”Sssshit.” Kenzi cursed, looking down at her finger. ”Shit shit shit shit shit.” The nail on her right index finger had ripped from her skin, the top half bent upward. Blood was pouring from the wound. The strangest thing was, she didn’t feel any pain. Just shock. Her finger felt numb. But that numbness quickly faded. ”Oop, there it is.” She grimaced. The pain started building until it was burning, throbbing, red hot - it felt as grisly as it looked. She gently wrapped her finger in her purple, sparkly t-shirt to prevent the blood from spilling onto the floor. “Shiiiiiiiiiiit." She cursed as she ran to the nurse’s office.

Kenzi hadn’t been too aware of the perils of her powers. Being technically invisible was pretty cool. She hadn’t seen any downsides. Not until now. She was setting up a pretty basic prank - connecting a bag of glitter to the door of the classroom so that it would fall down on her history teacher as he walked in. To do this, however, she had to divert everyone’s attention away from her so she could set up the prank unnoticed. So, as she was messing with the door, a student, not realizing she was there, slammed the door on her finger. Her focus on her powers broken, as well as the loudly spoken expletive that escaped from her mouth, alerted everyone to her presence.

It took her a second before she realized she didn’t know where the nurse’s office was. She did her best to conjure up a memory of the map of the school, but she couldn’t remember if the nurse was to the east or to the west. She caught a rogue student wandering the halls. ”Where’s the nurse’s office!?” She asked forcefully. The student stood, shocked, assessing the situation, his eyes catching the growing pool of blood on her shirt. ”Yo! I’m bleeding out here!” She said when he failed to respond.

“Oh, um, uh…that way, um, left, down the hallway, then, uh...second right, last door on the left.”

”Thank you!” Kenzi shouted as she took off.

“Third right! Third right!” The student called after her.

”Gotcha!” Kenzi called back has she ran.

Following his instructions, she sped to the nurses office and burst through the door. ”Little help!? Gotta botched finger here!” She held up her wounded finger, still spilling blood. ”Uh…” Looking around, she didn’t see anyone that looked like a nurse. All she saw was what looked to be another student. ”You know where the nurse is? Kinda got a minor emergency here.” She showed her grisly finger to the girl, her hand covered in shiny, crimson liquid.

Melody Newton

The light from her phone illuminated the long flight of concrete stairs leading down into darkness. As she ran, she tripped over her feet, exclaiming ”Woah!” as she managed to grasp the walls before she could fall. She laughed, ”That was a close one!” She grinned back at Keke before continuing down the stairs, a bit slower this time.

Kenzi grinned slyly to herself. Keke’s comment gave her a great idea. ”Well most people in a horror movies are stupid and don’t have superpowers. Luckily, we are both intelligent and superpowered, so I don’t think any jump scare monsters are…” Directing Keke’s attention away from her phone as strongly as she could - she took Keke's powers into account, making her forget the phone was even there, making her focus purely on the light - Kenzi started turning the light on her phone on and off very quickly. ”What? What’s going-” She turned her flashlight off. Then, directing Keke’s attention away from her, she slowly crept up the stairs toward her. Her head started to pound as she got closer, but she managed to keep her attention away. Finally, as soon as she was right in front of Keke, she turned her flashlight back on, held it under her chin, and released her hold on her attention. ”BOO!” She yelled, eyes wide, then cracked up laughing. ”Man, I hope this shit never gets old.” She said as she continued her descent down the stairs.

”You really gotta introduce me to all those people, they sound like fun.” She said. ”I don’t care if Mel thinks she’s too cool for D&D, nobody’s too cool for D&D. You’re only not cool if you’re too cool for D&D...if that makes sense.” She shook her head. ”Whatever, point is, we all gotta get together for a D&D group. Maybe even LARPing. Dude, that would be so awesome with actual superpowers. I’d make a pretty kickass rogue.” She grinned.

”Oh, look!” She could finally see the bottom of the stairs. It was just a plain, concrete floor, but Kenzi was excited nevertheless. ”C’mon!” She ran down the stairs.

