My fist soared through the air like a hawk pursuing its prey. An animal that will stop at nothing to achieve its goal. But unfortunately, my fist, like the rest of me, was not a predatory bird that chowed down on smaller mammals. But a concoction of bones, muscles, and tissue that is easily broken.

My clenched fist hit the base of the carbon nail with every nuance of force that I could muster. My knuckles collapsed into the palm, the force that was intended to drive through the carbon nail instead of the kinetic energy reverberated through my hand and my forearm. The shockwaves blasted chunks of carbon off my arm, the crunching of the knuckles in my hand could be heard even through the crumbling of the carbon falling to the ground.

I’ve been dealing with physical pain for the last few years of my life. Inwards and out, it drug me down. An everlasting anchor that hung from my soul, tethering me to the outside the world lest I lose myself in the fantasies.

The obsidian black rock dissipated into dust as the green energy that I failed to even falter dimmed into nothingness. I stared at my arm dim-wittingly while I tried to comprehend what happened. My hand was in shambles, my fingers stood crooked like an old man enduring the injuries of a lifetime. The skin, or lack thereof on my arm where there was no carbon anymore was grotesque.

But most of all, I felt nothing… Not the searing pain that flared through my arm with each heartbeat. Not the sickening ache that pulsed through my body as my brain reacted to what happened. Nada. It was like I was just standing there enjoying the slight humidity that arose from the continued efforts of trying to break an unbreakable wall.

I clenched and unclenched my hand feeling the bones move. Albeit slowly like I just stuck my hand in freezing water for a couple minutes. I swung my arm about watching with fascination as I enjoyed the sensation of dullness. The dark red blood that dripped from the skinless portions of my arm snapped me out of my morbid fascination of my own extremity and back to reality.

“Holy sweet mother of Jesus” Equinox whispered. His eyes were wide as he scoured my face waiting for my inevitable cries of anguish.

Small screams and gasps could be heard from around me but I ignored them. Wusses. It’s just a little blood. I looked at the growing puddle of sticky blood pooling on the ground. Well, maybe a little more than a little.

Looking closer at my mangled piece of flesh that I could call an arm I noticed that I really didn’t fuse the carbon into me as well as I thought. Instead of it being rooted deep in my arm like the roots of a tree they only stuck to the skin like glue on paper. I mean this should hurt right? It felt like when you squeeze the skin on your elbow and you feel nothing or when the dentist anesthetizes your mouth and no matter how hard you bite on your cheek all you feel is a dull rubber-like flesh.

“Isn’t there a young lady in here who can heal?” Equinox called out frantically.

I walked over to my friends who were watching with quite different expressions on their faces. Julian was green with nausea, Ashley looked close to crying, and Jayden merely furrowed his brows in thought. The unsympathetic bastard, If I was in actual pain that wouldn’t make me feel any better.

The girls and guys who quickly cleared the area before I arrived next to my friends. They probably couldn’t handle the sweetness I was bringing.

“That went better in my head” I declared easily as I waved my injured arm towards Equinox.

Julian’s eyes never left my mangled appendage as I swung it up and about while I talked.

“How aren’t you crying? You’re like bleeding and your hand’s all mashed up and-” Ashley said tremoring.

“Men never fear pain! We embrace it.” I said with a confident smile.

Ashley stared at me incredulously.

“Right Julian?” I asked as I took a step forward next to him and swung my bloody arm around his shoulder before he could answer.

The way my arm was positioned I could see my bone jut out of my forearm, a groundhog coming out of the hole that is my arm. That’s when Julian lost his lunch. The acrid smell of bile rose from the vomit that was spewed all over the ground in front of us. Maybe I took this a little too far. I quickly took my arm off as Julian scrambled away all the while shooting me a dirty look.

“D-don’t do that!” He stammered as he left the room as fast as he could.

“I was just joking,” I said pleadingly with Jayden who just shrugged in indifference.

“No one else is freaking out about his bleeding arm?!” Ashley cried out.

Before I could run after Julian a light tap on shoulder alerted me that there were other people in the room watching. I turned around to face a cute brunette girl. She was fair skinned, toned, and had ice blue eyes that would make me drown in them if I ever could swim in them.

