1.1 - Love at First Near-Death Experience

Let me set the record straight: I never asked for my cursed powers.

Now, when I say “cursed powers,” you’d probably think I was some sort of a magician, or some crazed chuunibyou who never dropped his habits before the age of 19.

But I neither believed in magic, nor did I view my powers as anything but detrimental to myself and anyone unfortunate enough to meet me.

My powers could hurt people. My powers did hurt people.

To influence the trajectory of anything I touched—be it any form of matter, either static or in-motion. That was my curse, my cause for self-isolation over the past 10 years.

Of all my “unforeseen casualties,” you’d find some broken bones here, a handful of property damage lawsuits there, and even an emergency bill passed by the City Council requiring people not to panic if I ever appeared in public.

No, I don’t view my powers as “cool” or “convenient,” at all.

They’ve always been a curse.

So much so that I resigned myself into believing I’d live and die alone, taking these socially abhorrent abilities with me.

That is, until I met her…

I probably fell in love with Elaina the day she brought me a bomb.

It was totally on accident, of course; at least, that’s how I saw it in retrospect.

She wore her blue and white courier t-shirt, white khakis, and a pair of orange "Firelight" sneakers. Her dark silver hair was tied in a ponytail and her amethyst eyes brimmed with an almost otherworldly beauty.

She looked good.

That is, she certainly looked good in the few seconds I saw her barreling down the hallway to my door.

She flailed her arms in the air and kept waving for me to step away from the box sitting just inches from—

“G-GET AWAY! GET BACK! T-THE BOX! IT’S A—!!”

BOOM!

I recoiled back through my doorframe and the walls around me burst from the explosion.

A massive wave of heat blasted me in the face as dark smoke and flames obscured my vision. I shut my eyes and covered my face just as—

Above me, the ceiling roared and collapsed.

I raised my arms in time to shield my head. But, oddly enough, every chunk of debris that fell on me bounced off my clothing as soon as they made contact.

Were it not for my “incurable disease,” I would have died twice right then and there—either reduced to nothing more than burning dust, or crushed by the falling ceiling.

But aside from the harsh ringing in my ears, I was left virtually unscathed by the blast.

When the rumbling stopped, I opened my eyes.

Dark smoke filled the devastated hallways. I blinked several times to make sure I was indeed still alive, and I slowly moved my arms away from my face in a horizontal motion.

At once, the dark smoke obeyed my movements and floated away from me.

The explosion left a large hole in the ceiling.

I raised my arms as the heat swirled around my body. The smoke collected into my hands and I pushed upwards at the hole, forming an artificial wind trajectory that filtered the suffocating clouds into the evening air.

Then, I saw the damage.

Piles of charred drywall, wood, and metal tiles and pipes blocked the other halls.

All around me, mounds of ceiling debris littered the once-decorative rugs on the top floor of Sunshine Luxury Apartments.

Panicked screams, desperate whimpers, and a cacophony of coughing filled my ears.

I caught sight of the courier girl halfway down the hall in front of me.

I ran to her.

There were dark red bruises and burn marks on her arms and legs. Most of her outfit was blackened with soot—seared from the explosion—and she had more bruises on her left cheek and neck.

“Miss,” I tried, “Miss, can you hear me!?”

Nothing.

A pulse, perhaps? Please, even a faint one...

I was about to touch her left hand when I stopped myself.

Here we go again. The same as before.

I would try to help someone by touching them, only for them to get injured by the slightest contact with my skin.

Such was the curse of Ave Strata’s "most well-known" Abnormal.

The "most infamous" Abnormal of them all—Vector.

Was I really that feared? I wondered, and I reached into my jacket pocket to put on an insulated glove when—

The girl’s eyes shot open and she gasped, reaching blindly with her hands.

I moved my fully-sleeved arm to let her grab hold of it. Luckily, the material there was thick enough to block my skin.

Her eyes fluttered. “W-W-Where…?!”

“You’re all right,” I tried to sound calm as I put on my insulated winter gloves. I held her arms. “You’re in shock.”

Her eyes were red, and she looked around, confused, before she met my gaze.

My heart sank as I saw the confusion, the fear, and the pain on her face.

Tears streaked from her reddened eyes. “The...The bomb! I…I didn’t mean to…”

“You’re all right,” I repeated. “You’re going…to be ok! Just…hold on!”