”Woah.” She said as she looked around. Her voice echoed “Woah...Woah...woah...woah…” The tunnel was large, as tall as a one story house, if not taller, and just as wide. The floor matched the tan concrete of the walls which curved into a ceiling. Apart from a few cracks and blemishes, the concrete was spotless. The whole thing was pitch black, Kenzi found herself surrounded by darkness save for the light of her cellphone. The tunnel extended far in both directions. ”This is awesome!” She exclaimed, her voice echoing. ”ECHO!” She shouted. “ECHO...Echo...Echo...echo...echo...echo…” The tunnel responded. She laughed. ”C’mon, let’s go, hm…” She looked left, then right, then left again. ”That way!” She announced, pointing her flashlight right. ”C’mon!” She started marching down the tunnel.

Keaira Matthews

”Hey man, anyone can paint!” She encouraged, then leaned in close and lowered her voice. ”Or at least that’s what I’m supposed to say. It’s mostly the kinda thing you have to be born with. Sure, you can teach yourself, but you’ll never be able to reach the talent of a natural-born painter.” She leaned back and slapped Keke affably on the shoulder. ”But you can always just paint for fun! You don’t have to be good at it to enjoy it!” She grinned. ”What do you think all those adult coloring books are for?”

”Mm.” She hummed with sympathy and understanding as Keke clarified her family issues. ”I gotcha, I gotcha. I don’t have personal experience with that kinda thing, but I’ve had plenty of friends with missing parents, split families, etcetera. And empathy is a big part of being an artist, if we’re still on that subject.” She smiled. ”I may not be an expert on the whole family situation but if you need to talk, I’m here!” She gestured to herself. ”I’m here if you need to talk about anything really. I’ve always been told I have a very good shoulder to cry on, so to speak.”

”Mermaid? Do they need water to survive? I imagine that might be a difficult power to deal with.” Kenzi mused. ”And lasers? Are they like Cyclops? Do they need like a special visor or something or can they just do it on command?” She rubbed her chin. ”I probably would’ve heard of someone with uncontrollable laser sight, so I’m guessing the latter. But I’ve only been here like a day so I dunno.” She shrugged. ”I actually think it might cool to have a power that manifests physically like - and excuse the continued X-men references here - Beast or Mystique or something. Boy the X-men sure had a thing with the color blue didn’t they.” She brought her finger back to her chin. ”Anyway, it would be like a statement, like shouting to the world, ‘I’m different, this is who I am and I’m super cool, so deal with it,’ or something. That’s how I’d think of it anyway, though I know most people aren’t quite as outgoing as I am.”

Kenzi pointed both her thumbs at herself. ”Chaotic good, that’s me!” She grinned. ”And I guess some people could use a ‘normal,’ but personally, I try to avoid normal like the plague. Once something becomes normal, I immediately try to change it up. That’s why I came here! My family’s all the way back in Missouri, and Missouri is boring as fuuuuuck. I needed a change of scenery, needed to bring some excitement to my life. I thought a school full of metahumans might do the trick, and so far it seems to be working!” She smiled, ”Also, you into D&D or was that just a vague reference, cause I’d love to get a campaign going. I have so many ideas.”

"Sweet!” Kenzi announced as Keke agreed to follow her plan. ”I bet the doors down there are locked, so we’ll have to find a staff member…” Kenzi swept the hallway with her eyes as they walked. ”There!” She shouted quietly as she saw a janitor mopping the floor. ”Alright, you stay back.” She directed Keke.

Nonchalantly, she walked up to the janitor. ”Hey, I think you missed a spot.” She pointed toward the ground, directing all the janitor’s attention toward that spot on the ground. He grunted and started mopping up that area. Meanwhile, Kenzi snuck around and carefully unhooked a set of keys from the janitor’s belt loop. She smiled wide and silently held up the keys toward Keke, then gestured for her to follow as she made a quick getaway down the hall.

Kenzi chuckled good-naturedly at Keke’s observation about the smudge on her cheek and waved her hand dismissively. ”I’ll take care of it later. In the meantime, I hope it’s very flattering.” She posed with her head down, looking up, making her eyes appear bigger, and batted her eyelashes facetiously, ”What do you say? Does it make me look sexy?” She grinned. ”Does it bring out the brown in my eyes?” She fluttered her eyelashes again, and then broke down laughing. ”Sorry, sorry, I won’t seduce you like that again, I promise!” She laughed.

