Chương 1: Falling

Out of the millions of ways to die, I'd rank falling off the forty-third floor of a Chicago skyscraper somewhere between ten and twenty. Worse than a quick knife stab, obviously. Probably even drowning, I hear that's fairly peaceful. But better than being fed into a meat grinder? Yeah, I'll take colliding with concrete for two-hundred, Trebek. First, there's the crash through a wall of glass which has got to be similar to bellyflopping onto a frozen pool of water.

Then maybe it feels like you hang in midair for a bit. Maybe there's a moment of standstill beauty like there would be in the movies where you take in the glow of city lights below you, the glass shards turn into shimmering crystals and you're just floating with them in a dark ocean. But probably not. The glass impales your eyes as you fall through the night sky, blinding you, ricocheting into your mouth, slicing down your throat.

Now you get to experience the joy of a thousand paper cuts all over your body as you fall to your death. Hooray. I've never been cliff diving. No, the closest I've ever been was the sudden drop on the third step of the neighborhood library, probably only an inch or so taller than the rest, but try telling that to the gravitational lull of my body when walking with headphones on. I've never trusted stairs since.

But my uncle jumped off of a fifty foot cliff before and he said you have time to look down, see the water coming closer, feel the air whipping past you, realize how terrible of a decision this was. It feels like time has slowed down just so that you can contemplate how much it'll hurt when your body meets the water. Now imagine that with pavement. Maybe it doesn't hurt. If it does, it's only one second of pain before your brain has splattered like a waterballoon and you'll never feel anything again.

Still, it's the anticipation that makes it horrific, the visualization of death rushing to greet you and yet slow enough for you to ruminate over it. Not speaking from experience here, I was just going off of the look on that guy's face. I had just been walking, wending my way to the local 7-11 for a healthy vacuum-sealed dinner of sodium and MSG when a crash rang out through the street.

People looked around, thinking it had to be some traffic collision due to the late November ice on the ground, but then we heard the scream. A man in a business suit was plummeting through the air and one of the high rise skyscrapers had a big gaping hole through its top window. Was he pushed? Did he jump? We wouldn't know until after. Everyone was giving him a few seconds before we'd all turn our eyes away. Most of the time, there's only one outcome to all of this, but every now and then, you get a surprise.

Sometimes, they get real close to the ground, and you start cringing and closing your eyes, you wait for the sound of bones cracking and a chorus of screams, but it doesn't come. You open your eyes to see that they stopped. In mid-air. They're looking at their body, they let out a shaky laugh, and it's like the sky has turned into the sea because they just start floating around. Depends on what power you get. Maybe you fly. Maybe you slow speed. Maybe your body becomes more akin to rubber so you bounce.

Maybe you get fire power so you're screwed because that's not going to save you from falling off a building and you die in a fiery explosion of incompetence. Yeah, we all remember that one from three years ago. It really doesn't happen a lot, only one in a thousand they say, but that doesn't stop seventy percent of the rest from trying. It doesn't have to be like a suicide attempt.

There are always the soccer moms driving twenty miles over the speed limit thinking that's all it takes, but you'll probably need your life on the line. The world has lost ninety-five percent of its adrenaline junkies because of this, and I, for one, say- good riddance. That's why people like me just stay in our lane. We are more than happy to be the sheep of the world.

Some say they want to use it to help others, but that's about the same as saying you want to win the lottery so that you can give it away to charities. In reality, they'll do it for the status, spandex, and selfies. Many go through life with at least the hope that someday it could happen. Very few people experience a traumatizing event accidentally and most don't have the nerve to create one. They skirt the edge of danger, but never enough to actually threaten their life.

So they just keep working, keep living life, imagining that one day it will happen. Not me. I already know I'm not a superhero. I don't have the stuff, the magic is not in me, there was no invitation to Hogwarts. If there was one, the owl carrying it must have been eaten on the way and Dumbledore decided one shot was enough. Consider me a squib of the muggle world. You see, most people are content enough to stay in the realm of 'what if'.

