Zero Hour – Flurry I

Hello to all of you, my name is Flurry-or at least my Alias is. As you can probably guess from the fact that I’m writing about myself, I’m a superfreak as well. I’m not sure about HOW exactly I got my powers, but I do know that I have hydrokinesis and cryokinesis. I can manipulate water, not only in shape but also in temperature. I guess I should tell you my backstory, from my childhood to figuring out I had powers to today… Here goes nothing…

—-

       “Hello! This is your co-captain speaking. We will begin our landing into McCarran International Airport in about fifteen minutes. As we start our descent, please make sure your seat backs and tray tables are in their full upright position. Make sure your seat belt is securely fastened and all carry-on luggage is stowed underneath the seat in front of you or in the overhead bins. Please turn off all electronic devices until we are safely parked at the gate. Flight attendants will move around the cabin to make final landing preparations. Thank you.”

       I was squirming around in my seat. We had been on the airplane for about five hours, and I couldn’t sleep in the seats. I turned to look at my mom. “Why are we moving? I miss my friends! I want to go home.” Throughout the entire flight I kept clutching the little stuffed bear my friends signed and gave me as a going away present.

       “Relax, you’ll make new friends in Beaver Creek, and I’ve already told you why we’re moving. Your dad’s boss offered him a better job here.”

       “That sounds idiotic.”

       “Don’t say that word! You’ll understand when you’re older.”

       I’d heard that way too many times in the past few days.

       “Mom, I don’t feel good.”

       She rummaged through her bag and took out a bottle labeled Advil. From it, she removed what looked like a mini M&M.

       “Here, put this on the back of your tongue, and then swallow it whole with water. You’ll feel better.”

__

       Fifteen minutes later, we landed, got our luggage and were on our way to the new house. I still felt ill. “How long until we get to the house? Is there a lake nearby? Even a pond?”

       “We’re almost there, go back to sleep.”

       I pretended to fall asleep, but more and more thoughts filled my mind about the town. After a while I did manage to sleep, but it felt like I only had time to blink before someone poked me.

       “What?”

       “We’re here, come see the new house!”

—-

       

       It was about a month after I took my first steps into the new house. Since then, I had been to the Spring Valley Medical Center five times. They had poked me with needles about twelve times. Every time my mom was on the phone with them, she said the same thing. ‘What’s wrong with her? What do you mean you still don’t know? It’s been a month! You’ve never seen it before? What should I do? Water? She gets plenty. She can’t be dehydrated.’

Then she hung up, sighed, and, still fretting, went to take a nap.

That day, the call was late, but I could still hear it from where I was “sleeping.” The day before, my mom had made me start keeping a water bottle with me at all times. It sat next to me on the nightstand.

 I couldn’t fall asleep.

 I kept thinking about everything.

 The calls.

 Stupid Nevada.

 The first day of school- wait, what? I had completely forgotten. I looked on the calendar on my wall. Clearly marked, the first day of Sixth grade was circled. August 28th. The date was August 27th. I could make friends the next day. This was my chance to forget about the hospital visits, the calls, everything. I sprinted downstairs.

       “MOM! SCHOOL STARTS TOMORROW!”

“What are you talking about?”

“It’s on my calendar!”

My dad stumbled down the stairs. I had woken him up. Woops.

“What’s going on?”

“Dad!! I start middle tomorrow! I can’t miss the first day. It’s SUPER important!”

He broke into a grin. “We better go to sleep now so we can wake up early then; can’t be late on the first day! Why don’t you head upstairs?”

I made my way back upstairs, eager for morning to come. While I fell asleep, I repeated the same phrase to myself a bunch of times “Tomorrow, I will make friends.”

In the blink of an eye, my alarm went off, and the smell of pancakes cooking filled my room.

I got ready as fast as I could and managed to eat a pancake before I rushed out the door.

About thirty minutes later I found myself outside the front door of Beaver Creek Middle School. I saw a bunch of nice-looking girls, but my dad quickly dragged me inside and to the main office. My dad had knocked on a door labeled “Principal.”

“Come in.”

My dad opened the door, and I saw a woman in her late 30s sitting at a desk.

“Hello, what can I help you with? Please take a seat.”

“Hi. This is my daughter, she’s entering 6th grade. I just wanted to make sure that my wife enrolled her in classes, because we moved here just over a month ago.”

“Oh, of course! You must be Mr. Azul. Yes, your daughter has been enrolled in classes. I will print out a copy of her schedule for her, and then I’ll bring her down to the auditorium for orientation.”

“Great! I’ll be on my way then- but first, could you point me to the nurse? I need to leave some forms with her.”

She pointed down the hall, and then led me off in the other direction to the auditorium. I went off and sat in the middle next to a group of girls who look my age. One of them turned around to face me.

