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Awakenings

Part One

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Written by Arian Mabe (Amethyst Mare)

Commissioned by anonymous

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David opened his eyes and everything was different. One moment he had closed his eyes, drifting off to sleep, and the next he was awake in a world that was his own, seeing everything clearly for the first time.

He sat up slowly, head spinning, though he moved carefully, fingers tingling – but not really. It was strange to put words to what had happened to him, nineteen years old and in his first year of university, even though it was very much something that was expected of someone his age. Being that he was a few months into his courses there, some would have said that it was a little on the late side for his powers to awaken, for it could happen as early as sixteen for the rare few and then mostly clustered between the age of eighteen or nineteen. If someone's powers did not “awaken" by twenty, there was usually something deeper awry that they needed to address, though David did not know of anyone whose powers had not appeared by then. Neither could he remember a time in the world when such things had not been the norm.

“Okay, I've got this."

It could not be that bad, David thought to himself, though he didn't feel like himself anymore, even if his small, plain bedroom was the same as it had always been, even though he now lived in a house that had been converted into four small flats. He'd never quite felt at home anywhere enough to put up posters and sink down roots, having had a foster family since his parents had passed away while he'd been young. David did not spend much time thinking about that, however, even if he had not taken on his foster family as an adoptive one. They had been nice enough, but something in him had always told him that they were only fostering him for the money they got from it.

That was of no matter to him after he'd left, their help and his work ethic at least allowing him to get the small flat. There were grants and loans available to people like him too, but they could be a bit shaky on when they dropped into his bank account, so he always wanted to make sure that he was well-prepared for everything.

But nothing could have prepared him for the moment that he stood and looked into the mirror, his eyes no longer the same old brown shade that they had been before. His fingers moved slowly to the strong bridge of his nose, tracing the line down, the bright amber something that could not have been mistaken for a natural shade in any way – not even of an animal. Freckles dotted the lines of his cheekbones, a comforting touch of what had been before, though he didn't see himself in his tousled, brown hair, how it was getting a little long again, brushing and tickling his ears.

Things could have been fine if he had only had normal powers, like the Titans and the Kinetics, who respectively had either their physical abilities enhanced or the ability to manipulate objects and the world around them, maybe even creating something out of nothing. The abilities of Superhumans, whether they looked like humans anymore or not, varied widely, but there was one type that was feared above all else.

Only a handful, three, in fact, had awakened throughout humanity's time with Superhumans – at least to the knowledge of the world. The Savants. The last two, well… David grimaced, turning his head back and forth, though looking at his startlingly amber eyes was not going to change the fact of anything. If he wore contacts, he could have appeared perfectly normal to everyone else in the world – and not the beast that others regarded the Savants to be.

“Shit…"

His stomach ached and churned and yet there was exultation in him too, a new power flowing through, though David neither had superhuman strength nor the ability to fly, not even kinetic abilities. It was not as simple as that, but more like a section of his mind – the rest of his brain – had suddenly opened up behind his amber eyes, his otherworldly appearance setting him apart in more ways than one.

He was a Savant. And he understood so much more than he had before, seeing the world around him differently, deconstructing the small items of technology in his bedroom in his mind, blinking once and imagining just how they could be repurposed, changed, what they could become, all in time. He paused, grappling with the change in his mind. How was it that he could suddenly see how technology broke down, his understanding so great that it was as if he needed to take a step back and hold his hands up, to admit defeat in a way.

He couldn't take it all in, not all at once, not considering…what past Savants had done.

David shivered, shaking his head, his stomach queasy, though that was a small reaction considering the Savant that had created that tower, the one that touched the sky. He had transported it and the surrounding land – most often cities – levitating and dropping them, causing destruction that was still difficult to read about in their history books. It sounded blasé to consider such destruction in his head, for it was unfathomable to him for someone to simply pick up a city and drop it again, smashing shop windows, bringing down skyscrapers…

So many lives lost. His breath caught, chest tight, hand pressed to it. No, no… He'd be okay, he wouldn't end up like that. A Savant's affinity with technology and the ability to see things differently stretched, in the history books, between great feats of engineering, like the tower that was able to teleport and take the land around it with it, and the Savant who had created the genetically mutated animals. “Monsters" would have been a more accurate word to use, but they were trying not to use that. It made them sound like the animals, vicious and spreading diseases, though what they were capable of was far, far worse than merely that. They slaughtered all that they came across, to put it in exceptionally mild terms, but the details of that had been gone over, again and again, in his history classes.