They'll go their whole lives hoping something will trigger it, they'll awaken, and they'll suddenly have incredible superpowers. They'd rather be in that limbo of not knowing than to get the answer of no, which the vast majority would. Which is exactly where I'm in. I hardly remember it, but suffice it to say, there was a car crash: lots of blood, tons of carnage. It took them forever to get to me. It felt like the whole world came to a standstill while I waited for hours with my dead parents in a crushed car.

Even now if I hear a semi's horn blaring, I can't move. If I see too much of the color red, you'll probably have a front row ticket to see what I had for lunch. I was lucky to be alive, but that was when people started to treat me like there was something wrong with me. Sure, I had survived a horrific car wreck with an eighteen wheeler barreling straight into us at the tender age of five, but -uh oh- it didn't make me shoot spider webs out of my wrists.

I couldn't lift the truck off of my parents, I couldn't heal them with golden rays of light glowing from my hands. Pretty sure I just pooped my pants while crying and bleeding 'cause that's what five year olds do even when they don't have a massive head injury. If I put my underwear on the outside of my pants, I'll just belong at a comic con like the rest of you people. Not a super. Not even close. A zero. A super zero. The stupid thing is most people are just like me: they don't have special powers.

I just got the official declaration. It's not like I had to have it tattooed on my forehead, and I don't have to sew something on my coat, but it comes up. People want to talk about it all of the time.

"What do you think your powers could be?"

"Have you picked out your super name?"

"I'm just waiting for it to happen naturally because I feel like you get better powers that way. And I'm all about everything being organic and authentic."

"So I was like bench pressing two-hundred, and then suddenly I just went total hard-core to five-hundred, so… yeah and that really happened. Traumatic experience? I mean, I was really dehydrated and every time I have those weights above me, like, my life is on the line. Well, I think it's starting out slow, and just in bursts, so I couldn't show you right now, I just have to wait for it to happen again… Okay, bye, mom." A fair amount of people know about me.

They have an official list of those with powers and unofficial lists of those who don't on the internet. The car crash made pretty big news and certainly made waves around my neighborhood. By the time I sat in a classroom again, all of my fellow kindergarteners were giving me the look. We know. You're not special. You're boring. Where's my juice box? I was no longer in the club of could-be's, I was an official would-never-be.

I lost my parents, lost my friends, lost all respect for anything to do with this superpower stuff. It's not like it made the world a better place. Yes, some people receive powers and use them for good. There's a registration protocol, you have to swear something like the hippocratic oath, they'll place you in some kind of job to use your power for something that benefits humanity in a moral way, but obviously, not everyone signs up for this.

Plenty of people choose to keep their power secret, keep it safe from the world, at least, until they try to take over it anyway. Have there been more good than bad? Yes. Do the good win against the bad ultimately? Yes. But it left the majority of humans watching these supers fighting each other, dealing with the outcomes- the broken buildings, accidental injuries and death, inferiority and god complexes. Ugh. It's like Greek mythology came true and boy is it more pessimistic than other theologies.

Now we have a legal system where the defense for any murder will always go for the argument of, "My client was simply fulfilling the wish of a dear friend to see if they had superpowers by stabbing him in the back fifty times and taking all of his money." The thing is, some juries are swayed by that. Gran remembers the good ol' days when we worshipped movie stars and singers for their rampant alcoholism and drug addiction.

Even though everyone longed to become them, they understood that the vast majority wouldn't and they did not shun them for that. Now, if it's known that you're not a super, you might as well be a leper. Gran raised me after my parents died and she's never been into the whole superhero thing. She sees it the same as any new technology that comes up: superfluous and too complicated to understand, so why bother? The guy lives, by the way. His butt gets within three feet of the ground, then he hovers.

But he doesn't shoot off like a rocket after, he doesn't rise higher or zoom around like an airplane. He just sits there like he's on an invisible stool. His face is at first elated and then, as the minutes pass by, souring. Can't blame him, the ability to hover slightly above the ground is hardly the most bragworthy of powers and that's what most people care about. Oh, he'll register it alright. He'll get his card, maybe they can find him a job but what are they going to do with him? Test faulty parachutes?

