You need money. You need money because your mother is dying and she's the only one who's ever loved you. She needs medicine that neither you or your father can afford or else she'll leave you too. If that happens, there'll be no one left. You don't want her to die. You love her. The thugs you robbed in the park across from your house had some money but you still need more. You wonder if you killed them and there's no twinge of guilt at the thought, just a numb kind of curiosity; they're nothing compared to you – so what does it matter if you did? The blood had smeared on the road and you'd felt powerful.
Your father's old fireman's gear is hot and heavy, sweat boiling out of your skin and running down your neck and your back and your cheeks underneath the mask that traps your breath in a bubble around your face. The doors open automatically for you and you stride into the gas station, your camera trailing behind. You float your camera with your mind, barely needing to think about it anymore, not having to pretend you're holding it to make it do what you want. It's second nature now. You need a record of this. No one else knows you're alive but your camera will; no one knows how powerful you are but your camera does. When you want to know who you are, when you want to remind yourself that you're stronger, you only need to watch what you've filmed.
You don't say a word, just ball your hand into a fist and punch the air, your mind following your movement easily, so easily. You feel your power connect and the guy behind the counter is thrown violently backwards and crashes into the shelves of cigarettes behind him. It's easy. It's so easy and you don't feel guilty, you just feel desperate and thankful for the power that lets you do it. You need to move fast.
Swinging your backpack off your shoulders, you unzip it then throw your hand and your mind out together, popping open the cash register drawer and floating the money directly into your bag. The mask obscures your vision and you're getting impatient, urgent, muttering come on, come on, come on come on come on in a voice that you barely even realise is rising. Everything's too much; it feels like things are slipping away or out of control and you fight back against it, shaking the bag as the coins and banknotes fall into it, backing out of the door as the money streams to you.
Then it's all in and you zip up the bag and stride back out into the night. You have to get back to your mom. You can't be alone. Your cousin hates you and your only friend is dead, so you need to take the money and get her pills and go back home to save her life.
You're by the gas pumps, slinging your bag back onto your shoulder and—
“Hey!”
You turn and it's the cashier and he has a shotgun aimed at you. Aimed at you, when you're stronger than he'll ever be in his entire worthless life, when the desperate need to get home is making you sick to your stomach. A rage builds inside you and you lash out with your mind, knocking the gun out of his stupid, shocked hands and you taste a heady kind of triumph on your tongue. You're not even going to teach him what a mistake he just made even though you could because you have to—
Except the shotgun goes off as it hits the pavement, you hear it fire, and then the roaring heat and concussive force of the explosion slams you off your feet and you're bruised and scraped and burning and it hurts so bad that there's only a moment, rolling and squirming in agony as the flames lick your exposed skin, before you mercifully fall into blackness.
cw: explosions, fire
Your father's old fireman's gear is hot and heavy, sweat boiling out of your skin and running down your neck and your back and your cheeks underneath the mask that traps your breath in a bubble around your face. The doors open automatically for you and you stride into the gas station, your camera trailing behind. You float your camera with your mind, barely needing to think about it anymore, not having to pretend you're holding it to make it do what you want. It's second nature now. You need a record of this. No one else knows you're alive but your camera will; no one knows how powerful you are but your camera does. When you want to know who you are, when you want to remind yourself that you're stronger, you only need to watch what you've filmed.
You don't say a word, just ball your hand into a fist and punch the air, your mind following your movement easily, so easily. You feel your power connect and the guy behind the counter is thrown violently backwards and crashes into the shelves of cigarettes behind him. It's easy. It's so easy and you don't feel guilty, you just feel desperate and thankful for the power that lets you do it. You need to move fast.
Swinging your backpack off your shoulders, you unzip it then throw your hand and your mind out together, popping open the cash register drawer and floating the money directly into your bag. The mask obscures your vision and you're getting impatient, urgent, muttering come on, come on, come on come on come on in a voice that you barely even realise is rising. Everything's too much; it feels like things are slipping away or out of control and you fight back against it, shaking the bag as the coins and banknotes fall into it, backing out of the door as the money streams to you.
Then it's all in and you zip up the bag and stride back out into the night. You have to get back to your mom. You can't be alone. Your cousin hates you and your only friend is dead, so you need to take the money and get her pills and go back home to save her life.
You're by the gas pumps, slinging your bag back onto your shoulder and—
“Hey!”
You turn and it's the cashier and he has a shotgun aimed at you. Aimed at you, when you're stronger than he'll ever be in his entire worthless life, when the desperate need to get home is making you sick to your stomach. A rage builds inside you and you lash out with your mind, knocking the gun out of his stupid, shocked hands and you taste a heady kind of triumph on your tongue. You're not even going to teach him what a mistake he just made even though you could because you have to—
Except the shotgun goes off as it hits the pavement, you hear it fire, and then the roaring heat and concussive force of the explosion slams you off your feet and you're bruised and scraped and burning and it hurts so bad that there's only a moment, rolling and squirming in agony as the flames lick your exposed skin, before you mercifully fall into blackness.