No one wanted another Savant to appear. But neither could David change the fact that he had become one.

He swallowed hard, going to the bathroom. Yes, things would be okay if only he followed the normal courses of his day, one step after the other, acting as if everything was normal.

Contact lenses, he thought, not trusting himself to speak aloud, even though he usually talked to himself. It was just the way he was, the way he talked, the way he worked things out.

David sighed, eyeing up his face. If he was to get by, he'd have to both stop talking to himself aloud and get contact lenses to hide the fact that his eyes had changed. If he could hide it, just for a little while, he would be able to get by, maybe, but that was just his mind locking down into survival mode. There was going to be a lot of that to come for the third known Savant in the world.

He kept his thoughts to himself, going to university, trying not to dig too deep into anything, having coffee with a couple of classmates. His skin itched whenever he was out in public, as if everyone knew who he was, what he was, the pounding of his heart coming increasingly anxiety-driven with every day that dared pass.

It didn't feel real, not at all, as if he was drifting through life without making an impact. Yet that was exactly what David needed, getting a haircut, fitting it, making a great effort to take every step as if it was all normal, so very normal.

But it was not normal, not as he was drawn to robots, making a workshop in the basement. It was meant to be shared storage between all four inhabitants of his rented flat, but no one cared when he put a door code up, ensuring that he had at least some privacy down there. They fascinated him, taking everyday items apart and putting them together again, his mind working more quickly than his fingers, though some part of him told him, in time, that his body would catch up with it. Physical limitations could hold him back, but he relished in his mind opening up.

It was strange… He had never thought that he was not using the full capacity of his mind, but it must have been so! The excitement, when he was alone in the basement, was something, at least, that he could lean into, finding his feet in his new self, though he could no more turn away from his newfound powers than he could return to his old life.

Still, he tried. He tried to be “everyday him", he tried to be normal. But he constructed his robots regardless, making them more elaborate, walking on their own, talking on their own, some implanted with AI chips that would allow them some decision making of their own. Not many, of course, as he was more interested in controlling them for the time being, laughing softly to himself at just how a blender could become a surveillance robot in less than half an hour and a laptop could be a sentry robot, even loaded with shards of metal instead of bullets. David tried not to think too much about how he needed the protection.

“If I do this right," he muttered to himself, the light of an idea forming as he did more than tinker, a robot with car side lights as eyes before him on his new metal work desk, “they'll hire me. I don't want to do anything bad… Wouldn't I have done that already?"

He hoped so. So little was known about the past Savants that he didn't know how long it had taken them to fall. Did they go full fray into evil from the start? Or did they take a long time to sink? Did they become evil or were they born evil? There seemed to be nothing more in them than a grab for power and a desire for control unlike any other.

He clenched his jaw until a muscle twitched and jumped in the corner of his mouth, itching, prickling. No… He didn't want to think about that, not at all, groaning, though he still had to concentrate. The only plan that he had come up with was to find a way to get through to the government, to get a job with the government agency that he'd heard of that hired Superhumans specifically for the roles they could play with their greater strengths. It was a weak plan, but, while undercover, there was only so much that he could do to plan, to try to offer up some kind of proof that he was not about to go off on some crazed, destructive rampage, blasting his power across the world.

David sighed, the hour late, rubbing the back of his hand across his face. Maybe it would work and maybe it would not. Who was to say until he was done? The artificial light down there was glaring and yet he had to keep going, had to try, had to do something.

“One step in front of the other…"

He remembered his mother saying that, many years ago. It was one of his only memories of her voice, yet David did not know how much of that his mind had filled in over the years. At least it gave him some comfort.

Taking odds and ends from the bins of computing shops too allowed him to build a much larger, much more capable supercomputer: not the best name, but it would do. It helped, though he didn't like to dip into his savings too much, even though he didn't feel like he had a choice. Loans and grants for his studies only went so far and had never been designed to go towards building a Savant's workshop.

But he needed more, better tools – things that he could sink his teeth into, all to improve his line of robots. He had to do it, dropping more classes at university, spending day and night down in the basement, ignoring anyone who banged on the door. He gave the water reading to the man who'd come to get it, though he said something about needing to see it in person next time, that he couldn't just note down any number.