Sure, he might be able to save someone from falling out of a building, but there are plenty of flyers and they can do a lot more than he can. With that little power, he's more of a liability than an asset, so he won't be put on any combat teams. I'm no psychic, but I'm fairly certain this guy's future is only filled with magic shows at kid's parties and it looks from the crumpling of his glass shredded face that he's realizing that too. But hey, we won't have to worry about him becoming a supervillain now, will we?

Forty-three stories up the skyscraper, a second man leaps through the broken window. Except he doesn't plummet like Hover Guy did, he takes to the sky like a black bird. Soaring in loops overhead at first, he then dove straight down faster than the floating executive had fallen a moment earlier. Everyone screamed and gasped as he struck the pavement hard enough to make himself a little crater, rubble pelting the crowd.

Finally, with the dramatic flair of a Las Vegas showgirl, he rose from a kneeling position to his feet. Tall- at least six foot- and pushing forty with a receding hairline. You would think a super villain could afford hair plugs, but maybe they just don't steal enough. Black spandex and excessive amounts of eyeliner made him look like he'd win a Marilyn Manson lookalike contest. Grasped in his hand was a metal briefcase. His eyes panned around the crowd. We should probably run, but this was Dark Beam.

He loved to monolog and newscasters said he could get violent with civilians who valued their ears over their lives. Villains always wanted an audience. So did heroes, but that was a point for another time… He circled around the floating executive, who was making a small wet puddle on the concrete beneath him. Hover Guy had turned into a rain cloud.

"Quite fortuitous that you were able to awaken on the way down, Mr. Seares." Dark Beam is one of those Edgar Allen Poe reading, erudite goths, apparently.

"The ransom of a fledgling super will earn me quite a bit more VP than a dead civilian." He looked out at the crowd, smiling, as if this was a play and he was letting the audience in on a secret. Ah, here we go. Might as well sit back and get comfy, folks, 'cause it's "me time" for Mr. Villain and he's going to hog the limelight as long as possible.

Doesn't matter that he got the shiny important briefcase and the urine-soaked executive he wanted; he could just grab them and fly away but no, we have to listen to him talk endlessly about himself. Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator. Hover Guy's power finally gave out and he splashed into the yellow pool he had made on the ground.

"I…I thought we had a deal," he stammered.

"I paid you to help me get my powers. You can go… you should go now." Dark Beam leered down at him.

"My dear Mr. Seares, too cowardly to throw himself off a building, he had to pay someone else to push him. I can only guess you reached out to a villain like me because you wanted to join me after. I never thought you would actually awaken something that would save you from the fall. But luck was apparently on our side. However, I am going to have to teach you manners. It's not proper for pathetic Tier Ones like yourself to speak on what I should or should not do." He leaned down and grasped him by the arm.

As he lifted him up, his grip tightened and a sickening crack could be heard before Mr. Seares' voice screamed high as a tea kettle. Then the sound slowed down and the screech morphed into a low groan. I couldn't breathe. I was back in the rear seat of our Range Rover as the headlights of the semi blinded my vision. My mom screamed just like the man did.

High-pitched and then low as I thrashed in my car seat waiting for the truck that crawled towards us to rip the car open like a tin can. My hands and knees slammed onto cold concrete, acid churning in my stomach. Times like these, it always felt like the air weighed down all around me, so thick it choked in my throat. All I could see was the sheer amount of dirt embedded into the tiny cracks in the pavement with crusts of clear ice sealing it on top. Like a museum of filth.

If you had asked me, I'd swear my head was being split open by a chainsaw, but if that were true, I wouldn't be able to articulate that, now would I? I was about to hurl and it was only partly because Dark Beam hadn't stopped talking about himself. The city square was echoing with the cries of agony coming from the man in the suit. In the space of a second, the air lost its heaviness and sound sped back to normal. I looked up to see a man in a cape descending from above.

The ground shook beneath my hands as he landed and I was knocked forward. Standing behind me was Vigilance. Let me assure you, I don't know their names because I scour web forums or collect Super cards or anything like that. It's just impossible not to hear about them. Whether from my peer's loud whispers during class to "necessary" school assemblies to frequent commercials on TV, I can't avoid learning about them without disconnecting my brain. And believe me, I've tried.