Her laughter tapered off as Keke related to her opinions on art. “Yeah, exactly!” She agreed. ”It’s an expression of something that can’t be translated directly. You can’t tell someone an emotion, it has to be felt, and that’s what art does, whether it’s art art or music or literature or jewelry or acting, it’s all about that special communication you can’t get anywhere else. It’s all about-” She cut herself off, laughing. ”I promised I’d save you the six hour speech,” she looked up at the clock, ”and you’re right, I don’t think I could fit that into forty five minutes.”

Kenzi’s grin widened at Keke’s compliment. ”Thanks, I’ve had a lot of practice. Art is basically my life. Shit’s in my blood man, everyone in my family is involved in some kind of artistic practice. My father’s a jeweler, my mother’s an inventor - which I certainly consider an artistic endeavor - my sister’s a musician, and my brother was an actor, but he gave that up to start a family and stuff. He’s a salesman now, though he still takes part in plays when he has the chance." A hint of disdain came into Kenzi’s voice when she mentioned her brother’s lack of an artistic career, but she tried to reign it in. She loved her brother, and she didn’t want anyone having a bad opinion of him, especially if they didn’t know him.

”Ooh, show me, show me!” She chanted excitedly. She watched with wide eyes as Keke took out her phone. She watched Keke’s fingers carefully, but she had no idea what she was doing. She let out a few excited giggles as Keke held up her finger. Metahumans were so cool, and it was so cool to be a part of them. It was partially why she joined this school, to meet other metahumans and feel like she was part of something, something special. And seeing other people’s abilities had to be the coolest part of the whole experience.

Kenzi flinched as the bell went off. She wasn’t expecting that. She followed the teacher’s gaze to the clock. It was forty five minutes later than it had been last time she checked. Her grin widened as the teacher dismissed the class. She quickly but carefully stuffed the drawing in her backpack - she would finish that later - then stood up, slinging her backpack over her shoulder. ”Cool! So are you like some super hacker or something?” She asked. Then she realized, with the class being dismissed, she no longer had to hold the teacher’s attention. She let go, and felt a wave of relief wash over her. ”Thank god, that was getting fucking exhausting.” She rubbed her temples, just now noticing the throbbing in her head. ”God, my head hurts like fuck!”

”Cool, we’ll exchange art stuff!” She said, returning to socializing to distract herself from her massive headache. ”This school was a stupid idea. How the hell do they plan to keep kids like us under control?” She let out a little laugh, ”Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad they don’t, and I’m glad they have this school so we can learn about our powers and stuff, but how the hell do they expect to keep us in math class.” She gestured for Keke to follow her. ”C’mon, walk around the school with me a little bit. We’ll burn some time before the next class is supposed to start.”

”Improv dance, ooh, that sounds like fun!” She said excitedly, clapping her hands together. Rob would be so excited, he always liked expressing himself with his body, that was a big part of acting. And her siblings’ interests always seemed to trickle down to her.

Instantly, she was itching to go first, but this girl had already volunteered apparently, so she supposed she’d have to wait. Unless she offered to go before her…

She opened her mouth to do so but before she could, another girl waltzed into the center of the room and delivered a truly ecstatic dance. Despite Kenzi’s wish to go first, she was enraptured by its beauty. When the girl had finished, Kenzi hollered and leapt into an enthusiastic applause. ”That was awesome!” She yelled at the girl. Still, she couldn’t help but feel jealous of all the attention the girl was getting, cheated of her chance to go first.

Kenzi let out an amused noise at the boy’s disparaging remarks. ”You only suck if you wanna suck.” She replied. ”And even then I guess you’re kinda succeeding so it’s kinda impossible to suck.” She shrugged.

Suddenly, the door to the classroom opened and another student walked in. It took Kenzi a moment to recognize her, but when she did her eyes narrowed. Maia Morales. A singer. A pop star. She felt the term in her mouth and it tasted like vomit. A fraud calling themselves an artist. It sickened her. Delivering mindless entertain, encouraging people to turn off their mind, to dismiss the melody in favor of whatever thoughtless drivel of words to put at the forefront.