“Yeah, I know…" David had muttered. “They have exercise equipment down here… I don't know, man, they just said that they didn't want anyone down here. They don't even know I'm using it…"

Of course, that was a barefaced lie, and he sweated heavily on closing the door, checking the locks, checking the code. An idea for a new security system slipped into his mind, though there was only so much that he could do when it came to technology so far.

But he could try, learning more every day, leaping from pillar to post, jumping technological hurdles that he had never even known were possible. He'd heard that that had been the case with other Savants, as no one had yet managed to work out just how the teleporting tower had even been constructed. It was hardly as if standard teleportation was normal for anyone. They hadn't even cracked it yet and he didn't believe the reports that scientists in the government's employ were close. He thought they were further away from it than ever, now that he had dug into similar things himself. But maybe it simply was not his affinity, even if it fascinated him.

Yet his life in the background was destined to end and he should have realised that, even though he'd touched base with Sabrina, who he'd lived opposite for many years. It had not been something he'd wanted to hide from her and he had had to say something about being busy with university, even though he was only taking one core course after everything that had taken him away with it. To cover his tracks a little more there, he'd opened up a case and made some bookings with a counsellor, knowing well enough that they wouldn't reach his spot in the queue. There were far too many students there that needed extra help and attention, so he was going to be fine at the end of it all.

But what he didn't expect was for things to come to a head so soon. He worked diligently on his robots as the Autumn months moved to the edge of Winter, even though with the changes in the world there was not all that much difference in the seasons anymore. It stayed more or less mild all the time, which was more and more disconcerting to generations as they were born. He couldn't remember a time when he'd seen the leaves turn more than a rough shade of orange-brown, dropping and then…it was spring again, mild and comfortable.

He sat back, observing his robots. They were coming along, but they were not ready yet, as much as he laboured away in his secret workshop. They were humanoid in shape, only about four feet in height, but they were the most advanced thing he had made so far – which was to say, better than anything any human, super or not, could have made on the planet. He was, after all, the only Savant that he knew of, and he did not know of another in history (perhaps the one who teleported the tower?) that had such an affinity for technology.

He smiled. He liked that he was unique. David only wished that it was not in such a dangerous way and field, maybe something that could have flown under the radar for a bit longer and wouldn't, you know, make him a threat to civilisation and the world as everyone had come to know it. The robots, however, stood tall and proud, surveying the area around them for threats with AI technology implemented in them, though he had dulled the applications so that they could not grow too quickly. He'd seen too many films like that to let that get out of hand before he'd gotten his feet wet. But they were a good start and he hoped that he could propose to the government that they could be used in law enforcement…or something. Restraining super-criminals, after all, was a difficult enough feat as it was, but he didn't honestly know the intricacies of that line of work all that well. David just hoped he was on the right track.

He paused, the air around him stiller, quieter than it had been. The hairs prickled on the back of his neck.

And, just like that, David's world took a U-turn.

The door to his workshop blasted in, slammed clean off its hinges and out of the reinforced frame that he'd built for it, a jagged bolt of blue lightning snapping through the air. Yet it was not lightning of the natural world and kind, a Kinetic stepping inside with his hands raised, lips pressed into a firm line, lightning snapping and flicking back and forth between their hands, cupped there as if it was shaped like a ball.

His ears rang, scrambling up, though David had no recollection of being knocked to the ground, adrenaline pumping. He'd always heard of fight and flight, but, in reality, the fact of the matter was that there was not any time in which to react, everything moving around him in slow-motion, armoured guards flooding his workshop.

“Mr Joneson!" Someone snarled, speaking into a microphone clasped to their collar, a transparent plastic shield slid down from their helmet over their face, in full riot and protective gear. “You are under arrest for future crimes against the country!"

“What?" He had his hands up already, trying to look as little like a threat as possible, head ducked down, debris scattered over him, the blown-off door sliding down the opposing wall with a screech somewhere behind him. “But I haven't done anything!"

That, of course, did not matter when he was a Savant, yet he saw their lips move, commanding others to move in, even as fear gripped his heart. Everything was going wrong, so wrong, palms sweating, skidding, slipping, trying to stagger to his feet, even though that was probably the worst thing he could do under the circumstances. Someone screamed at him to get down, another bolt of lightning zapping over his right shoulder, narrowly missing his ear, yet the second that slammed into his chest knocked him back off his feet.

“Stop!"