Vigilance was maybe five foot nine with pale skin and glowing yellow eyes. His super suit's bright blue and green colors make him vaguely reminiscent of a chameleon. The crowd scattered to clear a space now that a hero was here. Soothed by the feeling that all would be right now, they whipped out their phones to start taking selfies and videos to post on social media after. You know, if they didn't die or lose a leg during the scuffle.

Even then, they'd probably ask the hero to sign the bleeding stump afterwards and get it permanently tattooed later. Show it off at parties. Like a trophy. Sell the hacked off leg on Ebay. Damaged in the service of Vigilance. Fans would pay a lot for it. Unfortunately, I was the one most in danger of becoming collateral damage since I was lying between the two supers. I tried to make my legs move but they turned traitor on me as my stomach threatened to erupt like Mount Vesuvius.

Vigilance took two steps forward and, without taking his eyes from the villain, leaned down behind me and stated loudly for all to hear, "Tuck and roll when you hit the ground." Maybe my brain was still working in slow motion because, before I had time to process that, he reached down, grabbed my waist and tossed me to the side as if I weighed no more than a pillow.

I was not a pillow, and Vigilance didn't quite know his own strength, so I hurtled through the air before landing like the hundred and ten pound bag of meat that I was. My shoulder cracked against the concrete as I landed and then slid a few feet. The puffed winter jacket covering my torso did nothing to buffer my fall, and whatever parts of me touching the icy ground didn't exist anymore because all I felt in their place was agony. I did not tuck and roll. Quick footsteps clapped their way toward me.

I looked up to see a teenage girl, head ducked down and hands on her knees as she leaned over my prone figure.

"Are you okay?" she asked, braces softening her speech.

"For many varied and complex reasons: no," I said through clenched teeth. My hands tried to lift myself up, but the world was still roiling around. She gave me two thumbs up.

"Great." Her fingers dove beneath her jacket, clipping something on her lapel, and taking out her phone. Her body swiveled around and held her phone high.

"This is Candace Sweeney of Super Obsessed, coming to you live from downtown Chicago. We have here someone who was saved -and touched- by one of my personal favorite newcomer supers: Vigilance. I am going to ask her exactly how it felt-" This time I rolled. Several feet away, curled into a ball, despite my spin cycle vision and chopped off shoulder, I watched to see which of these demigods' vanity would be the end of me. Vigilance pointed a finger at Dark Beam who was still holding the executive up by his arm.

"Let the civilian go!" His voice held all of the righteous anger of an assistant principal telling a student to put away their phone. Too Much Eyeshadow's mouth had been set in a sneer as soon as the hero had arrived, but now a smile grew on his black painted lips.

"You know, I grow tired of my lessers telling me what to do." Hover Guy was now sobbing on his knees as Dark Beam grabbed his other arm and snapped it like a twig.

"What if I don't let him go? What if I break him into little pieces- what then?" Vigilance dropped his dramatic pose and looked confused. He was young, maybe nineteen.

"The London Accords state that no villain will use a civilian as a human shield in a conflict between supers. Your league signed it; you have to let him go." Black Spandex laughs long and loud as he shook the screaming man like a rag doll for emphasis.

"But he isn't a civilian anymore. He just got a wonderful set of powers and therefore is not covered under the accords. Are you, Mr. Seares?" Dark Beam locked eyes with Vaguely Chameleon as he held his hostage close.

"I'll tell you what, young man. Ask me nicely and I'll let him go. I promise." Vigilance, the teenager, spent a few seconds looking like he was deciphering high level calculus equations, trying to figure out if there could be a downside to this. Finally, he shrugged his massive shoulders.

"Please let him go?" In the words of Chandler Bing, could he not have chosen a worse name for himself? Dark Beam sighed.

"You might regret that." Sobbing Executive Man dropped to the pavement far more comfortably than I did. The villain's now free hands were pointed directly at our saving hero and a beam of total darkness shot from them to strike Vigilance in the chest, sending him flying into a stone wall. Before he could fall to the ground, Dark Beam was on top of him, moving so fast my eyes couldn't track it. He grabbed the back of his head and slammed his knee into it.

