more and more people started coming out, saying that they, too, had some sort of extraordinary, superhuman ability. The majority were teenagers. They grabbed the opportunity to tell everyone about this burden and ran with it, forgetting that they might need to give the world some time to swallow this. Maybe that’s why the world never did.

            Andy was the first thrown in jail, a social outcast. He’d accidentally broken a kid’s arm in wrestling a few months earlier, and the poor teen’s parents were trying to dig up some dirt about Andy to get him sued. His coming out and saying he had some type of super strength - apparently immediately illegal in all sports - was exactly what they needed to get their medical bills covered, and when Andy protested the unfairness perhaps a little too violently, they locked him up tight. The story was as viral as Via’s. Soon people began to do what most people do; they shunned these people that could do things they couldn’t, that they considered impossible. They shunned anything different.

            All helpful organizations and support groups pulled up by the power-people about pretty much anything were immediately squashed by an ‘unfortunate’ something-or-other. Things just kept rolling, and before anyone knew it, Via had lit a few more people’s hair on fire out of frustration. It was really funny to watch. Too bad they had to be really ‘important’ people. Via’s judge in the case was about the most anti-ability person they could get, and after weeks of a lot of courtroom yelling and third degree burns, Via got a death sentence by firing squad. This caused lots more yelling, only louder because it was the entire country this time, and a sickeningly many people were cheering the death sentence on.

            On the day of her execution, some weird guy with unkempt hair and a wrinkly suit showed up and spoke with an awful lot of uppity law-people and important persons. At the time, no one knew much about it; just that the odd guy with a thick accent no one could place left the building hours later with Via at the end of his leash and a crooked smile that made you think the entire world was in his hands as well. Mr. Crazy and Via weren’t seen for at least six months by anyone, absolutely no contact. And then Andy disappeared, right out of his titanium cell or whatnot. His sister Monica, too. The little twins in Kentucky, May and June, that had started a cute little Internet show about their dual abilities. Evan from Oregon, the floaty skater kid. After that, things skyrocketed. Dozens upon dozens of people just vanished, and all of them with powers.

            It was during that time that we power-people were dubbed Kor. It didn’t seem like anyone else was going to come up with a name anytime soon, so people took it in their own hands. Apparently this foreign guy that ran off with Via was being treated as some sort of ‘power scientist’ and whatnot, and his impossible-to-pronounce name that no one could remember began with ‘K-o-r’, so that’s what we were from then on. It’s pretty lame, I think they should have let us come up with something awesome.