Somewhere within my head, my mind is screaming at me. It’s telling me to stop drinking, to stop trying to drown my sorrows in alcohol. It reminds me that there’s trash to take to the garbage bin, a mess of beer to clean. But somewhere within this house is the temptation to continue drinking. A six-pack sits on a dark, cold shelf. It’s salvation yet it’s destruction. Destruction that feels…good.

Stumbling, gasping, grabbing walls, I make my way to the fridge downstairs.

There are six beers. There were six of us. But it only took a kiss to destroy us. A kiss, a simple kiss, yet it did so much. Ruined so much.

And now here I am, drowning.

It started with a team called Squad X. A government-sanctioned group of super-powered individuals whose work helped change lives. There was Twister, Sparkz, Darknez, and then there was me: Lea, the non-powered one there to teach them how to fight. Why couldn’t General Len, the technical leader of Squad X, who mostly sat behind a computer and ordered them to go where they were needed, teach them? He was in a wheelchair- a tragedy of a bomb that almost killed the president. Almost. Why couldn’t Dr. Len, the medical corp specialist who was assigned to the team, do it? Because he only knew the basics. I knew much, much more than that. The day the generals came to me, I said yes and was almost instantly teleported on board a massive airship that was sitting in a huge airport near D.C. There, I met the whole team as they walked by me to the changing rooms.

First up was Twister, who immediately took my hand and shook it. His appearance spoke of his native Jamaican roots, from his hair to his clothes to the way he spoke. When I glanced into his eyes, there was nothing but white, white on golden-brown skin. His eyes stood out just as much as he did with his infectious smile and his old age wisdom. Somehow Twister could see everything.

Next was Sparkz, the man I fell in love with the moment I glanced into his deep blue eyes. He may have been able to command electricity, but that had nothing to do with how I lit up when he kissed my cheek and winked at me. Dr. Len told me he was a flirt, but I barely heard him.

Lastly, there was Darknez. She was the complete opposite of Sparkz in every way, I knew. Where Sparkz was beach-tanned and white smiles, Darknez was pale and gloomy. She hid behind her black hair and cringed when I tried to shake her hand. She was the last one I saw before I was thrown into an enchanted house I would never be able to escape.

After six months with Squad X, I finally kissed Sparkz. But some reserved ability of mine, an ability I never even knew I had the potential to possess, suddenly appeared. I took Sparkz’s power, all of it. I killed Sparkz. Then I killed the lights in a nearby city just before Darknez teleported me here, to a place the general and the doctor agreed I shouldn’t leave.

I don’t want to leave.

I want to scream because I didn’t know about my ability. I didn’t know about what I could do. I DIDN’T KNOW. And I lost everything because of it.

I want to reverse what I did- then turn it on myself.

I want to die.