Her dislike for Maia turned into hatred as she saw the look in the girl’s eyes she was trying to introduce herself to. They looked straight past her. Starstruck. Kenzi had said hi, why wasn’t she paying attention to her?

She hit the nail on the head when she announced her intention to go next. No. This was Kenzi’s stage, and she was the star.

”I’ll go!” She shouted forcefully, jumping up and running to the center of the room. She used her powers to force everyone’s attention on her. They should all be enraptured with her without even realizing why. Instantly she felt a pang in her head controlling this many people’s attention, but she ignored it. She had a dance to perform.

She stood in the center of the room and struck a pose. Starting off with something energetic that matched her mood, she played Constantinople by The Residents in her head - something that actually used lyrics effectively and had it assist the melody rather than overshadow it - and started a strange, eclectic dance, moving her body erratically, kicking her legs and thrashing her arms, jumping around and at one point rolling around on the floor. When the song had completed its course in her head, she started another one; Philip Glass’s Einstein On The Beach. She began with the frantic, second part of the opera, tapping her feet on the floor in rapid succession and moving her arms up and down. She tripped over her feet, catching herself as she landed on the floor and tried to do the worm, laughing as she failed desperately. No such thing as failure, after all, it just became part of the dance. She quickly jumped up back to her feet. Next, she moved onto the first part of the opera, moving rhythmically and robotically with each one, two, three, four and etcetera. It had been almost ten minutes and she was sweating profusely, her head was pounding as she forcefully held everyone’s attention, but she kept at it anyway. Finally, she played Andrea’s song in her head. Me Do. It gave the sense of, not simply being in a meadow, but being engulfed in it, becoming it. She swept and swayed and dashed from side to side with attempted grace to the billowing melody of the song. She was breathing heavily, her chest hurt, and her head hurt worse. She didn’t go through the entirety of the song; it lasted five hours and got quite dark as it went on, but she came to an eventual stopping point and after almost fifteen minutes of dancing, again, struck a pose, waiting for the applause, keeping everyone’s attention on her, breathing incredibly heavily, soaked through with sweat. She was seeing black spots in her vision and was feeling quite faint.

At long last, she dropped her hold on everyone’s attention and walked back to where she was sitting and plopped back down. ”So…” she asked the class, grinning, swaying, breathing heavily, her face deathly pale. ”what...what did you think?”

”Excuse me, I plan on naming my first born Fig Tree.” She retorted with fake and exaggerated offense, crossing arm and only half crossing the other, making sure to keep Peter on her palm. She laughed, breaking her poor illusion of indignation. ”Seriously though, I’d love to meet someone named Fig Tree. I bet they’d have an interesting story. Plus, I could finally cross it off my bucket list.” She grinned.

”Carmilla’s a webseries, I wouldn’t say it’s one of those must watch kinda things, but it’s pretty good. Fun. I’d recommend it. But not as much as I’d recommend Stan Fredrick or The West Records or the holy fucking grail that is Wham City with their Children of the Mirror series or This House Has People In It or alantutorial or the best thing the internet has ever create The Cry of Mann, Agent Martinez x Berry like the fruit forever!” Her voice escalated into a high squeal at the end that extended for a while past her words. ”Sorry they’re so cute and like ahh, and I don’t wanna spoil anything but like ahhh!” Her voice sped up as she talked. ”Sorry, sorry, I’ll calm down, I promise.” She took a deep breath. ”But you really should watch The Cry of Mann, it’s really good, like really good.” She let Peter crawl into her other hand. ”I basically have an encyclopedic knowledge of all media, so if you need any recommendations, let me know, just know that my recommendations might be a bit...obscure.” Avant garde, experimental, whatever you want to call it, her siblings had raised her to appreciate the new, the different, art that pushes the boundaries, art that might be a little hard to get into to say the least.

She felt a burst of pride when Flick complimented her family. ”Oh yeah, I basically have the best family anyone could ask for ever. My parents are super supportive and my siblings are like my two best friends. I’m gonna miss them, but I can handle being on my own.” She hoped.

”Rule number one of pranking, never do a prank twice.” She tilted her head to the side and thought for a second. ”Well, maybe not rule number one, but definitely number three. Or four.” She shook her head. ”Whatever, it’s a rule, so I’m probably gonna use the rest of that bag on my artwork or clothing or any other glitter based pranks I think of, but no more glitter fan pranks, that’s been done.” She picked up another handful of glitter and blew it in the air in no particular direction.

