I was falling. This was the end—and yet as I plummeted towards the dark depths, it felt like…flying. I heard that when a person was about to die they saw flashes, scenes of their life play in front of them. So— where the hell were mine? I could only stare at the scene above me: stars dancing against a dark, inky sky. Beautiful red stars, curtesy of the filter of the blood pooling in my right eye. At least the right eye could open; the left eye stubbornly refused. I heard it more than felt it at first, the crash as my body broke through the surface of water. The water was unforgiving. I could only take one choppy breath before I went under. As the shock ran through my body like a jolt of lightning only one thought plagued me; Dad was right. I had no business joining the Hero Corps. I was stupid to think otherwise, but, he had had his chance to save lives—to leave a mark on this world. After thirty years of serving his community as a firefighter, every person he saved, every award he won, every memory he told me of his time serving only fueled me. No one knew, that by the time I was old enough to serve, it would be in a world full of super-powered beings.

Two years ago I walked into my local Hero Corps headquarters for an interview. How could I ever forget the look on their faces when they asked what my gift was and I answered “tenacity” before adding “I’m human.” Vasaio, the hero running the interview, stopped short the humor leaving his eyes and his grin turned downwards as he realized it wasn’t a joke. I bit the inside of my cheek when I saw the pity and caution in his eyes when he looked at me. I wanted to tell him where he could put his pity. But the last thing I needed was to piss off the guy who could use his control over gravity to flatten me like a pancake. Up until that point the interview was great and I passed my psych evaluation. The results of which Vasaio had clutched in his hands and when he stopped to read them again, right in front of me, I couldn’t help but laugh. “Onboarding starts Monday” came the reply from Marcellus, the brooding man who had barely spoken a word the whole interview. Vasaio whipped his head in his direction pinning the man down with his eyes. I suspect he thought the older man had gone senile, but senile or not I got accepted and joined the Corps after another psych evaluation.

I spat out the water as my head bobbed above the surface. Where were the others? Did they get my message? I willed my eye to see beyond red blurs and smudges. A shape somewhat appeared in the distance and I felt my stomach drop. Was it her? Did she come to finish me off? Calm down. Calm down and think. Think. I angled my head to get another gulp of air, a more desperate gulp. My ribs ached in sheer protest. I know this city like the back of my hand. Think. Where am I? The…the bridge two miles away from where the city meets Havenshire. Under the bridge. The junk river. The biggest garbage dump of two cities. What were the chances someone dumped a boat? I could see blurbs of light coming from the west of me. Follow the light. If I could find something to support my weight—to support my legs.

I shouldn’t have gone after her alone, but I couldn’t let her go. The strange girl who was always somewhere slinking in the shadows near the most grotesque crime scenes. Melli didn’t believe me when I had the strange girl pinned as the one orchestrating the chaos and piling up the dead bodies. How could she when she could make every crime scene come to life with the wave of her hand? There was no need to check CCTV or security cameras when she could make every scene play right before your very eyes with the phantom projection of every person involved. Only— the strange girl never appeared in Melli’s projections Yet, the strange girl appeared on cameras and I had spent an indecipherable amount of time studying footage combing for her. It hurt me more than I wanted to admit that the others in my team hadn’t believed me. Sure I couldn’t manipulate my body into different elements like Dinan, and I couldn’t fly and bend the wind to my will like Asha, but good old fashioned investigative work I could do. After all this time I thought I had proven my worth by now.

My body shook violently and the muscles in my arms twitched like live wires. The cold was seeping into my bones from all directions and the task of swimming against the current while dragging my legs as deadweight behind me pushed my exhausted body past the breaking point. Don’t think about how dark the water is. Don’t think of how cold you are. Don’t think about going to sleep. Don’t stop. Just swim. Down. I went under and pushed through the water with all the strength my arms could muster. Move. Move. Air. I burst through the surface and gasped for air. Don’t stop. The current will carry you right where you started. I cried out as something tore against my arm; the smell of my blood mixed with the filth filled my nose. I groaned as water beat against the wound and suddenly I was reliving a memory.

“What the hell is wrong with you boy?” Dad shouted into my face as he shook my shoulders like that would put sense into me.

