Shadows Of Death

I

I woke up.

I felt like shit. There was no other way to put it. It was not pain, not exactly, but extreme discomfort and soreness. I could still smell it, the hideous waste Sophia had locked me in with in my own locker, that putrid smell that was almost like the smell of a corpse that had be there like background noise as I cried, screamed, pounded and clawed at the door before I lost consciousness.

That realization made my eyes shoot open. What I found wasn't the suffocating darkness of the locker, not the scape which was too tight even for such a short, willowy girl. Not the lack of air that would force me struggle for breath, nor did I find myself still pretty much buried in.

I was in a bed. Not my own bed, but quite clearly a hospital bed. I was spotless, as far as I could see, and I was wearing hospital pyjamas. I was fine. Out of darkness. That hell which I couldn't get out and nobody was willing to help me out of was over. But, there was something else. I locked around my surroundings, uneasy, my heart beating unreasonably slowly inside my chest.

Cracks. All over the walls, ceiling, the floor. Even the shut windows and the hospital equipment. There were dark cracks on everything in my sight. I looked down, and I found that those cracks were in me, as well. I got the urge to scream. But I didn't. I just let out a breath, my vision growing misty with tears.

I don't know how long I spend on that absolute hell. I didn't suffocate, so it couldn't have be as long as I felt, but evidently, it had be long enough to leave scars. And I don't mean just that it was such a traumatic experience, that it would be burned in my mind forever. No, I was talking about that I loss consciousness in there, in a place where I could hardly breath. They got me out of there in time to save my life, that much was clear, but what I was seeing wasn't normal at all. No hospital could be like this, and even so, I couldn't explain those crack in my own body. There was no reason for them to be here, and since I wasn't bandaged, they couldn't be actually cracks, as they were.

I extended my hand to touch my other arm, and sure enough, there was nothing. Nothing at all.

Which meant what happened at left me brain damaged.

This time, I did scream. I screamed in frustration and rage until my throat went raw, tears streaming down my face. The pain of Emma's betrayal wasn't enough, nor was them pushing away everybody from me, completely destroying any chance I had of making friends enough. Nor pushing me, dropping my stuff to the floor as they passed, destroying my only reminder of my mother and a lot of other things I could remember with stark clarity.

They had broke me, completely and utterly broke me. They had made my life a living hell. They had made me terrified on going to school, and even in my own hope I couldn't rest, I couldn't be happy. A hell I couldn't escape from, no matter how hard I tried. When every show of resistance only made them crack down on me harder. No, worse, a hell I couldn't even imagine an escape from. They had consumed my life.

And now, this. They could have easily killed me with this stunt, and while they were utter bitches, they were not completely stupid. They knew that damn well. They knew, and had gone ahead with it. That I survived didn't mitigate the fact none bit. And since I was most certainly brain damaged, that itself would bring a whole lot of other troubles that would only pile up with the rest of the mess.

I didn't know the extend of the damage. If this was it, I could dealt with, but brain damage cases had a tendency of getting worse and not any better. Dad couldn't afford to pay it, and the fat pig Winslow had from a principal certainly wouldn't assume responsibility that this had happened in her own goddam school. She would just work to shove it under the roof, because… I didn't even know it. To save a reputation that didn't exist was the only answer that came to my mind. What a bad joke.

Even if he could, I could see the following months, hell, years stretching up in front of me like a void and I didn't like anything of what I saw. It was clear to me, now. I only wondered how could I not have realized it sooner. Those three wouldn't stop, even now. They wouldn't stop until I diec, or until I killed myself.

I consider it, for a brief moment. To open the window and just take flight and end it all. To my shame, I seriously consider it. But I held that impulse. For what? Because I thought my life was worth living? Because I thought things had to get better? Because if I did so, they won, they finally crushed poor Taylor Hebert? No, none of it. I didn't because I thought about my father, how it would crush it, and what he probably would do after losing both his wife and his daughter in such a short span of time. That was the only thing that stopped me.

At some point, I realized I wasn't alone in the room anymore. Somebody was pressing me against their chest, hugging me. My father. I had enough presence of mind to realize that immediately. I wasn't screaming anymore. The only thing that came out of my throat were chocked sobs. I hugged him, and closed my eyes. To pretend everything was fine. To pretend I couldn't see those lines. Even if it was only for a few moments.

I stopped, at some point. To my surprise, I wasn't sedated because of my outburst. Probably, my dad stopped them at some point. I dunno. I told the doctor about these cracks, these lines and I was scheduling for further testing. I didn't look forward to that, it didn't seem likely that they could fix something like that, but at least I had some shred of hope. As thin as it was.



