Chương 3: Torture

Every person on this planet has experienced torture before, even four whole years of it, and it's called high school. The one exception being home schoolers, but they just have a different one called The Neverending Parents. It's those middle school dropouts that really got things right. But I'm about to have my Shawshank Redemption. I'm about to break free. I've taken enough classes at the local community college during summer breaks to be able to graduate at the end of sophomore year. I'm not that smart.

I'm just not dumb enough to stick around longer than I absolutely needed to. Not to mention friends. They waste a lot of people's time with talking, eating, going out, experiencing life and emotional connections, all that stuff. Why do that when you can just read about it from the safe pages of a book? Adults are bad enough with their obsession with supers, but they at least have to concentrate on other things like work, bills, depression, the existential crises of old age and death, etc.

Teenagers, as with everything, take it to the next level. They're probably the masterminds behind every superhero fan website, fan club, fan whatever. People used to group themselves by favorite sports team, high school cliques according to fashion, now they do it with superheroes. They see it as their divine calling in life to document the lives of supers as much as possible.

"Did you see Luna Girl's outfit on Sunday? I'm totally wearing it for Halloween."

"Kraken did a twenty-four hour livestream of himself last week. He watched T. V. and clipped his toenails once. It was awesome, glad I missed my brother's wedding for it." Unfortunately, I was just as much of a popular topic for my lack of powers. And today was going to be extra bad.

"Saw you on the news last night, Zero."

"Were you trying to get killed? Why didn't you just move?"

"Did you see Vigilance's abs up close? Describe every detail!" I just stared at Henry.

"No, I am not going to describe every detail of his abs to you, but I'm sure there's a website somewhere that will." He stomped off, muttering something about, "she's no fun." We started off with English class for the day, which normally would be closest to what could be called my favorite, but we can't say that about school, so let's just say it was tolerable.

Usually, there would be an actually stimulating discussion of abstract metaphors, themes, character arcs, conflicts of morality- everything to do with things that don't exist in the real world. The conversation didn't occur so much with the students, but rather mostly between the teacher and the blackboard. Believe me, it was far more intellectual than the forced discussion of literary books with high school students who never read them. But I had the rug pulled out underneath me.

"Everyone," Ms. Smith called out, standing at the front of the room.

"I'm sure you all know about the super fight that occurred last night not far from our school."

"Woo! Team Solaria!" yelled out Rose Graham.

"Yes, yes. And we had one of our own students involved, Cass Keene. Cass, we're so glad you weren't hurt." I looked down at my arm in a sling as if to say, But I was? Ms. Smith didn't look long enough to notice.

"So, Principal Harper suggested we go over safety protocols for when we might get involved in a super scuffle." She sounded as if she longed for this to happen to her more than she longed for the safety net of tenure.

"We know things like this could happen at any time, at any place, to any of us." Her eyes darted to a poster of Hot Magma with his gleaming pectorals for a moment, hand on her chest, letting out a long sigh.

"So we have to be ready and well informed beforehand so that when it does, we know exactly what to do." I bet that was a mantra in Ms. Smith's head. It could happen any time, any place. I bet she had a wooden plaque of it hanging off her walls right next to Live Laugh Love. There was a big uptick in super/human romance novels after the awakening, let me tell you. This was probably why she dressed like she was in a Hallmark movie every day. Gotta be ready in case she might be rescued.

"We should also talk about what not to do, because that's very important, too." Her eyes quickly slid to mine, then looked away. While the projector warmed up with its soft whirring sound, I took out my notebook and started my own personal art class: population one.

"Woooo! Movie day!" Yelled Brandon as he bounced out of his seat with all the energy of a nineteen year old senior with ADHD.

"No, Mr. Taylor, we will be watching footage from last night's super battle for safety purposes." Brandon shrugged as he sat back down.

"Still pretty good. Solaria is a hottie." It was a compilation of different cell phone footage, posted ten hours ago and with ten million views already. I stared resolutely at my notebook as I heard myself throw up over Solaria and the girls of the class screamed in sympathy with their favorite cheerleading superhero.

