Living With the Enemy

Introduction: Welcome to Our World

[NOTE: This is a transcript of an audio recording. Background noises have not been written down.]

My name is Ember. Ember Harridan. Also known as Empyrean, but we'll get to that later. All you need to know right now is my name, and the fact that I'm on your side, no matter what. Despite what some of the information that will be revealed to you later suggests.

I have a secret.

2 secrets, actually.

The first is that I'm sort of what you may call a superhero. Yeah, feel free to laugh all you want. Just don't be surprised if I show up at your house one day, and I don't look happy. My "secret identity" is Empyrean, which I mentioned before. My power? I can control fire. Which, as you'll find out, has its upsides and its downsides. How I got this amazing power? I'm really not sure. It actually started working when I was eleven, but my dad (who knows a lot about these things, being a retired superhero himself) said that powers usually manifest at about that age. Why I, and my dad, and most of my friends, have powers? Like I said, we were born with them. We don't have some sort of 'special gene' or whatever, we just happen to be able to do amazing things like blend in with our surroundings or fly through the air or freeze time. I'm not sure of the technical stuff. You'd have to ask Ava about that. I'm just the one who burns things.

The second is much more dangerous. It's that my brother, legally known as Damien, also happens to have superpowers, and masquerades under the supervillain name Blazon.That one is especially important to keep secret, because he doesn't know that I'm a superhero, or that I have powers at all. And if he knew, he'd kill me. Don't think I'm exaggerating, by the way. He would.

I'm telling you this because I just had to tell someone.It's been bubbling inside me too long, this secret, and I had to get it out somehow. So I recorded this. Why did I record it instead of writing it down? Two reasons. One, at some points I would probably get really mad and incinerate the pages. And two, it just seemed more fun.And I know you'll never tell anyone. You can keep a secret, right?

There are a lot of things I'll tell you. More about my family (in the loosest sense of the word) my friends (who are more like family than my real family will ever be) and my quest to save the world (despite my destructive powers).

So, will you join me?