A sound like a cracked whip split the air and, for a moment, darkness filled the street as if all light had been driven back. Vigilance threw himself back against the wall and held his arms up like a boxer protecting his face and body. Night Light started machine-gunning fists into him and with each strike there was a loud crack and a small burst of darkness shrouding them, like the flickering of a lightbulb.

Not-So-Vigilant pivoted to the side, trying to throw a punch, but Dark Beam dipped under the blow and grabbed his wrist. He kicked the hero's legs out as he pulled him forward and flipped him onto the ground. Dark Beam slid a hand up his own leg, coating it in darkness, then he stepped forward and kicked Vigilance like he was going for a field goal from the other end of the stadium. A blast like thunder blared through the streets and everything turned black.

Strange how you really could see your life flash before your eyes when death was coming. That's right. The blackness surrounding me was just the dark of a theater, and I was watching the video of my life play on the screen above. It largely involved me sitting in my room, sitting alone at lunch, not talking to anyone with an occasional humiliating up chuck here and there, so be prepared- this wasn't some action flick or even a comedy.

This was one of those French art films about the morbidity of a lonely modern life. I could go out far more peacefully if I felt like I had done something with my life, but the truth was, I'd been paralyzed through it all just like I was on this concrete. Never moving, never fighting, never doing anything. Just hiding- away from people, away from life. And here I was, only realizing it in my last moments. Hardly profound, more like a depressing director's commentary.

Even now, I won't be fighting against the dying of the light. I'll be lying down, lost in regret until Dark Beam comes to give life's final kick. But the credits didn't roll. The lights snapped back on. Everything was silent for a moment as we all got our bearings and then the screams started. I looked around until I found what was so horrifying. Vigilance was embedded face first in the stone building across the street, standing straight, arms raised. Very Han Solo-ish. But without the cool "I know" part.

Captain Eyeshadow stopped to straighten his suit and brushed off some of the rubble before walking back to Mr. Urine-Trouble. His stride was long but his steps unhurried.

"Now where were we Mr. Seares? Oh yes, a quick trip back to my lair for a hefty ransom." A low groan came from Vigilance as he pushed himself out of the wall falling to his hands and knees.

"I'm not… done with you Dark … Beam," he gasped.

"Oh, my boy. I'm afraid you very much are done. It was a pleasure to make your acquaintance. Next time, do try and be more vigilant." He said the quiet part out loud. Gotta give credit where credit was due; the guy had class. Vigilance finally struggled up to his feet.

"You're forgetting one thing, Dark Beam." Goth Guy turned to appraise him.

"Oh? What's that?" A light in the sky soared around a building from behind Dark Beam and began to descend towards them.

"Heroes never work alone!" I bet he practiced that line for hours. The light crashed into Dark Beam, slamming him into the ground. Crouching over him in her white and yellow super costume was Solaria. If she didn't glow like a lightbulb and fly through the air, I might have mistaken her for a cheerleader for the Los Angeles Rangers. Her blonde hair billowed around her as she slammed her fist into his head over and over again.

Dark Beam roared in rage as a wave of shadows burst from him, knocking her back and sending me rolling across the ground.

"Give up, Dark Beam!" she yelled.

"We have a nice comfy cell waiting for you." He floated to his feet and formed an orb of shadow in his hand.

"Give up? I have not yet begun to fight." He threw the orb at her head and it sped down the street like a bullet. Light formed across her hands like shining gloves and Solaria used them to bat the orb aside with a flick of her wrist. It landed in the street and burned a basketball-sized hole in the asphalt. Sunshine began to walk forward step after step. She advanced; Dark Beam retreated, throwing more and more shadow orbs at her. But her arms were a blur as each was knocked aside by her glowing palms.

With a cry of rage, he slammed his hands together and sent out the same beam of darkness from which his name derived. It slammed into a shield of light that Solaria cast in front of herself. The explosion of the two forces clashing sent her flying back five yards where she did tuck and roll and then sprung easily back to her feet. Dark Beam seemed to have had enough because he flashed over to the briefcase he had dropped earlier and jumped into the air.