She looked around the room. ”Yeah, we could fit a small gallery in here, repurpose the beds…” Her words trailed off as she envisioned the room-turned-gallery, but she shook her head before she could get too lost in her own imagination. ”Definitely put it on the Roomate To-Do List. Expect me to put a lot of movies and books and music and art and stuff on there too. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen The Color of Pomegranates.”

She let in a little gasp at Flick’s offer. ”Oh my god I’d love a little spider guy! I’d name her...Olgie. Olgie the spider. Oh my god that’d be so cute! I wouldn’t spray paint her black though. I’ll paint designs on her, maybe put a sprinkle of glitter. She’ll look beautiful.” She grinned, already excited about her potential gift.

”Help me with anything…” She mused, a thoughtful smile on her face. ”Well, this may sound weird, but I really like your head, like your whole face deal. Your hair, your skin, the whole placement of everything.” She gestured toward her eyes, nose, mouth, ears. ”It’s really interesting, I think you’d make a great subject for my artwork.” She said. ”I don’t really do portraits or anything figurative though, it’s more of an inspiration thing, like a feeling.” She waved a hand, unable to describe her methods properly in words. ”You’ll see.”

”Yeah, anarchy!” Kenzi announced, pumping her fist in the air. She was excited. She’d never shared a room with anybody. This was undiscovered territory, and she’d love to explore it free of any limitations.

She watched as Flick started unpacking. Her eyes widened when she pulled out a guitar. ”Dude, you play guitar? My sister is like a huge music freak, she can play like every single instrument ever invented. She taught me a few things. How much do you know?” She asked.

A realization came across Kenzi when Flick mentioned their schedule. She hadn’t even been thinking about her classes. ”Shit dude, yeah, our schedule! I’ve been meaning to walk through my schedule.” She dashed across the room and handed Peter back to Flick before grabbing her by the wrist. ”C’mon, we’ll walk through our schedules together. I haven’t even seen most of the school yet.” She announced excitedly as she started marching toward the door.

She sensed the girl’s attention focused more on the teacher than Kenzi’s introduction. She seemed to Kenzi to be the typical academic type, with pencils and notebooks at the ready, eager to impress. She must be worried what the teacher thinks of her. Too worried. She felt bad. This girl needed to loosen up a little. Kenzi decided to make it her personal mission to get her to do just that.

Just as Kenzi was about to open her mouth to reintroduce herself, she felt the girl’s attention turn toward her. Her spirits lifted when the girl mentioned the uniqueness of her name. It was something she prided herself on. Anything to make her stand out, she felt quite proud of. And Keke, that was cute. An interesting jump from Keaira, but one she appreciated. She received the handshake. ”Hey Keke. And no, it’s not a nickname, it’s my real name. My parents took a bit of a leap with me. My siblings got boring old names like Andrea and Rob, although Rob is actually a nickname, his real name is Robert. Still; boring. As the youngest sibling, I got lucky.” She grinned. ”And don’t worry, I got a pretty good map in my head. Spatial recognition is kinda my specialty.“

”And don’t worry about zoning out either. I can sense people’s attention, I know when they’re zoning out and when they’re not and people zone out all the time.” It was ridiculous how much people’s attention just wandered away out of nowhere. It was an enlightening discovery Kenzi had made ever since she got her powers. So few words are comprehended, far fewer than most would expect. It’s a miracle that people are able to communicate with the competence they do.

As she was talking, she heard the instructor call out her name. "Kenzi Nadir?"

”Yo, wassup!” She hollered in response, waving her hand around. She was received by a splattering of laughter from the class and an annoyed look from the teacher. ”God, she’s got a real stick up her ass, doesn’t she.” She told Keke, using her powers to direct the teacher’s attention away from them. A couple of the students around her seem surprised at Kenzi’s blunt insubordination, especially when the teacher didn’t say anything or even seem to acknowledge her despite her considerable volume. Kenzi simply gave them a wink.

”So, what’re you writing there? If you don’t mind me asking.” She asked Keke.