“What were you thinking joining this hero crap? And what were those people thinking taking you in? I’ll tell what they were thinking—they wanted a mascot, a token human to say ‘see we really do think you lowly beings are equal, we even let him fight alongside us.’ Can’t you see you’re being used?”

I pushed his arms off my shoulders and turned my back to him. I couldn’t look at his face, how could he say that, believe that? Long before there were super-powers we were heroes and we saved lives too. He, of all people should know. Disappointment tasted like bile in my mouth. He grabbed my shoulder, his vice-like grip held me in place. “I want you to quit.” His voice was barely above a whisper but in that moment everything else was drowned out. I whipped around to glare and him and froze the protest stuck in my throat. His eyes, his eyes were glossy and filled with such visceral fear. I felt the anger slowly melt away as I stood there staring into his eyes and for the first time realized that my father was just a man. A man worried about his son. I grasped his shoulders and squeezed as gently as I could.

“Dad I know it’s dangerous, I know it even seems crazy but I can’t ignore how I feel. I know deep down in my gut, that I can do this. I want to do something meaningful with my life—I want help others anyway that I can. Besides, I had a damn good teacher.”

He broke into a sheepish grin and shrugged “Well I—“

“Actually,” I interrupted “I was talking about uncle Sean, him being a cop and all.”

“Boy! Now I know you’ve lost your senses! I taught you more than…”

I jerked out of the memory and retraced the steps that led me to this moment. All the evidence I gathered about the girl pointed to another murder the next city over. I took a leap of faith that she would choose this bridge as her way into Havenshire. It was quiet, dark and broken down just like she liked. The faith paid off because just ahead I saw her silhouette. In the moment it took for me to scan my surroundings, when I looked up she was gone. Then suddenly she was in front of me, right out of thin air. The moment she materialized in front of me she gave me a vicious blow with something heavy and metal. My left eye took the brunt of the blow and just like that I was down to one eye. As we fought hand-to-hand combat I disarmed her, but each blow I landed seemed to have no effect. Yet, every blow she gave was far more devastating than the last. Finally I managed to do real damage as I served her a ruthless uppercut to the jaw. I watched in realtime as something inside her snapped. Her eyes went darker than onyx and she extended an open palm towards me and swiftly closed it into a fist. Instantly the bones in my legs were crushed and a guttural cry ripped out of me as I crumpled to the ground. In a moment she was above me with a metal thing in her hand and rolled out of the way before she could finish me off. I still caught part of her attack as her weapon connected with the bone right above my right eye. Blood pooled into the eye and I yelped in shock as I began to levitate. The girl slammed me across every surface and by the third impact everything went black. When I came to, I was hovering near the ledge by her command. I stared into her eyes and saw sheer nothingness as she flicked the wrist of her extended palm and tossed me over the bridge.

I could feel the pull of fatigue as I willed my arms to keep moving forward. I’m almost there. Almost there. Yeah, that was the seventh time I had told myself that. I think. With every movement it felt like the end of me. All I could think about was dad and the fear in his eyes that day. Almost there. Suddenly, I saw mom and the light sparkling in her eyes as she framed the photo of me in my uniform with the team. Almost there. I heard the sound of my team’s laugher ringing in my head, I saw their faces as we hung out after hours. Almost…I felt something solid hit my hand and groped around for it again. I poured the last of me into swimming towards the direction of the solid thing hoping to all things good that it was land. The one seeing eye I had was nearly swollen shut by this point. I felt something sharp and hard under my hands. I felt again and sand clumped against my wet hands. The tears rushed down my face before I could even realize what was happening. I gripped what I could feel and bit by bit inched myself up on the land. Once I was completely on land my body went limp and the darkness pulled me under. “…le” A strange sound called out to me. “Kyle! Wake up, please” the voice pleaded. The voice was so familiar. There were more voices, more sounds and slowly they began to sound clearer. “Asha?” My voice came out a broken rasp.

“I’m here. We’re all here, we got your note.” A blob appeared in front of me. I felt hands on my body as I was lifted on something hard. I looked up, my eye barely made out the distant smudges in the sky. As the voices of my friends washed over me, a thought came to me. I didn’t want to “fly”ever again.