Superhero Crash Course

Prologue

I bet you didn't expect Flare's metaphorical ending sentence would mean a prologue would literally follow the epilogue. I know, I know. It's weird. It's my idea. My secret identity wouldn't be so secret if everyone knows from the beginning. That'd ruin all the fun.

- Cryonics ;)

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Prologue

Ever stared at the sky on cloudy day and match the formation of the clouds with things like a bird or a glazed doughnut? My best friend, Jamie Devlin, has never failed to come up with weird comparisons. I mean my other friends would say they see a rabbit or a snowman. But for Jamie, her whole sky is probably turned into a Halloween Festival by her imaginations.

Jack O' Lantern. Killer clown with a machete. Grim Reaper. 

And she's only nine. I wonder what would she come up with when she's older.

A mutilated snowman perhaps?

The only thing I would imagine about when I see bunch of fluffy cloud littering the sky is snow. It's as if North Pole has moved above us. Tall Cumulus are like glazier and Stratus are uneven texture of thick permafrost. Cirrus are similar to ice frost my dad would leave on dinner table sometimes since he's the Coldfront.

Dig up my old crayon drawings from kindergarten folder and you'll find out that my ideal destination was North Pole. I guess Jamie, 's obsession in Winnie The Pooh And Friends was rubbing off on me. 

North Pole. Discovered by Pooh. Pooh found it.

The ink illustration of Christopher Robin kid and the bear putting on boots, carrying a flag pole, marching off to North Pole still appears in my head whenever someone says expedition AKA the word me and Jamie deem to be almost as glamorous as the word glamorous itself.

(But I'd never tell anyone about that. I'm already ten years old. Only toddlers read Winnie The Pooh.)

Taking my gaze off the moving cloud, I lean closer toward the window until my cool breath is creating droplets of water on the glass surface. No. Ice. I pull the blind shut when our swimming teacher approaches. If someone enters the locker room, I'll just pretend I'm a big heap of dirty towels on the drenched bench made of swollen faux wood.

I haven't told my parents yet that finally, my power is fully showing. I knew I was going to be a super like my dad since my doctor always have a long talk with my parents whenever he takes my temperature at school's Health Checkup Day.

I have always dreaded for the transformation phase.

It's the time when your body tries to adjust with your new ability. 

Unless you are a big bellied penguin which spent years in less than zero degree environment, you wouldn't find the phase pleasant.

In my case, the result is extreme hypothermia at the school swimming pool.

That's why I'm wrapped inside a ball of towels in a swimming trunk, shivering even though the temperature outside is, according to everyone, high enough to melt North Pole. I'm still soaked in chlorine reeking pool water and that doesn't help with the hypothermia at all. Ice frost is collecting on the window pane and the door. Whenever I sneeze, there's a new ice statue on the slippery tiles. The boy locker room has become the epitome of Winter Wonderland.

Human average body temperature, according to my science teachers, is 37 degree Celsius. 

My body temperature at the moment is around 10 degree Celsius. If the doctor takes my temperature, they will know that I should be put in a casket, not on a hospital bunk.