Solaria was too far but Vigilance had raced back into the fight and was literally on his heels. Before Dark Beam could take flight, he was upon him. He grabbed him by the ankle and whipped him face first into the ground. Then leapt up on his back and wrapped his arm around his neck clinching him in a choke hold. Black Lipstick's hands began to fill with shadows but Solaria rushed forward and grasped his hands with her own glowing ones. The light and shadow clashed and fizzled out.

Dark Beam thrashed and bucked but Vigilance was unrelenting, holding the head lock until his face turned purple and he passed out. I crawled up to a sitting position against a wall. Captain Hover, who had hired this psychopath to throw him out a window, was still crying in his self-made pee pool as he held his broken arms close to his chest. The two supers dropped the now limp Dark Beam and exchanged a high five.

"We did it!" Solaria screamed. Vigilance dusted himself off.

"Thanks mostly to you. Still, I got one thousand five hundred HP. I need a lot more before I reach the next-" Sunflower raised a finger to her glossy lips, looking around at the crowd.

"Shhh. Save stat talk for later." Everyone on the street began to applaud. It looked like hardly anyone had run for their lives during the scuffle, preferring their front row seat to Lifestyles of the Rich and the Powered. The supers bowed with gleaming smiles. Guess we had been watching a play. Dark Beam had been right to put on all the theatrics. They walked to their audience to take some selfies and sign some autographs while Hover Guy and I tried to not lose consciousness while lying on the street.

Finally, he gave a loud sob that brought their attention back to us. Solaria blew a kiss, then turned back to Vigilance.

"I'll help the teen. You go help the man in the suit."

"Why do I get the old guy and you get the girl?"

"One, because that's not just urine but other bodily discharges I smell from that guy over there, and two, because that girl looks fifteen and you don't need another teenager with a crush joining your fan club." Believe me, he's not my type. Iguanas are my ride-or-die, and I'm decidedly anti-chameleon. Vigilance thought about it for a second.

"Ok, but counter point: I don't like any kind of excrement either and your fan club is ten times bigger than mine, so I need more members." Captain Pee Puddle cried out. Solaria grinned at the crowd and did a little handwave worthy of British royalty. But she spoke through her Colgate smile.

"Remember. We. Are. Superheroes. We need to be seen helping people. Not just fight and get HP." Vigilance sighed and rolled his eyes.

"I'm getting my contract renegotiated with a bodily fluids clause," he muttered as he trudged over to Mr. Seares.

"Have no fear, sir. We have secured the scene and you are going to be ok!" He sounded like the voice box of a toy superhero. Solaria skipped over to me and kneeled down "Hey sweetheart, are you ok?" Sunbeam didn't have a hair out of place after flying at mach speed and grappling with a villain who nearly killed us all. She looked like she'd just gotten out of the hair and makeup trailer, ready for her close up.

It was hard to tell if the sunkissed glow of her skin was from her power or a Nobel-prize winning moisturizer. I would have been jealous if I actually tried to do anything with my hair ever, but I'm too big a fan of the rolled out of bed, homeless style. My head ached like it had been pounded with a meat mallet and my stomach felt like it would be the gift that doesn't stop giving. Dazed and certainly confused, I looked up and exclaimed, "I didn't pass out!" Sunflower's Barbie doll eyebrows drew together.

"Excuse me?"

"I didn't pass out." I repeated, taking in deep breaths of air.

"I usually pass out and I didn't." I pointed a shaky finger at her.

"So there." She smiled down at me like I was a little kid. I could hear the hundreds of clicking sounds as people snapped photos of us with their phones. From the pageant winning grin she beamed at me, methinks Solaria was well aware.

"Oh… Good for you, sweetie?" She sat down in front of me as sirens wailed close by.

"Did you hurt your nose? It's bleeding."

"I don't think…" I raised my hand to my nose and it came away red. This was how it always started. I stared at the blood because I couldn't look away. It's like my vision honed in on the sight of wet crimson smeared across my hand, then my stomach lurched, the sirens turned into a semi's horn, the world spun and-"Oh cr... uhhhh-" Unable to finish my eloquent thought, I puked all over her pretty white costume. She screamed at the top of her lungs and it made me smile slightly as I passed out.