Frank:

I've always known I was different. For as long as I can remember I’ve always been special. I was walking at six months, talking properly before I was two, reading and writing before I was even finished Kindergarten. People just thought I was a very advanced child, deep down, I knew it was something more.

The first time something especially extraordinary happened was on my second birthday. My mom had presented me with a cake, two candles glowing on top, but a gust of wind blew one out before I had the chance to. I was so angry, so I just kind of focused all my anger on the candle and it relit. Even with a simple, two year old brain, I could tell this wasn’t normal.

By the age of ten, I could channel my power into almost anything. Mom’s plant died? I could make it grow again with a touch. Didn’t feel like heating soy milk for my cereal on the hob? I could make it boil with a glance. Didn’t feel like going outside at recess? I could make it rain with a thought.

I’m sure nobody noticed these tiny things, but I was always paranoid somebody would.

Once I hit junior high I was barely using my powers for fear of being discovered. An odd rain shower here, the occasional flourishing of a plant, but only once every couple of months, maximum.

After enduring my first day of high school, I decided that I needed to get away. I dropped my bag inside my front door and ran as fast as I could to the park. I sat down in a secluded corner, getting my breath back while making a daisy bloom, and then die. It was a good way to pass the time while I thought about things.

I was so deep in my thoughts that I never noticed a man dressed in dark clothes walk up and stand behind me.

“That’s a nice trick.” he said, his voice void of any emotion.

I jumped from my position on the ground, squashing the daisy with my toe, and turned to face him. I’d been preparing for this day for years, but I’d hoped it would never come.

“What trick?”

I tried to sound calm and innocent like he had, but the words came out shaky and wrong.

“Oh Anthony, no need to play the fool here, I know what you are.”

He smiled coldly at me.

“H-How do you know my name?” I stammered, silent dread hammering in my chest.

“We don’t need to worry about things like that right now. Come with me.”

“No.” I replied instantly, but I soon realised that it wasn’t a question. His eyes glowed blue and I felt my body stiffly move into action and follow him. It was like being paralysed, I fought against him, but he was just too powerful. I was walked into the back of a black van, and driven away.

I’m sure they searched for me. I’m sure my mom was heartbroken. I’m sure Charlie and Alex and Jack and all my school friends were devastated. The police surely got involved. But I’ll never know.

We drove for several hours, and soon after the van stopped, I was tied up and blindfolded. I felt myself being lifted from my spot on the floor, and carried away. My body was strapped down, cool metal against my skin, and when my blindfold was removed I saw I was in some kind of operating theatre. They stripped me and searched me, checking that every part of me was in full working order. I tried to wriggle or make some noise, but the blonde man was doing his thing again and keeping me paralysed. A blue sheet was thrown over the bottom half of me and the man who'd examined me produced an extremely large needle. I braced myself, and felt the sting of it entering my right arm and a flow of something icy cold into my bloodstream.

Then, black.

***

I opened my eyes to see the fuzzy image of the man who’d kidnapped me peering down at me. Seeing his blank face after an eternity of black sparked off something inside of me and set me into a rage. I jumped from my bed and moved to punch him.

My body froze before I’d even lifted my hand. His eyes glowed a familiar blue and my whole body began to burn with the most intense pain I’d ever felt in my life. I felt my feet raise from the ground and heard my own gurgled screams echo around the bare walls, met with his cruel laughter.

The pain seemed to go on for an eternity, but eventually it stopped. I fell to the ground and curled up into a ball, rocking back and forth and sobbing quietly.

He dropped to his knees and looked at me, disgust and enjoyment evident in his eyes.

“Now you know what will happen if you ever try any funny business,” he said calmly. “Stand up.”

I scrambled upwards, not looking forward to more of the hell I’d just received.

He pointed to the bed I’d been in, where a pair of black trousers, a white cotton vest and some type of back garment rested.

“Put them on.”

I quickly did as he said, pausing only when I reached the black...thing.

“I-I don’t know what this is.” I mumbled.

“Oh,” he said, “I forgot about that. Lift up your arms.”

I reluctantly did as he said, and he pulled the thing down over my head. It was soft, and warm, and had some kind of covering for my head.

“It’s called a hoodie. I’ll tell you more shortly. Follow me, and don't do anything stupid. No talking, no questions.”

I nodded, and trailed him as he exited the room, and soon after, the building.

“Welcome to the future, Anthony.”

I had to hold back a gasp when we got out onto the street. This was definitely Jersey, but it was not my Jersey. It looked like something out of a movie.

He steered me down the street and into another black van, but this looked more like a spaceship than a motor vehicle.

Once inside, I was directed to a sofa that was built into the back compartment.

“I need your full attention here.”

The man waved in my direction, distracting me from dazedly observing the interior of the vehicle.

“That’s better. This is going to be very hard for you to understand, and we are very sorry for any pain or stress we have caused you. But you will soon find out that it was vital to your survival.”

The van jerked to a stop, and another man stepped in, joining the other man on a sofa opposite me.

“My name is Jared, and this is Jeremy.” he said, nodding towards the bearded man who had just stepped in.

“We are just like you. The same... species, if you like. We both have powers we discovered at an early age that were different to those of other children.”

“We want you to know that we mean you no harm, in fact, we are trying to help you.” Jeremy added quickly.

“People like us have an energy stored inside of us.” Jared continued. “It grows and grows as we get older, and if we don’t learn how to let it out correctly, it will eventually consume us and destroy us.”