I glanced at the ruined walls and the tattered hallways around us, desperate for any sign of competent life.

I needed another person. Just one.

The girl shook uncontrollably. “I-I…I’m…”

“Shh, it’s…it’s all right. I-I’ll get someone over here. Please, try not to talk.”

“I…I didn’t mean to…I’m sorry…!”

I let go of her arms and gently placed a hand on her head.

“Hey, look at me.”

Her fluttering eyes met mine again.

“This wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t you. I know it wasn’t.”

A white medical jacket caught my eye from down the center hallway.

I raised my voice as loud as I could. “Medic Officer!! Hey! Help over here!”

Other crews of medical personnel arrived, and they rushed into the apartments by the elevators. Behind several cracked walls, I saw a few folks lying on pieces of rubble, unconscious.

From the hole in the ceiling, I heard sirens blaring from the streets below. Another moment later, more medical teams arrived, followed closely by the bomb squad investigators and Ave Strata police.

“MOVE!” one of the medics ordered me as a team of three rushed down the hallway.

I obeyed and dragged myself aside to lean against a wall.

When I was certain the girl was attended to, I removed my gloves, placed my hands on the floor, and focused on the building debris lying on the central hallway. As I moved my hands apart, the debris brushed up to the base of the walls, and several people—the medical personnel, the officers, and some of my fellow residents—watched me as I cleared a path for them with my “disease.”

None of them said anything.

I put my gloves back on, stood up, and approached the nearest medical officer.

“E-Excuse me, I—”

The medic officer did a double take. “Oh, you live here? Did this whole thing involve you, Vector? Ah, who am I kidding? This kind of crap always involves you.”

“No, I…I wanted to ask if I could help with—”

“We don’t need your help,” the team coordinator, a woman probably in her mid-thirties, barked at me. She appeared behind the medic officer. “You keep those damn ‘powers’ to yourself…damn freak.”

I glanced back at the courier girl; the paramedics secured her to a stretcher and wheeled her away to the elevators. I asked one of them if I could go with her to the hospital, but the same team coordinator put her arm between me and the medic I was speaking to.

She jeered at me. “Look, you. Why don’t you mind your own—”

Just then, the ceiling above us thundered as it gave way.

Fear overtook my senses. “LOOK OUT!”

I thrusted my right hand at the team coordinator and formed a trajectory in the air to push her backwards, just as the ceiling fell. My right glove burst into a cloud of polyester and insulated fleece. Like before, every bit of ceiling debris ricocheted off me when they hit my jacket. Had I not reacted in time, the coordinator would have been flattened.

She stood back up, dusted off her uniform, and glared at me with disgust. I felt the uncomfortable stares of other medics and some of my neighbors on me after I saved the coordinator’s life.

Still, no one said a word.

But then the coordinator scoffed. “Lieutenant Vali will be here soon. You stay put. You know the drill by now.”

She walked away without giving me a chance to reply.

I was about to see what I could salvage from my apartment, when something caught my eye.

The object sat underneath a chunk of burned plywood and torn plaster—perfectly hidden just a few steps from where the courier girl had been taken.

Was it a gem? No, it was a rectangular plate…with a gem…?

No—it was a book with purple gems lining its spine.

Amidst the smoldering debris around it, the book was oddly left untouched. Its ornate cover was free of dirt, with no scratches or dents, and its pages appeared as if they were freshly bound together.

But as soon as I touched it, a memory of today’s rattling event suddenly flashed in my mind. I was at my doorway again, and I looked up just as I was about to pick up my package. Down the hallway, the courier girl ran in slow motion and yelled for me to get away from the box. Then I saw it: Bound to the left of her waist by a set of chains was the same book I just touched. The gems on its spine glowed a sinister shade of violet.

The flashback ended when the bomb went off.

I returned to the present—my eyes still fixed on the book in my hands.

I felt my head and blinked a few times.

So, the book was hers...

I resolved to return it, but I had to find out which hospital the girl was taken to.

Before that, though, I had Ave Strata’s Anti-Abnormal poster boy to deal with. The doors to the centermost elevator slid open, and he stepped out with two guards.

Lieutenant Vali stood with his arms folded, waiting for me at the end of the tattered hallway.