“Hi! I’m Jessica Blanc, but everyone calls me Jessi. You must be the new girl. What classes do you have?”

I handed her my copy of the schedule, and I noticed that her smile grew with each class she read.

“Other than Art, we have the same classes! I’ll show you around.”

I had a feeling we were going to be good friends.

As soon as the orientation assembly was over, the room became chaotic. People pushed and shoved through the crowds to get to their classes. Jessi and I got to our first class, and took seats next to each other. We did that in every class that we had together. Lunch block ended up being my art class, so I said bye to Jessi.

“I’ll come get you for lunch, have fun!”

The bell rang for lunch, but I wasn’t hungry, so I told Jessi to go while I kept working on my project.

“Don’t be stupid! I’m not gonna let you sit here and be alone. I’ll eat here and you can work. I’ll get to see if you’re any good!” she said, sticking her tongue out at me.

“Okay, but I will warn you, I kinda zone out when I’m art-ing”

“Did you just make art a verb?”

“Maybe.. Now come inside.”

 

—

A few days later, I invited Jessi to the house. My parents were happy that I’d been making friends. At the end of the day, Jessi and I walked to the house. I still couldn’t call it “my” house. My mom got us some snacks and we went up to my room to talk and play. From habit, I brought my water bottle with me. At that point, it was nearly destroyed.

“Why do you always carry that water bottle around with you?”

“Honestly, I don’t know. My mom told me to carry it around because I was getting sick when we moved here. All I know is that it makes me feel a lot better.”

“That’s so weird, but cool at the same time. I wish a bottle of water was all I needed to feel better.”

 

—

Weeks passed, then months, and by late November I had perfected my daily routine. I studied hard during the week, and Jessi and I alternated between which of our houses we went to on fridays. Our group of friends had grown, and now there were 6 of us. The only class that we all had together was Social Studies, but I saw at least one of them in every class. Naturally, we got in trouble for talking, but we just lowered our voices and went back to making plans. There was one day, however, when Mrs. Brown’s announcements actually stopped our conversation.

“Class, may I please have your attention.”

All of us kept talking, but that day Mrs. Brown had a way to get us to listen.

    “Class! Thi- this week we will be learning about metahumans.”

    The entire class froze at the mention of the recent discovery, metahumans. We all started talking at once.

    “Why are we learning about-

    “Who cares, it’ll be fun!”

    “Imagine if I was a-“

    “Shut up, that’s ridiculous.”

    Mrs. Brown handed us slips that our parents could sign in agreement, and then the bell rang for the next class. All the students could talk about was the metahuman lessons, but I chose to keep my gushing to myself. What if I’m a metahuman? The thought filled my mind for hours. It kept me thinking until I finally got so exhausted that I fell asleep.

The next morning, the entire class was quiet and ready to learn even before the bell rang to announce the start of the lesson.

“A metahuman, as they are sometimes referred to, is any individual who demonstrates superhuman abilities.  Typically, their powers are internal.  They generate  energy, their will determines its movement.  Rather, regardless of the source or their amount of control, their abilities are their own.  There are also those who have the ability to use magic.  Magic is omnipresent energy, that people have varying amount of ability to control.  Magic potential is very widespread.  In fact, in your senior year of high school, you will take the MET to determine your potential.  Magic users can be divided into a variety of categories, based on which natural elements they manipulate.  However, that’s a lesson for another day.  Today, we’ll be talking about standard powers…  by talking about an exception.”  A laugh ran through the class, and Mrs. Brown smiled.  “Can anyone tell me what a power switcher is?”

One guy in the back of the class raised his hand, and said, “Someone that switches powers?”

The teacher smiled indulgently and said, “Yes, basically.  Good job, Grey.  Now, what makes power switchers unique is their variety of different ways to use their energy.  While most metahumans only need to know one or two ways to use their power, power switchers need to instinctively know how to use many.  There’s no way that one brain could contain all that information.  So, there are things called companions, which store information and help the power switcher control their changes.  Companions are…”

 

That day, nobody started packing their things until the bell rang. We were all engaged in the lesson, and as soon as Mrs. Brown dismissed us the room became a blur of friends coming together and chatting about Metahumans.

“I wonder if-”

“Shut up, don’t be ridiculous.”

“But-”

“No.”

I heard those phrases from about 10 different people in the 5 minutes that it took me to find my friends and start walking home. As soon as we got off school grounds, our conversation began, with everyone speaking simultaneously. it reminded me of the chain of surprised yelps when someone pops a balloon.

“Guys, I want to be a metahuman!”

“You’re not alone, I’m pretty sure everyone wants to be a metahuman.”

“I wonder if any of us are metahumans!”

“We need to promise to tell each other if we are!”

“Deal.”

“Deal!”

“Deal.”

“It’s a deal.”

I got home and immediately sprinted up to my room.

