Experimental powers

Date: 4/18/2020

I had a dream where the beginning of it is a bit fuzzy. Somehow I was kidnapped and taken into this lab-like area, by a man I didn’t know the name of. He was some renowned scientist with his own company and everything, and I was being held in one of his ginormous (and also heavily guarded) labs. When he first takes me I’m walking down the sidewalk of my city, passing by shops and peering into the windows to try and find something to get my mom for Mother’s Day. My brother, sister and I had agreed to split up and search, and meet back up an hour later at the park nearby, so I was alone (save for the occasional stranger who passed by me). Then, almost literally from the shadows of some alleyway, a man steps out and introduces himself. I warily tell him that I’m not interested before he can spout some advertisement, thinking he’s a salesman, but then I notice nobody else is around. He tells me he’s actually a scientist, famous in fact, and that he’s disappointed that I didn’t recognize him, since from his ‘initial tests’ I had ‘proven to be one of the more intelligent specimens.’ I started to get freaked out but before I could do anything my vision starts going black. Then I wake up at the top of a super tall building, part of the massive lab. There are desks and papers and bookshelves and it has a nice view with windows, so I’m assuming it must be his little desk-area where he files papers or whatever. My hands are chained behind my back and I have a weird smelling, plastic cloth tied tightly around my mouth, but oddly enough it doesn’t cover my nose. I try to open my mouth to speak and realize the cloth is part of some weird human muzzle. My muscles also feel subdued, and I think, this dude literally kidnapped and drugged me, wow. He comes through the door and says he’s glad I finally woke up. Then he explains, shortly, that I’m going to be one of many ‘participants’ in an experiment ‘which will help humankind advance as a whole,’ all of which sounds to me like, ‘I’m using you as a lab rat along with a bunch of other kids I kidnapped.’ I try to ask why he chose me, and it comes out like “mmmhh,” but he seems to understand and he says that I, like all other participants, have ‘a unique quality’ and starts going on about something ‘special’ in my DNA. I have no idea what he’s talking about. Then I pass out again. When I wake up I’m being escorted, not very kindly, down some hallways and into a room. I’m in a bag, it feels and looks like a trash bag but smells like my muzzle (which is still on, along with the handcuffs). I squirm and start grunting and kicking and whoever’s carrying the bag says sharply to stop, and shakes me. I feel nauseous but don’t stop and eventually I’m thrown down. Then the bag is removed. As soon as it’s removed and I see my escort- a man dressed like a security guard with a strangely protective helmet/mask on- I kick my foot out, right at his dick. He groans and doubles over and I flip to my feet even though I can’t use my hands and run at him again, and head butt him right in the face. The mask sends a shocking pain through my skull but I hear a satisfying crack behind the smooth plastic, and hear the man shout again. Then a bunch of other guards rush in. They hold me by all fours, about six of them, and one removes my mask, saying, “don’t even think about-“ Before he can finish I push from my lungs, hard, like I’m trying to make more air or something. Flames erupt from my mouth and envelop the man, and several men nearby, who shout and back away. I shout profanities at them when they back away unharmed. I realize their masks are probably fireproof. “It’s not worth it, you can’t escape!” a voice shouts, a girl’s. I shout back, kicking and struggling, “I don’t care if I can’t escape, I just wanna make these fuckers hurt!” Then I push more flames from my mouth and think, annoyedly, that they’re not nearly as strong as they used to be. I realize once again that I’m probably still drugged. As if reading my thoughts one of the guys tells me that I will continue to be subdued with both physical restraints and drugs until I learn to behave. I spit a wad of flaming mucus right on the center of his mask. The guys throw me down into the room and quickly retreat, and even though I get right back to my feet and charge the door, they manage to escape in time and lock me in. I size up the door. It’s wood, but surrounded by metal. Normally I’d be able to take it down, but with the drugs making me weak, I doubted my ability to even break a hole in it. Just because I’m mad I try anyways. I stand back sizing up the door again, then charge and throw my full weight against it. The entire wall and door rumbles, and I hear the wood splinter. I jump to my feet and laugh. There’s a hole in the door where my shoulder had landed, too small to fit entirely through but big enough to cause the people here trouble. Which is what I wanted. I see a guard come close and curse, then call someone on some radio or other. I say, “you know, maybe if you stopped putting these drugs in me, I’d be able to behave.” “Not a chance,” the guard spits, and I giggle maliciously again, happy to hear tinges of anger and annoyance in his tone. Then I turn to inspect the room for the first time. There are several tent-like ‘buildings’ set inside of the large, high-ceilinged room. Each tent is big enough to stand in, wide enough for two or three people to spread out inside and have room. By the looks of it these tents are bedrooms of a sort. They’re organized in neat rows, with sleeping bags and pillows inside. Almost all of the tents have one or two people inside as well. A boy sits outside of his tent, free of any restraints from what I can see. He has short red hair and round glasses that magnify his eyes. He’s wearing an outfit that reminds me of a prison uniform- it’s clearly from whatever lab place this is. I look down and notice with disgust that I’m wearing the same thing, too. At least it fits me well though. And I still have a bra and underwear on. It could be worse. The boy is smirking at me and when I catch his eye he calls, “done yet?” His voice matches the ‘girl’ I thought I’d heard earlier. I walk over to him grumbling, “the sonofabitch got me in the middle of the city! I didn’t even have time to put up a fight, what kinda loser takes people like that?” “Uh, a kidnapper?” the boy answers. “Not a good one,” I reply angrily. I sit down next to her. “A respectable kidnapper would’ve taken me in with a fight. I’m literally a KID. Any GOOD kidnapper can take in a kid without having to use some sketchy drug.” “You’re a kid that has super strength and can spit fire, though,” the boy points out. “That’s not all I can do, I swear to god if they take me off of these drugs I’m burning this entire place down.” The boy blinks, still grinning. “Uh, make sure I’m not inside it when you do.” I laugh. “Hm. Maybe. Fire is very hard to coordinate when it’s spreading across several miles.” “Like you know that from experience?” the boy snickers. “I do, actually, but we’re not gonna talk about that.” Another person shouts from inside of the tents. “Shut up, we’re trying to sleep!” “You shut up Kenny, we all know you aren’t sleeping anyways,” the boy calls back. I stare at him for a second. “Hey, what’s your name?” “Evan,” he says. “Cool,” I say, unsurprised. He smiles again. “Yeah, they wouldn’t even let me keep my binder when I came in. Made me wear a bra.” “Damn, they’re so rude. Honestly if you’re gonna kidnap people do it with class.” We’ve both lowered our voices to near whispers. “Yeah,” he says. “I’m Ella,” I say after a few seconds of silence. He smiles. “Well, I would get used to being muzzled around here if you keep it up,” he says. I grumble non-coherently under my breath, then glance around. “Hey, where do I sleep?” Evan glances both ways, scanning the tents. “Just find a tent that’s open. You can sleep with either gender