Hot damn.

“I was told you needed some healing,” She said in complete seriousness.

“A little may be nice, yeah,” I said while gesturing at the small pool of blood that was beginning to pile up on the floor.

The girl winced slightly as she was about to touch the skinless region before thankfully changing her mind and grasping the area just above my elbow that was full of skin. She closed her eyes and furrowed her eyebrows in apparent concentration. Tingles pulsed through my body with every caress of her fingertips and not just because of the healing. Tearing my eyes away from her I looked back at my arm.

“This may hurt a little,” She said with absolutely no remorse.

No worries, she doesn’t know that I’m not feeling anything. She’ll hopefully think I’m just pushing the pain out of my mind. The already slowing dripping of deep red stopped to a standstill, the white marrow of bone pushed under the muscle. Skin grew from the where she was touching me up towards my fist like a snake slithering toward its hole that it calls home. The bones in my hand regenerated and straightened out. As soon as it started it stopped.

“You owe me one,” She said in that silky smooth voice of hers.

Before I could respond she turned around abrubtly and sashayed off to her friends who were watching like the rest of the room, well the guys weren’t really watching me per say. Or the healing really. I flapped my arm a bit to get feel for it and I had better motor functions. Or at least I hope so, I couldn’t really feel a difference.

Again just before I could go after Julian Equinox caught my eye. Instead of worry or empathy for my hardships, all I saw was calculations and suspicions. He held me stare for a few more seconds before walking out of the room.

“Class dismissed,” He said gravelly before walking out.

Murmers arouse again, great all I need now is more attention. I turned around back to Ashley and Jayden. Ashley had unreadably expression plastered on her face as she stared back at the girl who healed me. She looked back at me before leaving in a huff to join rainbow girl. Now, what did I do?

Of course, this was how is now. I rubbed my wrists together as I turned another corner not caring where I would end up. I finally became someone, a Super for Christ’s sake, and Chase turns all the attention to him again. I didn’t tell anyone because I knew this would happen anyways with all the rumors surrounding him.

And even now even after he spectacularly failed he smiled and joked with a mangled arm. How could I compete with that? Ashley couldn’t give two shits about short, chubby Julian who throws up and is too scared to even talk about an achievement that he dreamed ever since he was a kid. It was supposed to get better here but now I’m even more lonely due to the inevitably overshadowing of others. Ever since I- no- I shouldn’t be stuck in the past. But oh how it pulls me toward it like a vacuum sucking me into its grasp.

I turned another corner I briskly walked down the increasingly dimming hallways. I was up next, even if I had no chance to even scratch the legendary forcefield that doesn’t mean I couldn’t show everybody that I wasn’t worthless. Maybe even impress Ashley to the point that she would pry her eyes from Chase.

I finally stopped walking to stretch out my shoulders and back. Unfortunately, after I got my powers I haven’t been quite able to hide what happened and stay comfortable. And I thought the major changes of puberty were behind me. I leaned against a metallic door as I enjoyed the silence of being alone and without any blood dripping all over me.

The clip-clops of steps reverberated through the hallway as I stood there pondering the miserable state I’m in.

“There you are!” Chase said cheerfully.

“How did you find me?” I asked without thinking how rude that sounded.

Without missing a beat he just gestured behind him and said: “Oh someone pointed me to where you went and I eventually caught up.”

“Yay…”I said weakly.

“So I-uh- wanted to say sorry for what I did back there. I’ve been a little shaken up because of everything and-” He paused. He seemed like he was about to say something but changed his mind. “I might’ve taken it too far” He continued and from what I could tell he meant it.

“Yeah, no problem I don’t even care that much,” I said as I bit my tongue to not let the lie be too obvious.

Thankfully he was oblivious. We then stood there awkwardly as silence ensued, the seconds ticked by slower than my mile time. I was about to try to rub off some of his blood off my shoulder until Chase perked up as he looked behind me.

“Hey isn’t that the door to the lab that we were specifically told not to go in,” He said with a mischievous grin that would make any teacher in the vicinity to instantly suspicious.