Chasing a Superhero

Birthday

My Alarm clock went off at 5:30 and I just about chucked it across the room. I had been up early this morning and had gone for a run. Having gotten back sooner I took a shower and fell asleep for a little. I turned my iPod on to hear Mariah singing Obsessed. I grabbed my brush, pulling it harshly through my damp hair, flinging that onto my bed when I was done. I danced around my room, singing along to the lyrics, grabbing my clothes and it was all I could do not to think about Dick. Yeah the song didn't match what I was feeling, but I was still so lovestuck at that moment that I had no cares.

'knock knock' "Hey honey, no school. They are still working on the bomb scene." I heard my mom head back downstairs.

The dancing stopped, the cold sweat starting again. I grabbed onto my bed, sliding down to wrap my trembling arms around my knees. The bombing. I couldn't understand how people could still casually talk about it. It seemed like this entire city just saw these things as 'normal' seeing as we were home to the Joker, Penguin, Two-face, Poison Ivy, and all the other villains that plagued the very souls of all Gotham's inhabitants.

Everyone had felt some type of loss, some death cause by the fight between crime and justice. I had no idea what that could do to a person. I shook myself, it was not the day to think if such things, it was my birthday. I quickly got and up and started getting dressed. I was seventeen. I didn't feel so old. I ran out my room and downstairs. Our elevator was fixed, but I took the stairs anyway. I needed to run out these thoughts.

Went I got downstairs I noticed it was unusually quiet. I pushed the door open suddenly to find not a birthday surprise, but I came face to face with a gun.

"Don't move!" the man in front of me was wearing a ski mask. I saw past him that my parents were backed up against a wall; my mom looked as she had been caught making pancakes and had an apron on, my dad wearing his suit and tie. My dad had a bruise on his forehead, his lip bleeding slightly. He must have tried to fight the men off.

"Mom! Dad!" I cried.

"Shut your mouth you little whore!" I was hit with the butt of the gun and I fell into the wall, and I slid down to the floor. This had to have been the worst week ever, and the most terrible birthday I had ever had.

One of the five men yelled at my mom "now tell me, where are the files?!" he moved forward and grabbed my mom fiercely and tugged her roughly by the wrist, positioning the gun at her head. "Tell me now!"

Trembling, my mom whispered "never" her voice was obviously trying to be strong, but her voice cracked.

"Oh really? Is that so?" one of the men asked, clearly the leader. "We will see if you say that in a second when I kill your daughter. And with that he lifted his gun and shot me in the chest.

I was just easing my way up to lean against the wall when I felt it. It was a burning so hot I felt like I was melting. My vision blurred, everything moved so slowly. I knew what I had to do, no matter the pain, no matter the consequences.

Running forward I grabbed the man's wrist and slammed my back into his elbow, shattering his elbow. Grabbing another man's gun I used him as a human shield as I shot out the rest of the men's kneecaps. Each shot shook my arm, I had never held a real gun, let alone shot one. I somehow knew what to do, somehow know how to save my parents. I hit the man I was holding hostage with the butt of the gun, and proceeded with the rest of the men.

I stood there breathing hard, vision going in and out of focus. I could feel my parents holding their breaths.I turned to my parents, and they shrunk back to the wall. I was scaring them. In their eyes I was dangerous. I felt blood run down my chest; I knew I didn't have long. I looked at my parents one final time before I was down the stairs, everything moving in circles, and found myself in the back alley. I could hear in the distance police sirens, but my hearing was fuzzy now, I knew not of how far away they really were.

My parents didn't need to see me die. I could never put them through that. I clutched my chest, blood flowing from the wound which would soon end my life. I fell to my knees, tears coming to my eyes. It was too soon, I couldn't die, my life hadn't even started.

I felt a shadow approach me, smaller shadows following. It wispered into the stillness of the death that hung over me, offering a change in fate, playing with the balance of life and death. "I could change your life. You were chosen to be special, will you allow me to save you?" the voice echoing in my head. "You would be worked to your bone, but I assure you I can teach you so much."

I was laying on my side now and I looked up at the shadow knowing what I had to do, what I had to order to live again. Choking out blood the last thing I said was "yes."

And so the darkness engulfed me, body and soul.

I was there, in a cavern of lights. There was no entrance, there was no exit. I could only see that I was surrounded by strange wisps. They seemed to be talking to me, but they had no definite shape or figure. Where was I? I looked down at myself, only to find a wisp of white-ish smoke. I had no hands, no body. Sadness overcame me.

I was dead.

The other wisps were different colors, but mine was the only white, I tried to move forward, but I had no movement, only turning. I attempted yelling out to the other wisps, but they seemed to ignore me. I felt so alone, so cut off from everything. It seemed like ages in which I spent in that cavern. To me years had passed, even centuries.

I had called out, over and over, asking where I was. At one point I asked who I was. I was terrified, the whispers surrounding me, circling me. They chanted, they sang. There were no words, but I felt different.Time was my enemy, it never seemed to change.

I was filled with the feeling of being constantly watched, expected to be something or do something. I felt the feeling of crying, but no tears would ever come. I was cold, so cold it burned. It wasn't a physical feeling, but I was hurting. I somehow knew I was partly gone, partly insane. I couldn't make heads or tails of anything. I started to talk to myself. I started with all the things I had done wrong, and I had made amends with those who had hurt me. Soon enough I was thinking of the Batfamily. I felt the need to forgive them, but something stopped me.

Everything seemed to be humming, and soon enough everything was shaking, an earthquake shaking my thoughts. A green light soon blinds me, it approached me, charging towards me. I turn to try to escape, only to have the green light grab me, pulling me toward it. I scream, attempting to flee against my captor, only to be thrown into it.

I try to scream again, only for my lungs to burn and sting. I throw my eyes open to find I am surrounded by a green liquid, I couldn't breathe. I was drowning. I am pulled upwards by a terrible force being pushed upon my body.

I find myself popping out of the liquid to feel air rush into my lungs. I scream louder as my skin is burning and pulling away from my bones. My senses are going nuts, everything alerting me of danger. I open my eyes again to see a cave; people are standing around the vat of green liquid that engulfs me. I scream unitelligably to them to help me, to help end my suffering.

I push towards the edge and claw my way out of the liquid. It takes every muscle to pull, and they scream in horror as I clasp the rocks and dirt, trying everything to leave the pain. I collapse on the edge, shivering and shaking, I am wearing nothing, and find myself rocking in the fetal position as the pain suddenly stops. I shake harder, hoping that another wave of pain would not hit.

I hear the footsteps approach, and yet again the shadow hovers over me and whispers its sweet words "Welcome, to the League of Shadows."

And then I fell into an exhausted sleep.