as long as you don’t, you know, SLEEP WITH them sleep with them.” I roll my eyes. “Yeah, cause this place gives the perfect mood for that.” “Just relayin’ what the director said,” Evan tells me, putting his hands up. “Though my tent has a free sleeping bag if you wanna sleep with us.” “Us?” I ask. He nods. “Yeah, I was taken here with one of my friends, Stacy. She’s cool, but right now she’s asleep and I wouldn’t wake her up if I were you. She’s grumpy when she’s tired.” I smile and say, “thanks, Evan.” Then I crawl into the tent and try to go to sleep, despite the fact that my hands are chained. Luckily the sleeping bags are comfortable and the pillows aren’t as cheap as they could be, so I fall asleep fast. I wake up early the next day. Most other kids seem to be asleep. The only light is coming from the windows, which are high up on the ceiling and blocked by all sorts of bars and locks. It’s lighter than it was last night though, so I crawl out of the tent and take the chance to really look around. From what I can see there are only about two dozen or so kids here. There’s a few more girls than guys but it’s close. Only two or three other kids are up, including Evan. “You an early bird too?” he asks, sitting in the same place as he was last night. “No,” I say simply. “Did you even sleep?” “Yeah, yeah, don’t sound so offended. Course I slept.” I glance around again. There’s no signs of any guards or anything yet. “Hey, do we get a change of clothes?” I ask. “At seven they come in and wake the rest of us up to prepare. At seven thirty they take us to these huge restroom/locker room places and we get new clothes every day there, although they’re the exact same as the ones we’re wearing now.” I sigh, then sit down next to him. We talk quietly for a bit, him telling me about the other kids here and how long he’s been here- just a few more days than me, really- and I tell him what I know about the scientist guy, since apparently not everyone saw him the same way I did when they first arrived. Then, the doors burst open and a swarm of at least thirty fully armed and armored guards come into the room. They go in opposite directions, all around the tents. When I see them coming towards me I say, “hey guys, what’s up?” But before I can finish a few have grabbed me and one of them has locked the muzzle over my face. Then one of the guys talks to the other. Something about something evolving to build defenses against something else. I’m pretty sure I hear the word immunity, but I may be wrong since I’m busy struggling against at least seven men. The guard nods and sticks a needle in my arm. I feel my energy drain almost immediately, but it’s not nearly as much as yesterday. Somehow they seemed to know this would happen, so another guard calls something out. A guard with a slightly different colored armor comes in from the doorway, pulling heavy-looking weights behind him. He’s big, and even though I can’t see I know he’s probably ripped, but he’s struggling. He reaches me and I squirm some more. But with the drug wearing me down and the guards’ immunity to my fire breath, I can’t do much except watch as the guard straps each of the weights to me, one by one, grunting as he lifts them up to lock around my arms, legs, and neck. By the time they’re done they’ve probably secured at least three hundred pounds throughout my entire body; moving my arms is a bit of an effort, and walking shakes the floor as I have to lift fifty or more pounds with each leg to step. As the guards flee the room, slamming the door behind them, I groan loudly. I groan again through my muzzle and turn around to face Evan. He doesn’t have any restraints. I open my hands in a “WHAT?!” gesture and say, “mph?!” He laughs and says, “if you were more well behaved you wouldn’t have that problem. I myself am an exemplary lab rat.” I shake my head, hearing the chains flank loudly on my neck. The giant weighted ball slowly sways back and forth as I do. Then I hear an ear-piercing scream. Without thinking I run over to it at a slightly-below-average speed because of the weights. They clank super loudly behind me and the ones attached to my feet slam against the floor with every step. The scream is coming from a little girl who is at the entrance of her tent. There’s nobody else around who’s doing anything to her- she’s just sitting there, hands over her ears, kneeling on the matted entrance, screaming her head off. Suddenly she stops. I go to ask if she’s okay but then remember the muzzle over my face. I turn and look at Evan, then gesture helplessly at her. He shakes his head. “Don’t even bother helping her at this point,” pipes a voice from my left. I jump and turn, raiding my fists and glancing down in annoyance when the chains clang. There’s nothing there. I squint harder and then laugh, which sounds weird through my muzzle. There’s a slight disruption of the air in front of me forming the shape of a head. I look down and see a body, too. The kid was invisible. “Mph,” I say helpfully. Suddenly a kid appears in front of me. Thankfully he’s fully clothed in the same outfit as everyone else. He’s super skinny, with olive skin and kind of small eyes. He seems perky and has oval glasses, and bushy hair. “What’d you do to get a muzzle, anyways?” the boy asks. “She can breathe fire,” says Evan, who’s walked over to join us in front of the silent girl. “Huh, that’s cool,” the invisible boy says. “So you fire-breathe and are also super strong. Anything else?” I nod, then shake my head, then nod again, saying, “mmmm...? Mmm!” Evan sighs dramatically and says, “they drugged her too, the night she came in, but she decided to try and bust open the door anyways.” “Mph!!” I protest. “Oh, sorry,” Evan says, glancing at me with a smile. “She got mad and decided to break the door because she wanted to cause the guards as much pain as possible.” I nod satisfactorily. “Mmhm,” I say. The boy giggles lightly and pushes his glasses farther up his nose, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “They’re bringing in more and more interesting people every day, huh!” “No duh, Dylan,” Evan says. “And she even met the director in person before she came here. He talked to her and everything.” “Mph,” I grumble angrily. “Didn’t tell her anything useful though,” Evan adds. “That’s strange,” Dylan says, bouncing on his feet again. Then I clear my throat and gesture at the girl with my head, wincing when the chains clang together loudly. “Oh, her?” Dylan asks. Evan frowns. “We’re not sure what she can do, but it’s not much. They don’t put any restraints on her even though she’s tried to escape and fight a lot,” Dylan continues. “Yeah,” Evan adds uneasily, “she screams every morning like this. Sometimes she calls for her mom. Nobody can get her to stop or to talk to them. It’s not worth the try.” I frown even though nobody can see it. “Mm,” I say softly, sadly looking down at the girl. “Well, they take off the muzzle for mealtimes and to get ready in the morning,” Dylan tells me quickly, changing the subject. “MmMm?” I ask excitedly. “Yeah, maybe you can use those times to prove you’re not gonna hurt anyone else.” I growl. “MmmMMmm,” I say. The two boys laugh. Sure enough, when it’s time to get ready the guards escort us down the hallways of the lab, taking us past so many places I struggle to remember the way back. We end up at a huge locker area with bathrooms and showers to the sides. “Get changed quick, the director scheduled a special meeting today,” a guard says. Another guard takes off my muzzle, saying, “do anything funny and you’ll be out before you can begin to beg for mercy.” I rub my jaw. “But of course, mister guard sir,” I say in my most sugarcoated voice. I hear Evan snicker behind me and the guard shoos me away. I turn and, still rubbing my jaw, say, “wow, I feel so threatened. Honestly.” Evan replies seriously, “you should. They’re the scariest people on the planet.” “Oh yeah?” I say sarcastically, glancing at him to see if he’s serious. He nods and arrives at a locker, which he starts to open. “Yeah,” he says again, seriously, “they told me so.” I snort and look at my new locker, which is labeled with my name. Since Evan and I both have names starting with E we’re next to eachother, which I’m thankful for because Evan is my only real ‘friend’ here, aside from maybe Dylan. I strip quickly, which is hard because the chains keep getting tangled up in my clothes and doesn’t help with my already falling mood. When I’m trying to pull my shirt off of one of the chains I suddenly hear a large, ‘rrriiiiiiiiiip!’ and I gasp. “Oh shit,” I whisper. Evan stares, biting his lip. “Aw man, why’d you rip it?” “I didn’t mean to!” I hiss, “I was just pulling it off and, I dunno, I didn’t think I was pulling THAT hard...” Evan glances behind us. “Just throw it in the trash, no-one’ll notice.” I do as he says and grab my new pair of clothes, which are already in my locker. Putting them on it just as hard. When trying to put on my pants I get so mad that I feel warmth start to spread in my throat and quickly stop what I’m doing, using both hands to cover my mouth and pinch my nose. “What’s wrong?” Evan asks. Several kids turn to look at me curiously. I shake my head. I feel the warmth rising and close my eyes, feeling them water. Suddenly I can’t hold it anymore and cough- and when I do, smoke floats up from my mouth to the ceiling. I immediately clap a hand over my mouth, and look around to see if anyone noticed. A few of the kids did but they say nothing. “What the hell are you thinking?” Evan says quietly. “I can’t control it sometimes, when I get mad it just happens!” I reply, smoke drifting from my mouth as I talk. I purse my lips closed again, trying to think of calming thoughts. I settle on the idea of my cat and soon the warmth recedes and I sigh in relief. I manage to get my pants on with enough time to brush my hair and my teeth, and wash my face. Evan shows me how everything works which I’m eternally grateful for. He just shrugs and says, “nah, it’s cool.” The guards order us from the room and as I try to slip out of the door, one of the guards grabs me from the line and snaps a muzzle over my face. I growl but don’t struggle this time and he says, “good girl, see? You’re learning already.” I stomp out of the room before any of the guards there can see my face, which is deathly mad. Smoke fills the muzzle and I cough and sniffle, but it keeps coming thickly as anger makes my temples throb. Eventually I feel the edges of the muzzle start to crawl inwards from the heat, the supposedly fire-proof plastic slowly curling up. I manage to skip ahead in line to Evan since he’s only a little bit aways from me, and as soon as we stop at a doorway I nudge him. He turns around, confusion crosses his face, and then he sees the mask. “Can you stop it?” he asks quickly in a low voice. I shake my head, then say weakly, “mmMMMmm.” I’m trying. I looks all around and then says, “if they find out you melted your muzzle off, I don’t know what they’ll do to restrain you- all I know is it won’t be good.” I whimper a little bit as I feel the muzzle curl even more. My anger has faded into fear, but if anything that made the smoke coming from my mouth even hotter. As we walk I try and think of happy, calming things, but my mind keeps coming back to the mask and the feel of the needle in my arm and the weights around my body, and I think of all the horrible things they might do to me. “Oh shit,” Evan says as we stop again. “I think we’re going to that special presentation thing with the director! You’ve gotta stop that thing, there’s no way he won’t notice.” I try even more desperately to calm myself down but the situation isn’t really helping and neither is my anxiety. Soon we’ve reached the room and I hear the guards lecturing us about how to act and what not to do (attack the director basically), and I’m stressing out and barely hearing them at all. I whimper again and then, feeling the plastic melt and loosen to the point where I can open my mouth, quickly use my last resort; I pull my shirt up over my mouth, covering the muzzle. As we file in and sit down into little metals chairs, waiting for it to begin, Evan sits next to me and says, “what are you doing?” “It’s coming off, I don’t know what to do,” I reply in a low whisper, scared. Because of our names we’re in the first row, and I’m panicking double time because there’s no way the director won’t notice me. We don’t have anymore time to talk after that because the tiny bit of empty space in front of us is lit up by bright lights and I watch as the director strolls out into the middle. I’m close enough to reach out and touch him. “Hello,” the director beams. “My lovely participants! Our data grows every day, and thanks to you, we’re coming closer than ever to reaching our ultimate goal.” The room is silent. He looks around and my heart skips a beat as his gaze comes closer and closer to me. But then it stops on a girl a little bit away from me and he says, “Abigail! How nice to see you back and thriving. How’re the stitches holding up?” A tiny voice replies. “G-good, sir...” “Excellent! We can’t have our participants injured, now can we?” He stares around the room again, this time looking to the back. I start to think maybe I have a chance after all. “Aw, now I can tell a lot of you in here think of me badly. You think I’m the ‘bad guy’ here. But I’m not! Would a bad guy give you your own rooms and comfortable beds to sleep on? Would a bad guy make sure you have excellent chefs to cook you three meals a day? Would a ‘bad guy,’” the director continues with emphasis, “care so much about his kids that he rushes them to the doctor at the first sign of injury?” Nobody answers, because nobody dares to refute him. He takes this silence well, considering the amount of hatred and fear simmering around the room. “No!” he says. “I care about you all, whether you believe it or not. From our most practiced participants-“ he looks somewhere in the back and smiles at someone- “to our newest members.” My heart drops as he turns his head and looks at me. I try my best to put a smile into my eyes. He frowns. “Now what’s wrong? Why are you covering your face up, Ella?” Evan jumps in. “She- she accidentally fell in the locker room, busted her nose a bit. She’s fine, but she was scared that someone would see her and think she was caught fighting.” The director turns his eyes to Evan. Evan stares at him and I pray a silent thanks to him for saving me. But then the director says, “you’re lying,” in a soft voice. My blood runs cold. “Why would you lie to me? There’s no need to cover for her, Evan,” the director continues. “I admire friendship and protectiveness, I do, but unfortunately now is not the time.” He turns to look back at me. “Why are you covering your face?” I don’t respond. Suddenly my fear vanished and I’m filled with anger again, at the look on his stupid face and the tone of his stupid voice. The director must notice this. “Ah, how brave,” he whispers softly, and slowly comes over to me. I don’t try and stop him, feeling the eyes of the guards staring me down, ready to shoot if I make any moves. Instead I glare at him as he pulls my shirt down, revealing the mask which has been all but melted. He stares for a second and I wait for him to seethe. But then he looks back at the guards instead. “I told you to put a fireproof mask on her,” he says in such a soft voice, I don’t know how it carries to the back of the room. One of the guards responds shakily. “We- we did, sir.” “Then tell me...” he pulls the mask from my face, holding it up for the guard to see- “how come it has been melted?” There’s no response. I’m starting to get angrier and angrier, and as the poor guard stutters in an attempt to answer, I almost feel pity for him. Soon smoke starts puffing from my mouth and the director glances down. “You wouldn’t