“Where are you going?” That was my mom.

“I need to find out if I’m a metahuman!”

“Don’t hurt yourself!”

I spent the next four hours testing everything that I could possibly think of. I tried moving objects with my mind, lighting lightbulbs by holding them, lighting coal in a bowl, and even jumped off my bed to see if I could fly. Nothing worked. Defeated, I continued with my afternoon and got ready for school the next day.

“Guys, I spent all night trying to find out if I had any powers, but nothing worked.”

“Me too! I couldn’t stop thinking about it even after I gave up.”

“Can you guys stop for a minute? I think you’re forgetting something very important.”

“What could possible be more important with finding our superpowers?”

“How about the fact that winter break starts tomorrow and we haven’t even planned what we’re going to do!”

The rest of the way to school, metahumans were nearly forgotten, and we pitched ideas for sleepovers, trips, and other get-togethers. In fact, the entire day passed as a sort of blur, and I went to bed that night in record time.

The next morning I woke up to the sound of the original “Let It Snow” by Sammy Cahn. I knew it would be a good day. My friends and I gathered at the oak tree that acted as out daily meeting point. We were filled with pre-vacation excitement, and the holiday spirit kept us smiling and laughing all the way to school.

“Good morning class! We have shortened classes today, so we’re going to spend this class making Holiday cards.”

The entire class erupted in cheer. Could this day get any better? The rest of the school day we spent fooling around, the entire student body giddy with the feeling of 2 weeks without school. Finally, the clock struck 12:30. We were free. I met my friends by the door of the classroom, and we started heading home. We had all decided to go eat lunch and hang out at Lilly’s house, so we headed towards her street. As we were walking, I noticed that my water bottle was getting extremely cold. This gave me an idea.

I grabbed my water bottle and focused all of my energy.

I waited.

I waited some more.

And then it happened. The water in the bottle was heating up. I could feel it.

“Guy!! Guys!!! Did you see that!! I have a power!”

“Stop being an idiot. That was probably just your hands warming it up.”

“I swear! It’s a power!!”

Suddenly Jessi spoke up. I had almost forgotten that she was there, she’d been so quiet. “Guys, I think I should take her home. If you want to keep walking to Lilly’s, I’ll catch up with you later.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

Jessi grabbed me by the wrist and dragged me off in the direction of my house.

When we arrived, she ended up staying and we just hung out and played as if  nothing weird had just happened. Inside, I was itching to talk about my newfound power, but Jessi seemed uninterested.

Later on, when Jessi’s mom came to pick her up, Jessi whispered something into her moms ear. Mrs. Blanc let her face contort into a happy grin. She asked my mother to speak with her privately. I was worried.

 

–

 

When they finally left, my mother and father- after my mom had a long talk with my dad- sat me down on the couch.

My mom explained that Jessi had told her mom that I discovered my powers. Also, Jessi had realized I was telling the truth because she was a Metahuman too.

“Jessi is like a human lie detector,” they explained, “She can tell when a statement is true or not.”

The next day Jessi and her mom came over again. Her mom asked my mom for bowls of water, and she placed them in front of me on a table in the garage.

“Focus on the bowls,” she said, “Show me what you can do. Don’t worry if you splash, that’s why we’re in here.”

I concentrated on the bowls, but nothing was happening. Frustrated, I reached for the bowl to knock it over, but when I looked at the bowl, the water was not in it. I had formed a pool of water floating in midair. Just when I realized what happened, the water fell back into the bowl.

“Did you see that? I can move water!”

“Good job, let’s move onto the next bowl. Let’s see to what extent you can freeze or heat the water,” Mrs. B told me.

I focused all of my energy into my hands and placed them over the bowl, as I had seen people do in movies. The water started shaking, and after a while little bubbles started forming. Jessi touched the water and recoiled quickly.

“OWW! That water is boiling!”

I continued working until I had done something to each of the bowls, and then Mrs. Blanc told Jessi it was time to go home.

The next day, my parents told me that we were moving back to Connecticut. I was excited, but I knew I would miss Jessi and her mom. I packed my bags anyways, and we invited Jessi’s family over for Christmas dinner, which was our last meal in Nevada. After dinner, Jessi and her mom came over to me, and Jessi handed me a small box. In it was a necklace with a small vial filled with water.

“Your mom told us that you got sick when you first moved away from the coast, so we got you a vial filled with water. It will make you feel stronger, and replace that water bottle you’re always carrying around.”

I started tearing up as I handed Jessi her gift. “It’s not as helpful as what you gave me, but you’re my best friend, so I got you a necklace too. It has a balance on it, for honesty.” She started crying as well, and we sat hugging each other for a good five minutes before my mom said I had to start getting ready to leave.

We flew to Connecticut that night, and soon after my parents set to work on finding me help to strengthen my skills