While I was left alone, I discovering that I had got powers. I didn't really know how to felt about that. On one had, I got powers. On the other, once I calmed down I just felt numb. I really couldn't muster any enthusiasm after a day like today, even over something like that. And it wasn't like it was that great of power, either. I could control bugs. Any bugs, and my range was considerable. Also, I could sense what they sensed. That was it.

I certainly wasn't going to become an exemplary member of the Wards with this one, that was for sure. Though, this power could easily be used for investigation, and though I hadn't room to test how many bugs exactly could I control, they had obvious fighting applications.

I could certainly be something, with a lot of time and effort. And it was sort of cool, I guess. In the Batman kind of sense. Strike fear at the heart of the criminals, and all of that.

I also discovered something more worthwhile.

Those cracks… they weren't a result of brain damage, but a secondary power. Or primary. It certainly was heads and shoulders above bug controlling when it came down to sheer raw power. You see, when I trailed something over those cracks, it broke. Anything at all, no matter what it was made of. I tested it on several things, from the night stand, to a glass of water. When they left me get outside from a brief time, I tested in on a tree. I traced my finger nail across one of those lines, those weak points, and it crumbled away from that point so easily it was like tearing through paper.

Of course, it wasn't only objects. Those cracks were over myself, and other people. I hadn't tried it, of course I hadn't tried, but it certainly could also work on them. That was scary, but it didn't dull my new found enthusiasm. It was only natural. Not only did I find out that I wasn't brain damaged, after all, but that I had got a combination of powers that would allow me to help people, to be a hero who could actually do something to fix things. I… I wasn't worthless. Not anymore. I could be somebody my mother and father could be proud of, instead of a powerless little girl who couldn't do anything but be hurt, hide, run and cry where nobody could see her.

The tests found nothing wrong, and I said I couldn't see the lines anymore. They recommend to send me to a psychologist to dealt with the event, to make sure I didn't kill myself or anything, and my dad wanted me to go, so it was pretty much inescapable. Didn't take him long to schedule weekly visits. Not even that affected me as much as it would have without this, though.

Anyway, I didn't find a way to turn off those cracks, no matter how hard I tried. But when I was using my bug control power, even if it was to only control one bug, the lines disappeared. I don't really get why, exactly, but I didn't have to get it. After extended viewing of those cracks, my heard hurt terribly, so I started to get in the habit of always controlling a single bug so I couldn't see those lines unless it became necessary for me.

Also, there was another reason.

When I still hadn't discovered my bug control powers, when I still thought I had got brain damage, and I was still in bed, terrified and trying to kept my composure, even getting out of bed seemed an unbearable. Is just, I couldn't stand it. Walking in such a fragile world filled me with overwhelming terror, almost like I could felt my death approaching.

I got accustomed to it. I forced myself to walk, to act normal even when I could see those lines, because what good was a hero who was terrified of her own powers? But that didn't meant I liked it. I much preferred to live in a normal world, where my understanding on the fragility of things wasn't so intimate. A world where I couldn't destroy anything I wished by just tracing a finger over one of those cracks. Or the points that appeared on living beings, along with those cracks.

It was one of my powers… but still, it was what it was. I imagined myself coming back to school, being tormented again by those three girls even after they put me in the hospital. Having to see those cracks all over their body as they hurt me, as they laughed at me. Knowing that piercing the point with even my fingernail would end everything. Dad had raised me better than that, but I didn't know how much could I manage like that. So it was relief that I had away to turn it off, in that sense. Didn't change that I could turn it back on whenever I wished, that if I really loosed it that wouldn't be an obstacle, but at least it wouldn't be constantly reminded of it.

They deserved dying for what they had done, getting killed for shoving me in the locker and not caring that I could easily die. But, I just… I just couldn't do it. I didn't want to become that sort of person.

No, that wasn't quite the whole truth. Allowing them to twist me so much I would kill them would meant, at the end of the day, that they won. That they completely erased the person I'm. So, I don't want to do it. I wouldn't take shit from then, not anymore, not after this. But I wouldn't kill them.

After getting discharged from the hospital, I asked my dad to buy me a tape recorder. I couldn't record what happened before, but it could start from now, build a backlog. Also, I had something in mind that could get me rid of those three girls. Could. It wasn't a hundred percent sure, but it was pretty much my best chance.

Bug control was a better power that it seemed.