happen to know, would you?” he asks. “Actually, yeah,” I respond. “That was a fireproof mask. Your fireproofing is just shitty. I didn’t even melt it on purpose- it was a complete accident.” He stares curiously at me. “And I didn’t use fire, by the way, since that was helpless. All I did was breathe on it. Your stupid fireproof mask melted from just being touched by my BREATH,” I continue, even though Evan is staring at me with horrified eyes and Dylan, a few seats over, is shaking his head frantically. “Honestly, your guards aren’t the ones to blame. Whoever made that shitty-ass fireproof mask is.” The director stares at me for a long time. Then he says, “actually, I made this mask.” Well, shit, I think. I’m fucked anyway, so I might as well continue. “Well, maybe next time you should make your fireproof masks ACTUALLY fireproof,” I say. I feel the room hold it’s breath. Then, he steps back, inspects the mask, and says simply, “that will be all for today. Guards- don’t bother putting a mask on her. If she tries anything, kill her.” I freeze up for a second but not too long because somehow instead of making me scared, that just makes me even more angry. I’m surprised cause normally I’m not this angry of a person. In fact usually I’m pretty calm. The guards escort us back to the ‘bedroom’ area and leave us there. My mouth is smoking the entire time and only gets worse as we go, until thick black clouds trail from my mouth, nose, and ears all at once, filling the entire room with the acrid smell of smoke. “Can you stop smoking, please?” Evan asks. I groan. “Ugh, I’m trying, but every time I try and think of something calm that guy’s stupid face comes to my head.” I huff and blue flames erupt shortly from my mouth. Evan jumps back and I quickly say, “oh shit, I’m so sorry, are you okay?” “Yeah, maybe you need to take your anger out,” Evan says. He glances around. Then he points at an unused tent. “Why don’t you destroy that tent there?” I nod and then try and use all my power. It’s been some time since I was given those power-draining drugs so I’m feeling extra powerful. I gather all of my energy, forming a ball of swirling purple flame in between both of my hands; it’s heat is so intense that I sweat from it, and the sweat is immediately evaporated. I’m not harmed by it at all, but I hear Evan suck in a breath and see him move away from me out of the corner of my eye. I breathe in slow, steady, and controlled breaths, and smoke puffs from my mouth so thickly I can barely see. A bit of purple flame comes from my mouth too, swirling up with the clouds of dark smoke only to flicker out of existence a second later. Soon the ball of purple fire is huge. Then, I grit my teeth and use even more power, putting energy in between my hands. Controlling it requires concentration, like trying to keep a computer mouse hovered over a constantly moving image, or trying to hold an animal that’s squirming as much as it can to get away. Soon the flames roar and then the roar turns to crackling. Sparks of electricity bounce between my hands, mixed with small columns of purple flame. The electricity crackles and pops dangerously and my hair floats straight up until it’s all fanned out above my head, and the hair on my arms and legs is sticking straight up too. Again, I’m not hurt by it, but I know it’s still dangerous to others, to I make sure to keep control over it. Then, I take a deep breath; the smoke lessens until it doesn’t come from my mouth anymore; and I gather my physical strength. The weights slow me down and make it harder but I push through anyways, crouching and then leaping forwards towards the poor, empty tent. My legs push off and I almost fly to the tent, my arms raised with the ball of lightning in between them crackling loudly. When I reach the tent I slam the ball of lightning down, and there’s a small explosion. The explosion shoots upwards more than out, and again, I’m barely effected. The force of it causes me to stumble back a bit when I land on the spot where the tent used to sit (the tent which is now a small pile of ash), and crouch a bit, steadying myself. I feel my anger fade and after expending the extra energy that was simmering inside of me I have much more control. The smoke clears and I sigh, looking around for Evan. “Geez, I know I said to destroy it, but that was a bit much...” I frown. Then I spot Evan standing almost across the room. I laugh breathily, still a little out of breath from destroying the tent. I lightly run towards Evan, and the chains drag behind me. I feel a tinge if annoyance at them but it quickly fades. “That was an amazing idea, I feel like I can completely control my powers now- even if I’m mad! I think I just needed to get it all out of my system, both the rage and the built up energy,” I say, smiling at him. He laughs and says, “yeah, seems like it. You’re not smoking anymore.” I chuckle and breathe out forcefully, and to my delight there’s not even a single puff of smoke. “Yes!” I say. “Thank you so much, that worked really well!” Evan puts a hand on his neck and says modestly, “nah, I didn’t do much.” “You came up with the idea,” I insist. Then, a girl’s voice comes from behind me. “Can you not attract the guards for like, five seconds please?” I whip around. A pretty girl my age with dirty blonde hair and pretty green eyes stands by her tent, frowning. Her tone sounds annoyed, angry, and slightly upset. Or maybe scared? “Um, sorry...” I say, embarrassed. Evan butts in, glaring at the girl. “Just because YOU wanna kiss up to every guard and scientist here doesn’t mean she has to, too. She couldn’t help it at all, I mean it’s not her fault she was brought here!” I blush. Evan seems to have some sort of beef with the girl, by the way they’re looking at each other. “Well she may be new and all, but nobody else here blew up a tent because they were mad. Not to mention, did you hear the way she talked to the director? I won’t be surprised if he decides to triple- no, quintuple- our security. And right after he finally gave us privilege to use the bathroom area during free time.” The girl has good points. I blush even harder and say, “I’m really sorry, but I don’t know what else I was supposed to do...” Evan jumps in again. “Yeah, did you want her to magically fix the melted mask or something? It wasn’t her fault at all. Everything she said was true.” Then he turns to me. “Although, that attitude was a bit much. You’re gonna be in huge trouble with him tomorrow. I’ll be surprised if you don’t have your own personal guards and everything.” I sigh, then shrug. “Well, even so, I wasn’t just gonna kiss up to that dickhead just because he wanted me to. And I definitely wasn’t gonna try and be polite. He literally kidnapped me and is using me as a lab rat. It’s not like I’m gonna be using ‘please’ and ‘thank you’s with my kidnapper.” I pause. “And plus, I was already mad beforehand. He wasn’t exactly helping. After all, I’m already here- anything else he decides to do won’t bother me as much as if I had been nice and obedient with that asshole.” Evan nods. “Yeah, I guess so. That’s all on you.” The girl scoffs and says, “I swear to god, if they take away our special privileges...” Then she marches back into her tent. Evan rolls his eyes. “‘I swear to god,’ yeah right, what’s she gonna do?” I smile bashfully and say, “thanks, Evan. For like, everything so far.” Evan says, “no problem. Maybe you can repay me by breaking us out.” Then we both grin. The next day goes as follows: Wake up when the guards rush into the room and wake us all up. I’m awake before hand and prepare for some terrible, new mask, but they don’t do anything to me besides tell me to behave. Then, we go to the locker room and get ready. I manage to shower despite the heavy weights (they’re nice and shiny when I finish) and then I get dressed, and brush my hair and teeth. I have some time after I finish where I talk to Evan, who jokingly