"Cass, what do you think you could have done differently?" I looked up from my desk to see the teacher staring at me, as was the rest of the class. Some of them had that look on their face, that growing grin that says here we go, what's the weirdo going to say now? Ah yes, it wasn't enough to watch the footage, they were going to make me talk about it. Make me learn my lesson. Teachers do this all of the time.

They hone in on the students who aren't listening at all and don't care, ask a question so that they have to. Surely there were better targets for this. Like Harold who was still secretly watching that livestream or Vanessa who was perfecting the flick of her eyeliner. I was absolutely certain that my abstract doodling was far more educational than the topic of the day.

"What was the question?" Ms. Smith took a deep, strained breath.

"What should we do in an emergency involving supers?" Sigh. They stick all of these emergency protocol lessons into the English classes because that's the only way to ensure every kid will hear them. And we'd all known these answers by heart since before we could speak. This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Identify the good from the bad. Try to get to a safe place. Call the emergency super number. Wait for help.

I rested my chin on my hand and looked up like I was pondering thoughtfully.

"Identify the good from the bad… so that you can side with the bad. Sell your soul to him or her in exchange for perks, enslave humanity, and be a contributor to world domination." The response sounded like I was in a jungle with monkeys. Lots of hooting and hollering, chattering and mostly unintelligible sounds. Except for one, quiet enough that the teacher wouldn't have to address it, but loud enough so that I would definitely hear.

"At least then she'd have powers." I looked out the window. Two hundred and nine more days. Just seven more months of this and I'll be gone. After that, who will they have left to make fun of? Oh yeah, only every other person in the entire school. The teacher pursed her lips in that way they do when they're deciding whether they've had enough sleep last night to deal with this. Apparently, Ms. Smith hadn't.

She adjusted her glasses, yellow and blue ones that were the official merch of Lightning Man and matched many of the motivational posters around the room, then gave the universal teacher sigh. The one that says I'm not paid enough for this, and scribbled something on her clipboard that was definitely going into the category of problem child.

"Anyone else?" she asked, pivoting quickly because we can't have the weird girl steer the conversation. Hands shot up like popcorn kernels in a microwave. The eager kids always smelled blood in the water. Had we been discussing Catcher In The Rye like we were supposed to, there would be far less enthusiasm, but the conversation had moved to the one topic that everyone loved. The teacher had put me on the spot with my bad student response, so this was their chance to overcompensate with golden-child answers.

"You should immediately identify the supers on the scene," Amanda said, twirling her pencil like it was a baton. Her voice dropped to an excited whisper.

"And then cheer them on!"

"Get to safety first," said Mark.

"Work as a team!" said someone from the back like this was a sports pep talk instead of survival tips. The teacher nodded along as though salvation had just been bestowed upon her by the blessed words of highschool-aged prophets. I was back to doodling a Picasso-esque pig in a cape which was probably more useful in a fight than half of the supers out there. A boy two rows over leaned toward his friend and stage-whispered, "Guess Cass is already prepping for the villain interview."

The snickers that followed were the exact same kind that kids have been perfecting since first grade- loud enough for the intended target to hear, quiet enough that teachers could pretend not to.

"It's her black eyes and pale skin. I'm afraid she's going to suck out my soul!" Curse my Irish genes. The whole chalk white skin thing was the height of fashion two hundred years ago. Now it just made people look like they'd been living in a basement their whole life. My Goodwill wardrobe didn't help win any popularity contests either. Class went on.

The teacher kept rattling through safety protocols as if any of us would remember them in the middle of a collapsing building or while laser beams carved through the cafeteria. Just like I demonstrated last night. People make fun of deer for standing still while a car is racing toward them, but they have no idea how debilitating fear is when you're not just feeling it in the back of a movie theater or from behind a podium.

When danger, possibly death, is coming straight for you and there's only a second's worth of time to try to escape. There's not much else to do but wait for it to arrive. Maybe some day they'll know what it's like, but until then, they'll tell themselves that they're different. So I'll just keep counting the time until I can finally leave. Two hundred and nine days, twenty three hours, and whatever minutes were left in the period. Embry raised her hand. Of course she did.

