Jericho drove along looking for his rental unit 107A. The last two units he passed were units 103 and 104, so he was getting close. He slowed down, turned, and pulled up to his unit. He got out of his car and allowed it to idle. He opened his storage unit, and drove his car in.

Jericho sighed. It was not much space, but it would be enough to contain him if his power did manifest. The workers there forced him to write a clause that he would not be using the units as a manifestation pod, but it was a common occurrence for people to use storage units since they cost less money. Manifestation pods tended to cost hundreds of more dollars, and he was not going to use his money on that, at least for now.

Jericho peered into his bag and brought out a laptop. Connected to a mobile hotspot, he opened the bookmarked links he researched from the night before. Makeshift manifestation pods were trouble, and honestly did not work, but Jericho had to work with this.

Jericho started to bring out his supplies, as well as the dummy items he bought from a second-hand store. He could never be too careful. An inspector could be snooping around and ask to look inside. The decoy lamps, clothes, and other miscellaneous items would be a good cover if one did come along. Also, Jericho needed the storage space anyway. He wanted to get rid of a bunch of things from his childhood, which he thought to throw out entirely, but opted to bring them here instead.

He brainstormed a list of lies he could tell. The most promising one was being a music producer, though he did not think that lie was of much originality. The night before, he recorded a loop that sounded like someone playing around with making music. He ripped the audios from beat making tutorials and compiled them into one giant audio file. The music would be an easy alibi as to why the storage unit was so heavily padded. He had driven to a local department store to buy padding to make the walls as soundproof as he could.

Or maybe he was overthinking this whole thing. The only reason makeshift manifestation pods continued to exist is because workers turned the other way. The average worker would not care, not compared to someone like the owner or someone higher up from corporate.

Still, he was unsure of how he should do things. The first phase of the manifestation period was straightforward compared to the next couple. A colored glow would indicate the beginning of the manifestation period. It was not uncommon for that phase to have a mini-phase, but neither Jericho nor Cade had experienced that, or perhaps they had not noticed. The mini-phase would have exhibited their ability in some way. Jericho did not react much, but Cade said he was not able to move, so perhaps that was related to his ability.

The next phase, the one Jericho was in, would be harder to pinpoint. He had to figure out ways to awaken his power, and that usually required experimentation.

The colored glows were usually a good indication of how to awaken the second phase. Jericho pulled up the links he had saved, and the notes he had taken. Red, was an uncommon color compared to the rest, but not that uncommon to be considered rare or impossible. Green was the most common color, while blue was one of the rarest.

Red was more difficult to arouse for the second phase. Conditions and events were not very concrete, and completing the phase mainly comprised of time and a lot of waiting. At least, that is what his research told him. It was said that music or absolute silence awakened it.

In frustration, Jericho closed the tabs he had bookmarked and began researching again. This time he looked at forums and personal experiences. He scrolled through pages, opening up many links at a time until eventually closing them all and starting again.

Time. Time. Time. It always took time. He waited long enough, he thought.

Although his research did not produce many results, he did find out that Red Glows. rarely needed manifestation pods, and that they were better adjusting to learning and controlling their ability rather quickly. Upon further research and verification of such information, he decided that waiting around in a storage unit and finding optimal environments would be a waste of his time.

He scoffed at the junk he had bought but decided to leave them for now. It would still be a nice fallback to have a storage unit if his power did manifest, although he never really set up the unit. He also still needed to get rid of some things, although the ways things were looking now, he was more inclined to throw all the mementos away.

Jericho determined that if his power did not manifest in a week, then he would cancel his storage unit subscription and gather his belongings.

***

Perfect setting? Jericho tossed a ball against the wall. It bounced back towards him, and he repeated the throw. He continued to do this as he brainstormed ways he could awaken his ability.

He had called Dr. Yohan earlier that day. Dr. Yohan’s office had two manifestation pods, one that was not reserved currently. Jericho would rather keep his thoughts and ability away from the prying eyes of someone like Dr. Yohan, but he ended up scheduling a virtual appointment anyway to discuss further.

Jericho was growing impatient. A week had passed and tomorrow he would call about cancelling the storage unit service. The thought of driving there, picking up the crap and disposing of it annoyed him.

Even if he had spent time figuring out ways to figure out the perfect environment to awaken his ability, he knew that they would have been wasted for nothing. Maybe he really had to wait this out.

The thought gnawed at him: How long would he have to wait? Jericho waited for years, and he really did not wait for a couple more. He did not want to become another anomaly; previously a person who could not awaken his ability, but now a person who could not fulfill the final phase of his manifestation.

Manifestation pod companies would just be taking his money, but if he did not try, then he might miss out on awakening. His thoughts grew more disconcerting.

He stopped throwing the ball and put his laptop on his chest. He lazily searched up Long manifestation period second phase. His fingers moved dreadfully slow across the keyboard because he doubted he would find anything useful.

The article titles looked promising at first, but upon clicking on them he quickly realized they were just filled with fluff, information that was not useful to him.

Was it really that uncommon and rare that nobody has ever experienced a long manifestation period? Perhaps, he was being theatrical, or maybe not. Statistics usually showed that 90% of people complete their second phase within a week of their first phase, while the outlying 10% complete it within another week. Two whole weeks; that is all it took. Jericho did not want to wait another week, nevertheless another second. He knew he was growing more restless as time went on.