tells me that I could totally seduce the guards, and I joke back saying no guard would be able to handle how hot I can get. Evan says that I could still seduce them with my looks because I’m one of those girls that pedophiles always seem to love: blonde hair, blue eyes, slim figure with defined abs and big boobs. I scoff and say I’d never let a guard see me naked, and that the uniforms they have us wear don’t exactly accentuate my figure. Evan fires back that if I seduce one of them I could convince him to let me escape. One of the guards overhears and yells at Evan, and I tell the guard that he was joking. The guard seems mad but backs off. After the guard backs off the girl from earlier marches up to us, clearly in the middle of getting dressed. I try to focus on her face as she talks because she’s kinda hot, and I’m sure I’m getting red. She talks about how I was just proving her point, that I need to stop aggravating every authority figure I come across. Evan gets mad and tells her that it wasn’t even my fault this time, and that she needed to back off. I was fine until Evan said something like, “just because you’re jealous doesn’t mean you have to be rude.” Both the girl and I gape at Evan; me in horror and embarrassment, the girl in embarrassment and anger. I quickly say, “uhh, I don’t know, I don’t have much to be jealous of...” “Even she knows it!” the girl sputters as I say that. Evan scoffs loudly. “Yeah right. You’re clearly smart, even the director scientist running this whole operation said so. You’re extremely powerful, seeing as you literally decimated that tent earlier while being drugged and having like, five hundred pounds attached to you. You’re pretty, and have nice boobs, which is not something everyone can say. You’re super strong. You’re really nice too, except to the director, in which case you have amazing roasts.” As Evan speaks he lists my qualities off on his fingers. I blush harder with every thing he lists. By the end I’m avoiding all eye contact and muttering, “no, no, I’m not... I- I really don’t think... um... that’s pretty exaggerated...” The girl spits, “you know, flirting in the middle of a kidnapper’s science lab with another ‘participant’ is kind of weird.” Evan and I glance at each other and we both bust out laughing because of what we knew. We literally were both gay. Evan liked guys. I liked girls. There was zero chance that he was flirting. “Okay, Tree,” Evan gasps, his eyes wet with tears of mirth. “Tree?” I ask, going into another fit of giggles. “My name’s Tristen, actually. People call me Tris. I don’t know why he calls me Tree,” Tree says coldly. Then she turns around and stomps off, and Evan elbows me and says, quietly, “stop looking at her like that, she literally hates you.” “Like what?” I ask, embarrassed and knowing exactly what he means. Evan answers with a smirk. “Like you think she’s hot?” “No, I don’t!” “Don’t even try, Ella, you literally were forcing yourself not to stare at her boobs this entire time.” I glance around, saying, “okay, okay, shh! Just because you think someone’s hot doesn’t mean you intend to do anything!” Evan’s smile grows. “I didn’t say anything about ‘doing’ anything. What exactly were you thinking of doing?” I bury my face in my hands and say, “nooo...” as Evan says even quieter, “her, I knew it! As soon as you saw her in the other room. You totally wanna fuck her.” I shush him again and remind him that we’re in our kidnappers lab, and that it isn’t exactly the type of place to set the mood for that sort of thing. Evan just smirks and says again, “called it.” Then, the guards take us to breakfast. We eat the same as yesterday, mushy eggs with sad, floppy little pancakes and sausages that taste like they’ve gone a bit bad. The orange juice is good though, and I drink four cups before Evan tells me to slow down because we had stuff coming up next. After that the guards took us to a gym sort of area. As we walk Evan explains that yesterday was a ‘new recruit’ day, where all experiments, tests, practice times, and other ‘lab’ activities were held off and we had special talks to enlighten the new lab rat instead. In the gym area there are targets, hanging from the ceiling, off of walls, or even moving around against the back wall. There are sturdy punching bags and lots of open areas. Then there’s an area with a long metal table pushed against the wall: on the table there are several candles, light bulbs, pieces of clothing, pots of dirt, and other strange things. During this time we were supposed to ‘practice’ using all of our powers. It was sort of like how you have to work out in order to maintain muscle- otherwise your muscle will start to fade away again. The guards take off all of my weights with the promise that if I tried anything I’d regret it, and do similar things with other kids who have physical restraints. People go all about and I watch them curiously for a bit before starting my own ‘practice’ time. Tree goes over to one of the plant pots and using her hands she manages to make a little flower grow from nothing. She opens and closes the bud, making it bloom and then, as if in reverse, go back to its original state. Then, she sits the pot on the ground and takes a deep breath. She extends her hand and the flower curls up and changes; soon a massive tree manages to sprout from that little pot, reaching the ceiling. Then she lowers her hand and it shrinks back down to a flower. Now I know how she got her nickname, at least, I think. Dylan goes around touching things and making them invisible; however they fade back to normal as he leaves. Then he and another kid practice in a fake fight in some of the open space. The other kid, a boy maybe ten or eleven, punches hard at empty space; I can tell he has super strength by the way he holds his form. Dylan dodges and sneaks around, invisible, making other things like punching bags invisible to confuse the kid enough so that he could get behind him and land a few hits. At another one of the punching bags a kid my age or older stares, doing nothing else. The punching bag suddenly keels over as if punched by some extreme invisible force. The kids nose starts to bleed but she wipes it away and tries again. In one of the open spaces to kids stare at each other, talking occasionally. They must have some sort of mind powers, I think. Evan stands by a punching bag nearby, punching. He starts off slow, then increases the speed of his punches. Soon his hands move at an inhuman speed, so fast his arms and hands are a blur and the punching bag sounds like gunfire; papapapapapapapapapap, as it slams against the floor only to be punched again and again and again. After a bit of punching Evan runs over to Dylan and talks to him, only when he runs he goes so fast I barely see him move at all. There are a few other kids here and there, too. Some have telekinetic powers; others have powers dealing with the elements, fire, water, earth, and air; others have mind-like powers, maybe mind reading or something similar. Lastly, there’s a kid standing in the back corner, playing with a ball of electricity in his hands. He makes a face as he holds it and suddenly he drops his arms, shaking his hands like he’s been burnt. I move over to him, going extra fast because of the lack of weights. When I get to him I see him try again, building fire between his hands and then pushing it to lightning. Only his fire is a dark red, the least hot fire, and he seems too impatient to let it build to a hotter type of fire before creating lightning. Then, when he creates the lightning, he strains, eyes closed and neck bulging, before dropping it all at once, hissing and grabbing at blistering hands. “Don’t do that yet if it burns you!” I say, upset. The kid looks up and says, “don’t tell me what to do.” I get a little mad. “You’re hurting yourself for no reason. Keep doing that and you’ll never be able to maintain the lightning. You’ve gotta change