So how do we start this. I guess the beginning will do. When I was young, my mother and father were both killed in our home. I don't remember my mother at all, but I know she loved me. I mean, she had to... right? She was a mother.
My father was an archeologist or something like that, travelling to other countries around the world and digging old stuff up. I'm sure that he barely knew my mother either, with the amount of time he must've been gone.
I didn't have any immediate family to be sent to, so... the state stepped in and put me in foster care. I was still with the same family I'd been with since I was young, so.. They were practically my real family. I was content with them. +
Nobody in school growing up had really bothered me, the dead parents being a sensitive topic, and allowing an excuse for a psychotic outburst. Barely anybody spoke to me. It was a tragic but almost nice way to grow up.
I'd been in therapy since I was five, the state said I had to be... It was kind of like probation, except I hadn't done any crime. I wish I could still see my therapist these days. Things have only gotten worse since then.
But anyways, that's about it on my backstory, so why don't we hop into the real reason I'm talking to you today. If anyone were to tell you, that I had a normal life, or that I was just another regular high school kid, with a traumatizing past and underlying issues... well. They'd be right.
I still remember the day it happened, the day these... powers, manifested. I didn't quite understand what I was truly capable of at the time. I didn't understand yet, just how much loss and tragedy, I would cause.
It was kind of funny actually, really just... luck of the draw. It's crazy how, the most life changing events, the things that mean the most to us, well... They usually start with coincidence.
My coincidence happened on a Monday morning, March fifth to be exact. I always think back and wonder, what if I would've gotten up on time for school that day. Maybe my life would've stayed normal. Maybe I wouldn't be a freak.
The night before, there had been a power surge around two or so in the morning. It caused my alarm clock to reset, meaning my alarm never went off. I woke up, seeing the clock at the wrong time, and I immediately knew I was late. No big deal, right? I'd just ask my foster-mom for a ride to school. So I did.
"Sure," She'd told me. "On one condition, you'll run inside the bank for me, put this money in my account." Bright smile on her face, I didn't have a choice at that point, the bank it was. I wasn't intimidated by the bank. Why would I be? It was just a bank.
And so the events leading toward my big changing moment were leading up. I never saw it coming until it happened. Even standing there in the bank, handing the woman the cash to deposit into the account. I didn't see the man behind me, he was just another normal man.
There was no sign, there was no indication, there was no hint, that anything was about to happen. There was only a buzz, and a scream. I heard the scream before I'd turned, afraid of what I would turn to. It's strange how a scream piercing the silence, can take you from fearless, to afraid for your life, in less than two seconds.
I saw the man on the ground, before I realized the man standing above him had put him there. For a few moments it didn't hit me, I just stood staring at the person lying unconscious in the floor. I should've realized. I should've taken a hint. Standing in that moment, was when I realized exactly what was going on.
I had seen it on the news for a few weeks now. Bank robberies left and right, the culprit escaping before the police even knew there was a heist. At every bank robbed, the cameras would turn off during the robbery, and then turn back on when the heist was finished. Hundreds of thousands of dollars had been lost to this robber, along with dozens of lives, and now I was standing here. Staring in his eyes.
He was just a normal guy, at least... that was until he put his hand on the clerks shoulder, and released enough electricity to paralyze her. What was I supposed to do, normal old me, I was just, Terrance. I didn't even know that super humans actually existed. I'd thought the news was just trying to keep us interested by sounding mysterious.
Now I was seeing this man, touching people like his hand was a cattle prod, dropping bodies left and right. I knew he was coming for me next. On the news it had said that there were no eye witnesses, as everyone inside the bank during the crime was left paralyzed, on the brink of death, and eventually dead. I had to run.
I had to run but my feet wouldn't move, my breath wouldn't stay, my thoughts wouldn't form. I was feeling terror at it's purest. I was scared for my life, I was scared for everyone's lives. "Don't be afraid kid," He'd whispered to me whilst laughing under his breath, "This'll only hurt a little." I didn't believe him.
I panicked as his hand clasped my shoulder. I tried to push him away, slamming my palm against his chest. It happened so quickly, that at the time I didn't even know what had happened. All I knew then, was I'd felt the energy rush through my shoulder and out of my hand, into his chest.
I remember the look in his eyes. As my fear faded, his eyes became full of it. He didn't know what was happening any more than I did, but I knew from the way the energy in my palm felt, that I was safe, and he wasn't. If the feeling wasn't hint enough that I was special, and the fact that I hadn't been paralyzed didn't give it away, then the burnt corpse at my feet probably did.
He had tried to do to me, what he'd done to so many others. He'd tried to shock me into paralysis, but instead he'd been the one shocked. It was like he sent a sizable voltage into me, and I'd turned it into a power plant. He paralyzed people, and I'd used his own power to crispy fry his body with electricity.
In that moment, I'd felt good. I'd felt special, like there was something about me that nobody else had. I'd felt like a hero, but only temporarily. I'd stopped him from hurting people in the future, but at the same time I'd become a murderer. Yes, it was an accident, but I had blood on my hands. That, and there was no saving everyone else in the bank. They were paralyzed, for life probably. They wouldn't survive long.
I grabbed a phone and dialed the police. Somebody needed to get here quick.
"What's your emergency?"
"There's been a robbery, everyone is... everyone is hurt. Get here quick, please, 5th and Robinson please send someone."
"Can you tell me exactly what happened si-"
"No! No I can't explain what happened, just... Send someone damnit!"
The police arrived minutes later, but those few minutes had felt like an eternity. I had sat there with the phone at my feet, staring at the corpse I'd created. It was sickening, that doing that to somebody had made me feel good. I hadn't meant to do it. I hadn't wanted to hurt him, just to push him away from me. Intent never matches outcome.
They let me go with my foster-mom, as the experience must've been horribly traumatic for such a young boy. I was seventeen then, and that was the most terrifying, life changing moment I'd had. I wish I could say it's still the same, that nothing worse than that had happened, but I'd be lying.
That was the first of the blood on my hands, the first person whose life I'd played god with, even if it was on accident. That was the first time I'd convinced myself that I was doing good, by doing evil. Murder is evil, whether your doing it to save people or not. Killing is wrong by nature, even if it's to stop more death. That was the first of the blood I have to own up to, but I promise it's far from the last.
And the worst part...
I don't even remember his name.