Nothing he did relaxed him. He tried to watch a movie but could not concentrate. He tried to play video games but found himself raging, more so than usual, every time he lost. Nothing he did calmed him.

Jericho threw on a hoodie, a pair of sweatpants, and a pair of running shoes; they were all black.

He passed by his mom’s door, knocked on it a few times and said, “Hey, mom. I’m going out on a run.”

No response, but he was just being nice by telling her.

Jericho hopped around in place in the cold air, moving his body in whatever way he could. He swung his legs, circled his arm, walked in lunges, among other dynamic movements for the next five minutes. Then he began to run.

Running; an activity Jericho had not done since high school. Jericho used to be rather athletic, at one point even hoping to get a scholarship from a college, but he was turned down due to not having an ability. He could see the applicant judges laughing at his essay; it was foolish for him to even consider an athletic scholarship anyway. Jericho really thought that if he tried his best, he could be useful.

Since then, he given up running, and he did anything athletic with less intensity. Jericho worked out from time to time, but never consistently enough to make major strides in athleticism. He only increased his workout schedule when he started his visits with Dr. Yohan, but even then, that was not consistent enough. It discouraged him when he saw athletic individuals who were gifted with strong abilities. He thought, What’s the point? I can’t compete with that, ever since.

Running did bring some nice people into his life. In high school he joined the cross-country running team. His teammates grew to know him and supported him despite him not having an ability.

Freshman and sophomore year, everyone was nice all around, junior year too. They had even encouraged him that he was just late getting an ability, but then eventually senior year came and the bullying and harassment took a turn. Jericho pushed everyone away, his friendships fizzled out, and he was alone.

Partway through his senior year, he would spend time defending himself from his bullies. Super speed, super strength, and a teenager with six arms would greet him as he walked home. Everyday he would tell his friends to stay out of it, and everyday he would fight for his life.

One day, a few of his cross-country friends came to school the next day with puffed faces and bruised, black eyes. They told the school administrators that they fell, dropped phones on their eyes, and even got in a car accident. Seeing his friends covering for him with injuries on their faces angered him, and he confronted his bullies about it.

They beat him up yet again, but this time the ridicule and beatings intensified.

The staff started to catch on, but schools never wanted to admit that they had a student without an ability, so they hushed it up just like any other high school inconvenience. Other students fought back against the school’s decision, but any talk about Jericho and him getting bullied was ignored, and the Deans often yelled at students to stop. If only they put that much effort into stopping his bullies.

Jericho told his cross-country friends to finally stop associating with him, which they reluctantly did. They still tried to be friends with Jericho, but Jericho continued to shut everyone out.

Jericho still came to school. Each day he would get beat up, but each day he would fight back. He always fought back. He even started training to get stronger, even without his abilities. Eventually his bullies gave up. Maybe they saw how resilient Jericho was, maybe they took pity on him, or maybe they finally grew up and realized how wrong they were.

They did stop, but Jericho kept going.

“Fight me!” Jericho had said. “Come on!”

The trio ended up asking for forgiveness. They apologized deeply to Jericho, expressing remorse as much as they could.

No, you can’t do that. Jericho had thought. Why are you apologizing now? For the past year you’ve been tormenting me every day. I begged you to stop. My friends begged you to stop, so why are you choosing now? You don’t deserve to pity me.

Nobody bothered Jericho after that point. There were some stragglers that did mess with him, but the original trio stopped that quickly. Now, Jericho was all alone. His old cross-country friends decided to warm up with him again, but at that point Jericho was far gone. His only goal in life at that moment was to be strong enough to defeat the trio, but they had apologized, and he no longer had any resolve left. Reality had settled in and he was now faced with being powerless again.

Jericho gave up on friends, life, and school at that point. Nothing interested him. Nothing mattered. Everything became mundane and monotonous. He moved like a robot and acted like one too. He barely passed high school, but he assumed the administration just wanted to get rid of the stain on their record and allowed him to pass.

For some odd reason Jericho did appreciate his bullies. He learned a lot from them. He knew that there would be far worse people in the world like that, ones that failed to learn such things like empathy, ones that simply do not care to.

He also would not mind contacting his high school friends, but he knew those relationships were dead. They were now in college, and now had new friends. They had not talked for the latter half of senior year. They talked briefly at graduation and took photos, which Jericho was extremely happy to take, but there had been no contact since then.

***

Jericho forgot how fun it was to run. He completed the route he took when he was in cross-country within a nine-minute variance, which could have been shaved if he did not have to wait for an ambulance to pass. Still, he thought the time was surprisingly good. Although, it was not like he had been completely sedentary; he still strength-trained and performed cardio from time to time.

He laid outside his house. Resting and waiting, his heart paced quickly gradually slowing down and turning back to normal. His deep, shallow breaths burned his lungs, but he felt alive. He decided at that moment that he was going to run tomorrow as well, perhaps even the day after that. Even if he did not accomplish his goal of activating his ability at this point, he thought he might as well strive to become healthier.

His eyes stared up at the sky and watched as the clouds passed. He waited long enough for an ability, but if he had to wait a little while longer, then he was completely comfortable doing so. His eyes closed, and his blood continued to course through his body.