Or that was what he had been trying to say as he lay flat on the ground, stunned, blinking dully, striving to come back to his senses, even as the robots blinked to life, sensors swivelling, locking onto the guards. In his mind, he screamed, tried to raise a hand, tried to tell them how to disable the robots, yet all that came from his lips was a chesty wheeze, a bruise spreading deeply across his chest, ribcage aching even through the pulse of adrenaline.

And there was nothing he could do as they advanced, the robots reacting exactly as their programming dictated that they did. They had sensed a threat and disabling it was their next task, locking onto the lethal threat to their creator's life with deadly force.

Heads turned, too late, as they beeped, guns levelled at them – but it was no use. Bullets filled the air in a deadly rain, the robots opening fire on the troops that had broken in with no care or consideration for the lives that they mowed down. Blood sprayed, bodies tumbling, knocked back off their feet from the sheer volume of metal peppering their bodies, some flying straight through. Although he had not been able to find high-quality bullets or metal from which to fashion them for his tests, the robots themselves had been infused with more than enough power to ensure that their bullets struck home and did not leave a breath in lungs that still had blood carrying oxygen from them to other vital organs.

Those functions of the body would not be needed anymore, the mass drivers within the robots propelling metal at the troops as they flooded forth, not seeming to care for their lives. Or perhaps the threat of leaving a Savant unchecked was more terrifying than being a cog in the machine, of being cut down and losing their lives, to become a name on a memorial plague that would forever remember the great sacrifice they had made that day. David's chest twisted in horror, barely able to prop his torso up with one hand, wanting to reach out with the other…but the battle was out of his hands.

What he did remember, however, was the dull eyes of the Kinetic Superhuman as he lay splayed out on the ground, a pool of blood spreading from the back of his head, a bullet hole clean through his forehead. Lightning crackled around his fingers, though even that faded as his life force died. There was nothing to be done.

Dozens fell, his heart pounding, blood roaring in his ears, dust filling the air as the metal projectiles slammed into the walls too, chipping and slicing away at them as if they were made of a far less substantial material than they were, pitting and digging into the fabric of what had been his fortress for months already. The robots were relentless, David not able to cut them off and stop the bloodshed, to stop bodies from stumbling over bodies, the stronger Superhumans leading the charge with grit and determination in their eyes.

At least, that's what he would remember of them, rather than the way they jerked and flailed as their bodies were peppered with shards of metal. Some brought fire, others manipulated air, others with more traditional telekinesis – though, finally, it was a Titan who slammed through a wall, breaking across the line of robots with a roar, a man who stood eight feet tall. His lips twisted into a grimace, dirt smeared across his face as he smashed through them, taking bullets to the thighs and stomach before crushing the final robot.

Yet the damage had been done as his head spun, nausea twisting and roiling in his stomach, his creations destroyed, and yet that was not the true terror that had come to take place there that day, night… David didn't even know anymore. It could have been day or it could have been night, but it ceased to matter as he slumped to the ground, bodies looming over him, though those bodies were still standing, lips moving.

A sharp prick entered his arm, though he did not even have the strength in him to flinch, the ringing in his ears growing and growing, the faces and shapes above him fading, blurring as he fell unconscious.

The last thing David saw was the face of one of his robots, the sensor still blinking, but its ability to discharge ammunition was shredded.

If only he'd had more time…

*

David woke slowly, sluggishly, as if he was dragging himself up from a deep, cloying pit that hung from his shoulders, pulling him down, panting, his skin damp and clothes clinging to him. He must have been sweating, though it was hardly a comforting piece of knowledge as he sat up very, very slowly, testing every muscle in his body, stretching out his arms one at a time.

What he was in was clearly a cell, his lips pressed together, yet there was no tension in his jaw. There was a door, of course, with a window with bars on it, but the rest of the room appeared like a simple hotel room with a comfortable bed, even a desk with a seat and a separate armchair. A bookcase sat under the windowsill, small and functional, with a few books resting on their sides, an open wardrobe with a mirror showing him where dressing and the like should have taken place. He couldn't help but notice that that spot would allow anyone at the door, looking through the bars, even if there was glass or something similar there too, to see exactly what he was doing. But privacy there was probably a little too much to be hoped for.

He hoped the separate door, near the main door, led to a small bathroom at the very least. But he wouldn't get his hopes up too much on that one.