She lived for this kind of thing, the way moths lived for porchlights.

"I think," she said, voice smooth like she was auditioning for Biggest Super Idol.

"That if everyone worked together, supers and regulars alike, then emergencies would be a lot less scary." There were actual sighs of admiration. From Mark no less. I silently gagged. The teacher clapped her hands.

"Excellent as always, Embry. Anyone else?" Before I could put a well-placed mustachio on my Picasso super pig, a chair scraped, followed by a mangled yelp. I glanced over. Trevor-with-a-peanut-allergy had decided to play Russian roulette with a granola bar and he was now clutching his throat, eyes wide, face turning red. His EpiPen was somewhere in his bag but he was too busy gasping to get it. The room went chaotic. Chairs screeched back. A girl shrieked.

Harold fumbled his phone, taking a break from toenails to record the breaking news of Trevor dying in 5k resolution. Ms. Smith was walking to him, her hands shaking. Her mouth could not stop moving, even though it wasn't forming actual words, just sounds. She looked ready to drop on the floor. After all of that emergency prep talk, all of that "work as a team" stuff, everyone's true colors were being shown. They were about as brave and heroic as chickens running around without their heads. I wasn't much better.

In crises like these, it almost feels like time slows down. Everyone moves just a little bit slower, my heart starts pounding, my brain burns like it's got a hole through it, and everything turns red. Let's welcome our newest member of the class: the remains of the cherry Pop Tart I ate for lunch. But hey, at least I had the I saw my parents' blood splatter on our car windows when I was five years old as an excuse for my cowardice. Not that anyone accepts it.

Embry was already out of her seat before anyone else had stopped screaming. She moved like she had been rehearsing for this exact moment, which, knowing her, she probably had. One dramatic flip of her hair, a sparkle in her eyes, and her hand shot into Trevor's backpack with the precision of a pickpocket. She then raised the Epipen up like a trident.

"Hold still, Trevor," she said, her voice so calm, so confident that half of the class stopped panicking just to bask in it. She knelt beside him, jabbed the pen into his thigh, and Trevor gasped, sucking in air like he was being reborn. The room went silent. Then came the applause. A couple of kids even whooped, which seemed an inappropriate response for a kid who almost choked to death. Ms. Smith clutched her Lightning Man glasses like she'd witnessed a miracle.

"Embry! That was- that was incredible!" Embry gave a demure little shrug, the kind that probably took hours of practice in her mirror.

"Anyone would have done the same thing." She had a future career as a newscaster or a politician. Already adept at telling bald-faced lies that were the exact opposite of what actually happened just so that people can feel better about themselves. Clearly no one would have done the same. Everyone else had been busy screaming, filming, or forgetting how to walk. I didn't join in the love fest. I sat there watching Trevor's face regain color, feeling the knot in my stomach twist tighter.

It wasn't just the chaos of the moment or the memory of blood running down windows. It was the way everyone looked at Embry now. Like she had just leveled up. Like she was already halfway to a cape and a comic book deal. I could practically hear the whisper network firing up- Did you see her? She didn't even flinch. Bet she's got powers. Bet she's going to awaken soon. Bet she'll be the next Luna Girl. Trevor wheezed out a thank you, voice shaky.

Embry squeezed his hand and gave him the kind of smile that could probably cure cancer if you believed in it hard enough. If I had tried, it would have gone all wrong. Trevor would have ended up with his face mashed against his desk, face blue from lack of oxygen. But Embry? Embry made it look like destiny. The applause were still echoing in my ears when I realized the sickest part. I wanted it. Not to be Embry, not to be adored or worshipped or hashtagged. But just… to matter.

To prove I wasn't a zero, stamped and filed away. Instead I sat there, doodling my stupid caped pig while Embry saved a life and carved her name into everyone's memory. Trevor had his breath back. Embry had her spotlight. I had two hundred and nine days left.

"Do you think that counts?" The two boys whispered in the back.

"Is he a zero like Cass?"

"So close," Trevor muttered.

"Just a second more and I would have had it." Then came the teacher's voice.

"Oh Cass, do you need some help?" Yay. They'd finally noticed what I brought for show and tell.