how you practice.” “How?” the boy asks, almost sarcastically. I tell him as much as I know. “First, you’ve gotta focus on making your fire as hot as possible. You’ll know when it turns to cooler colors. Right now your fire is still red, still weak. It’s cause you need more patience, is all.” As I talk I place my hands before him as an example and show him; I start with dark red fire like his, then slowly exert more energy, making the fire hotter, and it turns to orange, then yellow, then white, then greenish blue and then blue, and finally purple. The boy scowls. “What about the lightning?” he whines, and I realize he’s a few years younger than me. “Well, first you have to build up resistance. Your body isn’t used to using the lightning, or really anything that hot. So keep slowly increasing the heat of your fire until you can maintain it and even start with it at super hot levels; as you slowly improve your fire, you also improve your body’s natural resistance to it.” Then, I pause, thinking of how to phrase it. “Once you have hot fires and can maintain them, then you can start practicing lightning. Try it small at first, not big, just small sparks. Once you’ve got them down do the same as before, slowly improving. That’s the only way to get better, because otherwise your body won’t know how to handle the heat. It’s not because it doesn’t know how, or because it CAN’T, per-se, it’s just because you need to have it get used to hotter temperatures. You can’t force it all at once, it has to be done in slow increments so that your body has time to adjust.” The boy frowns and then finally, he nods. “Yeah, okay, I guess that sounds right. How long will it take?” I bite my lip, trying to remember. “Uhh, for me I think it took, maybe, two weeks? Or less? It was as soon as I learned about my powers, which was a while ago, so I can’t really say for sure. Plus, we’re all different, and not to mention I was learning at home. You could improve way faster than I did because of what you know and where you are, or maybe you’ll take a bit longer because of this stupid place and all the things they do beforehand.” The boy nods again and starts with his red flames, then increases to orange. He struggles just a bit to hold it. Then he tries to go to yellow, but can’t hold it for long. “Hey, that was really good,” I say, impressed. “It took me forever to be able to reach the yellow flames, I kept getting tripped up and trying to go from red to yellow right away.” The boy grins through sweat and tries again. Then, when he drops his hands, he says, “you should show me what the most powerful thing you can do is. So that I can try and build my way up and learn it too.” I smile at him and say, “hm, I don’t know if I can do the most powerful thing right now. I tend to be really frickin’ strong when I’m angry or upset, more than normal. But I’ll try!” I look up at the punching bags on the ceiling and take a deep breath. Smoke slithers up my throat and emerges from my lips in great big puffs. Without the weights, and after going so long without those drugs, I feel really powerful. And after expending the extra energy that was making me smoke, I have ultra control over my powers too. I breathe heavily and steadily as I always do, because it helps me concentrate I guess, and builds up the fire in my lungs. Then I put my hands in front of me and walk away from the boy and other people into an empty space (I don’t wanna hurt anyone) and, still staring at the ceiling where the dummies sit waiting for me, I build fire in my hands. The fire swirls purple almost immediately, and I grow the ball bigger, until it’s the size of a beach ball. Then, I close my eyes, keeping the image of the room in my mind. The crackle of electricity mixes with the sound of the flames. Keeping the image in mind I take one hand from the flaming and electrified ball, holding it with just the other hand, and cup my other hand out and in front of me, as if trying to grab something. I squeeze it into a fist and blow a big but short breath onto it, then push my feet forwards so I’m in a prepared stance and let the flames go, making them stay put where I want them to by imagining where I want them to go in the room. When I open my eyes I see little balls of purple flame scattered all along the ceiling, like stars. Then I take the ball, throw it upwards; it hovers about ten feet above me, not even close to the ceiling; and I blow as hard as I can. Rainbow colored flames swirl up and onto the ball, engulfing it. Suddenly the flames seem to push it forwards; it rockets towards the ceiling, trailing the rainbow flames and little sparks behind it. For a second, it’s beautiful. Then, it comes into contact with the first purple star. The entire thing explodes so forcefully I feel the room itself shake, but I’m prepared. I have my hands raised up like I’m lifting something above my head. In reality I’m controlling the flames and electricity, making sure they don’t come down close enough to harm anyone; they stop where I want them to like they’ve hit an invisible barrier. The explosions only multiply as the explosion causes a chain reaction. The tightly packed balls of purple fire explode heavily when coming into contact with the other flames and electricity; soon the entire ceiling is booming, so loudly I want to cover my ears. Flames of all colors shine through clouds of black, gray, and even light gray smoke, which slowly filter away into nothingness. As soon as they’re gone I lower my arms, and stare at the ceiling. One single dummy remains intact. The rest are just little stumps of melted metal and plastic. I laugh. Then I look down and see the boy staring at me, grinning ear to ear. I run over to him and say, “that wasn’t exactly as powerful as it was impressive looking, but I tried it out one time when I was bored and I knew I had to show you. Even if it’s impractical for most situations it’s still really cool looking, I think.” I’m panting a bit but also smiling, glad I was able to meet the boy’s expectations, and also happy to finally have a place where I could use my powers freely. It’s strange, but maybe there is one good thing about this place. I’m around people just like me- people who can understand better than anyone else. People I don’t have to hide anything from. The boy says quickly, “that was amazing! How did you do it?!” I explain carefully. “Uh, it’s really dangerous so don’t try this until you can maintain electricity and fire really well... but basically, I first created a ball of electricity and fire. Then I spread out several balls of extremely hot, extremely dense flame into different spaces around the room- it’s hard to get them where you want but once they’re there holding them in place is as simple as holding a ball of any flame in place. Oh, and I use my breath to create them, since I’m using my hands to hold, or I guess create the massive ball of electricity and flame. Anyways, after that, I launch the ball into the air as high as I can, and hold it in place so that I can still control it. I don’t want it like falling on anyone or something haha. But yeah, then I use all different sorts of flames to push the ball into the dense star-like flames. Since they’re so dense and have so much energy they explode on impact and the rest kinda go off like a domino effect. The last thing I do is just control any flames that come down too low so that nobody’s hurt. But the heat of the explosions is so hot that it can melt even ‘fireproof’ things, not to mention it’s pretty darn dangerous just by itself.” I flip my hair out of my face as I talk. The boy’s eyes widen as he listens. Then he asks, “why different colors of flame for the final push?” “Good question, actually. It just looks cooler.” We both laugh and I say quickly, “also, it’s easier than having to maintain THAT much more super hot flame. Why would I waste that much energy if some other flames would work just fine, right?” The boy