“Damn it…"

He sat on the edge of the bed, head in his hands, running his fingers back through his hair. It was still short and freshly trimmed, bristly at best, but smart. That probably wouldn't make any difference when they judged him, but…

His heart twisted, sickness rising in his gut. If only he'd been quicker. It had not been his fault, not really, and yet every last bit of it was his fault. He'd never asked to be a Savant, yet his very effort to protect himself had dropped him into the very shit that he had sought to avoid – as if it had all been predestined from the beginning. Maybe that was the way of it for every Savant, or maybe there had been more of them, since the ones that had tried to dominate the world, the ones that had been caught by the government, trapped and… And what?

He didn't know the answer to that question. David wasn't all that sure either that he wanted to know the answer.

Thankfully, or perhaps not all that much so, it was not all that long for him after waking that a tall man with what could have been a military uniform to those not in the know, but what David understood was the black and green, tasteful, uniform of the Government Superhuman Agency. The badges on his chest were derived from past military traditions, but helped place him in the ranking, David swallowing, though there was little he could do but sit there and wait to be spoken to.

“I see you have awoken. Can you confirm that your name is David Joneson?"

David nodded.

“Yes… Harris, as a surname, from birth, but Joneson was given to me in the foster system."

“I see."

The man was polite, if a little clipped, though David could take that over a tongue lashing, even if that was, by far, not the worst thing they could do to him now that they had him trapped. He shifted his weight, wanting to tap his foot anxiously, yet that wouldn't have gotten him anywhere. The body, however, would still want it regardless, nerves racing through him with each beat of his pounding heart.

Be still…

_ _

The man surveyed him. David noted that he did not give him a name. Perhaps they did not think that he deserved to have a name to know who he was speaking to, placing the man in his mind solely as The Uniformed Man. It would have to do, at least for the time being, like much else in his life.

“How did you find me?" David said, breaking an uneasy silence, the calm a little too still and settling for him. “I didn't try to cause any trouble… I just thought if I could bring the robots to the government, there might be a job for me there."

He laughed shortly, though it was the kind of laugh that had no humour in the tone, looking at the plain, beige wall directly opposite him. Of course, the window to his cell had the curtains drawn over it, all light in there artificial. He was not such a fool as to think that they would have allowed him an easy avenue to the outside world, as much as his fingers twitched, the gaping cavern in his chest longing for something else, an escape. It was not so much that he was claustrophobic or anything indoors, but that the lack of being able to leave somewhere made him want to leave even more. He supposed that that would be the same for anyone in his position.

“We track the universities." David was surprised to get an answer from The Uniformed Man, though his name was getting old already. “Being that most powers are awakened when our students are of university age, possibly college if they were pursuing diplomas and alternative courses of study, that is where the majority of our attention is."

“Ah." David shook his head. “And that's how you found me. I dropped out of my courses, changed the patterns of my behaviour…and even signed up for counselling."

He'd thought he was being so clever and yet all he had done had been to walk into their trap, even though he could not fault them for what they'd done. If he'd had that knowledge, it would have been exactly what David would have done to catch people just like him.

“Most powers, of course," the man continued, surprisingly conversational, “are recorded when individuals see their doctor or declare it during their studies for forms and whatnot, but you… You declared nothing."

David grimaced. He could have made something up. Damn it. But hindsight, indeed, was a wonderful thing…

“When we became aware that you were a Savant, the third to ever exist, I am sure you understand that we could not take the risk that you would go down the same routes as your predecessors."

David listened carefully, filing that nugget of information away for later. While the man seemed to be imparting information, it did not sound like they had apprehended or captured any other Savants. It would have been a strange thing to say if they had captured or even killed ones like him before that were not officially known.

Interesting…

_ _

That could help him.

“As you are too powerful to be left unchecked, Mr Joneson, the decision was made to bring you into custody. This is where you are now. Your needs here will be met, you will not be starved. You will be given everything a body needs to function here."

“But it's still a prison cell, isn't it?" David shot back, on his feet, hands balled up into fists, shaking his head. “I'm not crazy like them – I promise! If I was going to do something, wouldn't I have already done it? Don't I have rights or something? I shouldn't be here – I'm not evil! I'm not a villain! I've done everything possible to show everyone that I'm not going to be crazed, power hungry… I don't know what the fuck you want to call them. But all I can tell you is that that's not me and I wish I could do something more to show you that too!"

The man raised an eyebrow, his clean-shaven face suddenly a bit too perfect, the line of his jaw a little too masculine. Anger boiled in the pit of David's stomach, his body too hot, heat racing to his face.