“This usually happens at around our fourteenth birthday. We understand that when we… found you, it was exactly a week from your fourteenth birthday. Is this correct?” Jared asked.

I nodded dumbly. I was finding it hard to process all this..

“Good,” Jared nodded. “Jeremy is going to tell you the rest. I’ll be seeing you later.”

The van stopped again, and Jared jumped out.

“I’m very sorry about Jared,” Jeremy said softly once the door had closed. “He can be very inconsiderate sometimes. But I warn you, he’s the leader of our Legion and is not to be messed with.”

“Do you understand that you have powers?”

I nodded.

“Have you learned how to control or channel them?”

“Kind of. I mean, I can make them do certain things, like boil water or bring a plant to life.”

Jeremy nodded, taking out a grey leather bound notebook and beginning to write things down.

“I can’t do any crazy stuff, like Jared. Mostly things to do with nature. But there is something else… may I borrow your pencil?”

Jeremy handed it to me.

“Dear lord,” I murmured.

The pen was silver, made of metal, and had a strange looking nib. It was like nothing I had ever seen before.

“It’s called a pen,” Jeremy said, “you don’t need ink or anything, the ink is inside.”

I nodded, took a deep breath, and holding the pen in the air I plunged it deep into my calf, straight through my trousers.

Jeremy yelped and jumped to restrain me, but I stopped him and tried to get him to focus his attention on the wound.

“Watch,” I said.

Slowly, the blood that was seeping from the hole stopped. Then the blood on my jeans began to disappear and the hole began to shimmer, as if there was light coming out of it. Then, very quickly, the glowing became a bright light and the rip in my trouser leg closed.

I pulled up my trousers to show that my skin was completely healed.

“Wow…” Jeremy whispered, “I have never seen anything like this before.”

We plunged into silence, broken only by the scratching of Jeremy’s other pen on the paper.

“Now, for the tough part.” He let out a breath. “This may be very hard for you to understand, but we are not in the same world that you came from. What year is it?”

“1951.” I answered immediately.

Jeremy hummed, and said, “The year right now is 1991.”

“What?” I gasped, my eyes wide.

“You remember receiving an injection, right?”

I nodded again, my mouth hanging open.

“Well, that injection contained a fluid that would slowly eat away at your power source, the one we mentioned earlier. It has been chomping it down to a manageable level, so you can go back to being normal. There’s only one downfall to this process; it takes forty years. You haven’t aged, because the serum had locked your brain, not letting it perform any basic tasks, such as breathing, or ageing.”

I looked at him doubtfully and he laughed.

“I know you think I’m mental, but surely you saw the city before you reached the van? And also, the van itself? It’s going to take a bit of getting used to, but this is where your new life is. If we hadn’t reached you, you would have literally disappeared off the face of the earth. This way, you've pretty much have done the same thing, but you are now able to live your life without the worry of exploding any time soon.” He smiled warmly.

“Of course, there is a catch. You’ve heard me mention the Legion? Well that is what we call the group of people who we have saved. You will have to perform tasks with the Legion, mainly finding new candidates for recruiting. You will be taught how to recognise them, and it will only be very seldom.”

“But first of all, we need to get you clued up on your new home. You won’t be living in Jersey, for fear that someone will recognise you. You’ll be going to Overton, a little city in between New York and New Jersey. It was actually my hometown, before… you know.” He shook his head solemnly.

“Anyway, once you get there, we’ll give you a place to live. Nothing fancy, mind, but not a dump. You’re still young enough to go back to school if you want, but I’d recommend you wait until next year so you have some time to get used to everything. You’ll be taking your middle name and your mother’s maiden name as your own, making you Frank Iero. There are two golden rules.”

His voice took on a darker, more serious tone, and I looked up at him.

“Firstly, don’t ever tell anyone about this. Your existence is a scientific miracle, and I don't want you taken away from us for testing or the likes. Secondly, and this is the most important one,” He paused and swallowed. “Don’t fall in love.”

“If you fall in love, you open up a part of your brain to let the person you’ve fallen in love with in. This is the same part of the brain that holds your powers. If you let them in, you also lose the protection that the serum has given you. You will fill up with power, and you will die. Do you hear me? You will die.”

We both remained silent for a few awkward minutes.

“How can you stop love?” I asked eventually, my voice quiet and wavering.

Jeremy paused to think.

"There are two options. One; you fall in love with a dead person." He sighed, making me think that this was the option he chose.

"And the second, and most popular option; you become like Jared. Make yourself, well, unlovable.”

"How?" I asked, a little gobsmacked.

Jeremy shrugged.

"I don't know. Be a dick. All the time. That's about it."

I didn’t know what a “dick” was, but I got the idea it was bad.

“So just… be horrible the whole time? That’s what I have to do now?” I felt tears welling up in my eyes. “I don’t know if I can do that man! I didn't ask for this! I fall in love with someone if they so much as smile at me. I don’t think I can be like that.”

By then, I was full out crying. I hated Jared for taking me, I hated Jeremy for telling me, I hated me for being some kind of freak…

Jeremy had moved from his seat and was now by my side with his arm around my shoulder. He pulled me into a hug and rubbed my back soothingly, all the while murmuring, “Shhh, it’s going to be okay Frank, I promise.”

He obviously thought that repeating it was going to comfort me, but it didn’t. By using my new name, it was just cementing the fact that it was never going to be okay again even deeper into my head.

Notes

Title credit: All We Know - Paramore