nods and says, “oh, makes sense... one day, I’ll be able to do that!” I chuckle. Then I say, “hey, what’s your name, if you don’t mind me asking?” The boy smiles again. “Joshua. I’m twelve but almost thirteen.” I smile right back at him. “Nice to meet ya Josh. I’m Ella. I’m fifteen almost sixteen.” “So you can drive soon?” I sigh. “Well, I was taking drivers ed. But now that I’m here, and you know, not taking it, I might not be able to after all.” “Aw, that sucks,” the boy says. I nod. Then I brighten. “But hey, at least I get to meet all these cool people, like you! I mean, I never would’ve thought there was anyone else like me in the world. It was kind of a lonely thought. So it’s cool to meet someone else that... that understands I guess. Plus, I don’t have to try and hide my powers here, so that’s also a plus.” The boy agrees. Then I leave him to his practice and run over to Evan and Dylan. When Dylan sees me coming he turns visible. “What was that?!” he asks as soon as I’m within earshot. “That was so cool!” “It was just somethin’ I learned, it’s more impressive looking that useful. But that kid over there, he has fire powers like mine, and I was helping him out a little. And he wanted to see something impressive so I tried my best to impress him.” “Well no doubt you succeeded,” Evan grumbles. “You scared me so bad with those explosions I ducked for cover.” “Oh no!” I say. “I’m so sorry, I would never let anyone here get hurt.” I glance at the guards and lower my voice. “Except maybe them.” My voice returns to normal. “I made sure to control any flames that came too close to the ground.” Evan rolls his eyes. “Well yeah, I realize that now,” he says. Dylan snickers and Evan snaps, “you laugh, but you probably did the same thing. You just say you didn’t because you know we wouldn’t have seen if you did or not.” “Every power has its perks,” Dylan says mockingly. Evan glowers at him and I laugh, which makes them both look at me. Then we’re all laughing. A guard makes his way towards us and Dylan mutters, “Uh-oh.” He stops a few feet away, keeping his distance. Good, I think. “This is time specifically for practice, not for talking,” he says. Evan glances annoyedly at me before looking back at the guard with an innocent expression. “We were discussing Ella’s recent practice and different ways she could improve,” he says sweetly. I hold back a laugh. Dylan seems to do the same. The guard isn’t fooled. “Really? What were those ideas?” I jump in this time. “They were really helpful, actually. They suggested that I could have made the balls of fire smaller and more compact, so that I could fit more into the same space. That way the explosions would be even stronger. And they also suggested that I could create several different balls of electricity instead of one, to increase the speed of the entirety of explosions. Both seem like really great ideas.” Dylan nods at me, raising his eyebrows. I have to hold back a laugh again. The guard looks at each of us, then says, “alright. Try to do more physical practice.” “Okay,” I say, “maybe I’ll just go practice my-“ The guard cuts me off. “Not you. You’re being pulled for an individual activity.” I feel my stomach turn. That didn’t sound good. “Oh,” I say, glancing at Evan and Dylan. They both look at me with faces mixed with pity and shock. I rise and the guard escorts me to the door, where a few guard struggle to help him put the weights back on me. Then, the guard takes a weirdly colored bag and wraps it around my head. There are no breathing holes. “Hey!” I say, but don’t struggle. “You can’t just kill me! That’s such a waste! At least take some blood from me first, or something! I thought you guys were scientists!” I feel a punch to the stomach. It barely hurts but I shut up when the guard who punched me says, “stop talking!” I’m ‘escorted’ (aka dragged) to another room. When the bag comes off of my head I’m face to face with the director. “Hello,” I say slowly, wondering what he’s planning to do. We seem to be in an office area similar to the one where we first met. “Hello, Ella,” the director says in his gentle voice. I stare, and he stares back. I refuse to look away. Instead he smiles and looks down at his lap- it feels like a small victory somehow. He says, “I’ve been thinking a lot about you, you know.” “I probably figured you would,” I reply, not sarcastically or even rudely, because it was true. The director nods and pulls something from his lap. It’s the ruined mask. “I checked the material, the layout- everything. All of it seems to be in place. I can’t find any reason why it should have melted.” His eyes meet mine again. “Except for, of course, you.” I don’t respond again, waiting to hear more. He continues. “It’s very intriguing. You’re a bigger asset to this experiment than I’d thought. Somehow you managed to produce heat strong enough to melt even this. That’s almost as hot as a real star.” I blink. Kind of ironic, after what I just did earlier. He sighs and puts the mask away. “And I’ve heard some other things about your power too. I may have underestimated you, I admit.” “Probably, seeing as you definitely didn’t plan on me melting your mask,” I say idly. I’m not as mad at him anymore, but I don’t refrain from brutal honesty either, as I would with most other people. He doesn’t seem to mind. “Yes,” he replies. “However, this discovery has had me thinking. I am willing to give you, and everyone else in your unit, more free reign than you probably should have. In return, I will be monitoring each of you- but specifically you.” “Monitoring...? Like, our vitals and stuff? Or just watching?” “Both,” he answers. “Okay,” I say. “Is that all?” “Not quite,” he tells me. “I’ve decided that you will be the candidate for my main experiments. I figured you should know, as I don’t want to surprise you. It would ruin the results if your moods were oddly spiked.” I frown. He only cared because it would ruin his data. Of course. I was still glad to have the information, though. “Thank you,” I say. Then the bag is placed over my head and I’m ‘escorted’ back to another room. We’re onto our next activity on the schedule, which is free time. When the bag is ripped off my head and I’m dropped off, I look around. I’m in a raised area above the regular hallways that lead to different rooms. The area has a railing and some tables and chairs, as well as a few, sadly stocked bookshelves. Kids sit at tables and talk, or read, or even draw, although all they have are dull crayons. A lot of them stare at me. Luckily, I spot Dylan and Evan at a table near the back. I walk over and take the empty seat, muttering, “Can I sit here?” “Sure,” Evan says. He looks peculiarly at me. “What?” I ask. Dylan becomes visible, and I see him frowning. “Are you... okay?” The way he asks, you’d think I was five years old. “Yes,” I say in the same voice, mockingly. “Why?” Evan shakes his head. “You got called in for ‘individual activities.’ Usually that means some sort of sick experiment that either kills you or leaves you completely wrecked.” A shiver runs through me. “Does he do that often?” “Nah, only to kids who misbehave enough, as a way of getting rid of em,” Dylan says. I rub my eyes tiredly, hearing the chains clank against the table. “Well, nothing like that happened. I just got called to some stupid office and he talked to me.” “The director?” asks Evan, surprised. “Yeah,” I say. “He actually said some things that you might like.” “I doubt it, but go on,” Evan says. So I explain what the director told me, leaving out the parts where he called me ‘intriguing’ and stuff, or replacing it with something like, “he thought I was weird and wanted to do more tests on me specifically.” When I finish explaining I realize the room has gone dead silent. “Yes!” Dylan says, pumping his fist. “Yeah, good job!” Evan whoops, laughing. “I don’t know how but you managed to fuck up so badly, the director rewarded you instead of punishing you!” “Hey!” I say, but I can’t keep a straight face, and giggle as I try to sound offended. “How the hell are you his favorite?” I hear Tree speak from behind me and Evan says, “did you hear something Ella? I don’t know, I can’t hear anything.” Tree ignores him. I watch as she folds her arms and rests them on the table right behind ours. At least four other kids sit with her. “You’ve done nothing but be rude to him, and destroy all his stuff. He just likes you cause you’re powerful.” I shrug. “Yeah, probably, but at the same time, I’m not sure if the director’s liking you is something you really want.” Tree raises an eyebrow so I explain. “Sure, I don’t get in trouble as much or whatever, but the director even admitted he was gonna to be doing some ‘special’ experiments on just me.” “What?!” Evan exclaims from behind me. “You didn’t mention that!” I look at him. “Oh, uh, sorry. It didn’t seem that important. Plus I didn’t wanna make you guys worry or anything.” Tree mutters something under her breath and Dylan says, “what was that, Tree?” Us three turn to look at her and she flushes with anger. “I said, you’re gonna have to drop that pretend innocence sooner or later.” I blink. “Huh?” “Oh my god,” she says. “Wait, how am I pretending to be innocent?” I ask, confused. “I haven’t really said anything innocent. And I curse a-fucking-lot. And it’s not like I’m ignorant or anything... plus, even you said it, I was literally just extremely rude to my kidnapper after destroying all his stuff. I’m so confused, how is that innocence?” I turn to Evan for backup but he has his face in his hands. Dylan says, “Aw, you really DON’T think you’re innocent, huh?” “I’m not!” I insist heatedly. “Literally, the only person you’re fooling is yourself,” Evan mutters. I groan. “I’m so confused, last time I checked innocent people didn’t cause explosions so big it literally ripped apart dozens of dummies.” Evan shakes his head. “No, that part isn’t what makes you innocent. What makes you innocent is the fact that you stayed until the last flame was gone making sure nothing hurt anyone, and then when I told you it had scared me, you apologized.” “What?” I ask again, feeling dumb and embarrassed. “But that’s just being nice, cause why would I hurt anyone?” “Forget it,” Dylan says. “You can keep believing that you’re not innocent if you want.” I glare at him but can’t keep a mad face for long and eventually it breaks into a smile. We talk about random things, about internet jokes and what must be happening while we’re gone, about funny incidents with our powers or when we first discovered them. It’s amazing. I’m reminded once again of the silver lining of this place. Then free time is over and we have another practice session area, only this time, the guards call kids up individually and give them tasks. The tasks are similar for every kid but change a bit to make it work for their abilities. When it’s my turn the guard says, “imagine that dummy is an enemy of yours. Your task is to kill it- use as much power as you can to make sure it’s dead.” As soon as he finishes speaking he runs towards the doorway and I catch Evan’s eye. He winks exaggeratedly at me and I grin. I turn and simply breathe fire on it, nothing fancy- only this time the fire is a magenta color, even hotter than normal, and the size of the flames that shoot from my mouth is really big. It must extend at least a hundred feet away from me, and vertically it’s about ten feet tall, twelve at its highest maybe. It’s as big around as maybe twenty feet, give or take. I maintain the flame for as long as I can, puffing until my face turns red and I get a feeling similar to running out of breath. Finally I stop, the flame withers away and I gasp, taking deep breaths. The dummy is gone. I cough and a little bit of smoke drifts from my mouth. The guard is cowering by the doorway. I see Josh from earlier watching me and mouth, ‘yellow,’ trying to encourage him to use his hottest flame. Yellow flames wouldn’t completely destroy it like purple or magenta would, but it would melt it enough that it’d be clear the dummy was dead. Josh nods and gives me a thumbs up and I grin. I go over to the guard and say, “was that good or do you want me to retry?” He clears his throat. “That was acceptable. You may spend the rest of the time resting.” I see Evan put his hands up behind the guard, in a gesture that’s basically “what?!” His face is pretend outrage. I stick my tongue out at him and laugh when he pretends to be offended. Then I go and sit, and watch the rest of the kids go. When Josh goes I manage to catch his eye and smile wildly at him, and give him double thumbs up. He seems nervous but excited, and smiles back at me. He manages to maintain a yellow flame for quite a while, and at one point it turns green, for which I let out a whoop of appreciation. When he’s finally done the dummy’s entire face, and half of its head, is melted off, and the rest of it runs down the body like a wax candle melting. I shout, “hell yeah, that bitch is dead twice over!” Josh turns and smiles at me, and shouts back, “thrice!” I laugh even though I know he can’t hear me. The guard seems slightly pissed off about me shouting- I guess these must be tests or something- but doesn’t say anything to me or Josh. Josh comes over and joins me near the wall, and says, “was that good?” “Hell yeah! You had a green for a solid ten seconds or more, that’s super impressive! I mean, after green, there’s only blue and purple. You’ve improved like, four whole colors in under a few hours- that’s crazy fast!” The boy laughs. “Seriously,” I say. “If you continue to improve at that rate, you’ll be handling lightning in no time. And maybe you’ll figure out how to do something I can’t even do, after all I know about as much as you do when it comes to the possibilities.” The boy seems to consider this idea. “Yeah, that’d be really cool! But don’t worry, when I figure out something new I’ll teach it to you, since you taught me lightning.” I smile at him. Then an idea pops into my head. “Oh, well, lightning isn’t even all. I have a few other things I could show you- of course you’d have to do the slow improvement thing so you don’t get hurt- but there are a few other little tricks I found out, too.” The boy excitedly asks about them and I explain shortly. Flames could last even when you stop providing energy to them if you put a spin- that is, if you keep them moving and feeding themselves. It required precise control over the fire but provided useful in things like, for example, the show I’d put on for him in the practice room. There was also a way to give yourself ‘unlimited’ energy, so you could make yourself even more powerful- by drawing from heat of nearby sources, such as boilers, campfires, candles, etc, you could use them to supply yourself with more energy. The final thing I can remember telling the boy is how to use heat to control other things- because really our power wasn’t over fire as much as it was over heat. You could make / control boiling water, could move a hot metal pot, could move lava or even people if they were feverish enough; and if you were in a hot room you were at a constant advantage, because besides the energy boost, the heat made everything else in the room hot, including the very air. Which meant that you could control almost anything in a hot enough room. The boy seemed super excited so I explained a few ways to start building up his skill for those things, and he started practicing the energy one while we sat there; I gave him a flame in my hand, just a tiny one, and he tried to take energy from it. It was a slow learning process but by the end he could absorb a decent amount from my fire. After this test area, we’re taken to dinner. The food is alright, not good not bad. After that more free time, and then bed time. As the days drag by I made friends with Dylan and Evan, really good friends in fact. The dream ended there.