“And the scene caused in your, ah, basement?" He said, less than delicately. “There are lives gone and blood on your hands, Mr Joneson, and that is something that can never be taken back. If you had intended to come peacefully, would the route to take have not been to come forward imminently?"

David growled under his breath, though it only cumulated in a sigh. Despite his frustration, he simply didn't have the energy in him to fight back, not like that.

“Look, I did my best. There's not exactly a playbook for things like that, you know? I didn't think anyone was going to blast the door off. If I had only set the security trip on those to be more accessible, maybe by voice… But I couldn't even talk when I was stunned… Damn it, they need work…"

He devolved into mutterings, seeing only numbers in his head, calculations, all beyond the comprehension of the man staring at him with more than a small degree of fascination.

“To see one of you up close… It's uncanny. But, no, you do not have rights, not here. You are only alive because the Clarketech you have created is of immense value, which I'm confident you are already aware of. That is all that we need from you, whether you want to give us your co-operation willingly…or not."

Clarketech? Ah… He dredged up the word from the back of his mind, seeing the pages of his history books, from his schooling days before university, on the old, worn school desk before him. That had been the name for technology created by Savants. And he guessed that that too was what he was able to create.

“People will ask about me." He stated dully and flatly, like a dog put to a rattlesnake, both holding firm, unwilling to make the first move. “They'll know I'm gone, my university, my friends…"

Well, just the one friend. But the government didn't have to know that.

“No, that will not be so." The man cleared his throat and straightened his tie. “The press release has already been made, as there was quite a scene. All the public knows and will ever know is that many of our agency were killed trying to contain a newly awakened Superhuman that was rampaging."

David swallowed hard. “That". Not “who". Not “who was rampaging". The deliberate word choice came off as colder and chilling than he could have expected.

“They'll know the truth," David said, eyes locked with his all too calm opponent. “They'll have to know, sooner or later. None of this was my fault, it's not my fault they died. I would have come forward if only someone had contacted me, tried to talk to me. My friends will know that I would never rampage… That's not me. That's not the person I am and those that know me will attest to my innocence."

“They'll never be given the chance to," the man retorted, a small smile on his lips. “The truth does not matter, only what we put forward. No one cares about anything else. Now, you will soon be moved from your current location to a secondary secure facility. How pleasant, or unpleasant, things will proceed to be for you going forward is entirely up to you. You can co-operate with us or not and the choice is in your hands."

The man peered at him, edging in a little closer to the glass, though David doubted very much that he would have wanted to be on the same side of the glass as him. He breathed slowly and deeply, trying to relax, head aching deeply, wanting to press his fingers to his temples even as he unclenched his hands, leaving crescent-shaped indents in his palms where his fingernails had dug in a little too viciously.

“So, what will your choice be, David Joneson? You don't mind if I call you David."

There was no need for David to answer, not as the uniformed officer left, no nametag to remember, only the bars on his chest that had denoted his rank. David groaned, alone, sitting heavily on the bed, blood roaring in his ears, the ache in his head spreading to a dull, throbbing pound.

Da-dum, da-dum, da-dum.

_ _

Had his heartbeat always been that loud? It felt wrong, so very wrong, but his life was over, everything that he had known, everything that he had worked towards…gone. Just like that. He may as well have never worked so hard in school, never tried to turn the rough start to his life around with his studies, never done so many things.

It had all been for nothing, sinking back onto the bed, his head laid back, feet still on the floor. Dimly, David was aware that he was still wearing his old, scuffed up trainers, one lace untied. He'd never gotten around to replacing them when he'd started wearing through the toe of the left one in the last few months.

He laughed shortly, though it was more of an exhalation of breath than anything else. Like that mattered anymore. No more clothes that he had, most likely, would be of his choosing. Nothing ever would be, not a single breath he took nor a single mouthful of food lifted to his lips with utensils that were not his known.

“Fuck…"

And he would never see Sabrina again, her smile, her blonde hair, how she had made his days, when he lived behind her house with his foster family, just a little bit brighter. All right: a lot brighter. She had been the light of his days, the friend that he had hoped to never be without, only more distant after he'd gone away to university simply because, well…his powers had awakened. David stood by his decision to not drag her into that shit and side of life, for never in a million years would he have wanted to see her across the way in an adjoining cell.

Tears pricked at the corners of his eyes but he brushed them away angrily with his knuckles, digging them into the soft pits of his eyeballs, before they had a chance to fall.

His life was gone, destroyed as he knew it.

And David didn't know what came next.