Prologue - Anxiety

Emily endured her mother’s hug, then squeezed her eyes shut as her cheeks were pecked. When, finally, she was released, she took a step back and crossed her arms to ward off the October chill.

“So, ah, this is it?” she asked.

Emily looked over her parents. Her mom, short and kind of frumpy, wearing the sort of dress that had gone out of fashion sometime in the late sixties. Her dad, tall and wide-shouldered. If it wasn’t for the premature balding of his dirty-blonde hair he could have been one of the hockey players on campus.

“You know our number,” her mom said.

Emily nodded. “It’s never changed,” she said.

Her mom sighed, then pulled her into another hug. “It never will. You call, okay? Day or night. Even if it’s just to talk. Mom will be there for you if you have any problems with your school work or--” She tittered. “Or problems picking the cutest boy.”

She could hear her father’s knuckles popping and held back the tiniest smile. Teasing her dad had been something of a hobby when she was young. She knew that he dreamed of giving some boy the shovel talk, but high school came and went without it ever happening.

“I...” she swallowed. “I love you.”

Her dad smiled just a little, his stoic face cracked for a moment before returning.

And then Emily had to endure more hugging.

She closed her eyes and prayed to whomever would listen that no one had seen her. Having her dad trade lame jokes with some of the boys while helping her carry her things had been mortifying enough to keep her hiding in her blankets for a week.

When the hugging was over--and her dad had patted her head as his own little way of showing that he cared--the family pickup revved up and drove off. Emily found herself standing alone.

Alone for the first time since... since forever.

She looked around her, taking in the ancient stone buildings of the old campus, some of them next to modern stainless-and-glass buildings. All of them were surrounded by winding cobbled paths that made room for tough old trees. She eyed the shadows, the few people walking around, and the open blue sky, then she shivered.

Emily had heard stories about girls on campuses like this one getting harassed and hurt. She had tried not to hear, had tried not to feed her anxiety, but the little snippets she overheard were preying on her now.

She tugged her long pleated skirt down a little so that it dipped lower and closer to her ankles, then pulled down the hem of her sweater.

Turning, she faced the direction of her dorm and started moving. Her mary janes clicked across the pavement with a nervous pitter-patter that mimicked the hummingbird beat of her heart. She didn’t like being out in the open, not if she could avoid it.

For that matter, she reasoned, she didn’t like being indoors all that much either.

There were very few places that Emily found comforting. None of which were anywhere near here. She tamped down the temptation to pull out her cell and call her mother and put the whole thing off.

It was too late for that. Her parents had sacrificed too much to get her into the school, and her future depended on her at the very least trying to pass all of her courses.

Emily walked with a hand over her stomach, as if that could hold all the butterflies in place.

A few blocks and a parking lot later, she was at her dorm. The large brass plaque at the base of the building declared it to be the Quantum Mothman House. An auspicious name for a dorm, Emily thought. It was one of the newer buildings, built with money donated from some of the older local heroes to promote higher education.

It was a bit pricey, but her father had insisted that she have the best they could afford. The fact that she didn’t need to stay with a roommate reassured both her and her dad.

The front door unlocked with a swipe of her phone over a panel jutting out next to it, and she slid into the lobby only to freeze up the moment she was inside.

The lobby was divided into two sections. On the one side were some public restrooms and a small kitchenette that had a little fridge and some microwaves. On the other was a lounge with a big screen TV, some couches and a couple of square tables surrounded by benches. She’d seen people playing cards or looking at their phones while the tv blasted the evening news the first time she visited.

It was louder than she liked, but people had been minding their own business then. Now, there were banners strung across the square ceiling tiles and a few balloons added a bit of a festive air to the otherwise plain room.

Emily had the impression that everyone and their friends were there. Thirty people, all packed into a small room, some of them carrying red cups, others glass bottles. There was a sickly-sweet scent to the air, a mixture of store-bought pastries, alcohol and sweat that made her stomach twist.

“Hey!”

She turned to find a tall black girl walking her way with a gleaming smile. “You’re in five oh one, right?”

Emily’s mind blanked for a moment. “Five... oh, my room number. Um. Yes?”

The girl’s smile grew. She gestured over to a table near the back that had soda bottles and a cooler sitting on it. “Grab something to drink! We’re having a bit of a meet and greet slash Power Day bash.”

“Power Day,” Emily repeated. She shook her head. Of course, it was the fifteenth of September. She knew that. “Right.”

The girl switched her cup from one hand to another and extended her hand. “I’m Sam.”

Emily looked at the hand. She didn’t want to take it, but not taking it would have been rude. The pressure grew in her chest until her hand snapped out and she took Sam’s hand and shook it up and down. “Emily. I’m Emily. I, uh, need to go to my room.”

“Come back down if you want,” Sam said. “I can introduce you to everyone. Some of the boys are kinda cute too.” She wiggled her eyebrows, then looked Emily up and down in a way that made her skin crawl. “Some of the girls are cute too,” she added with a wink.

“Right, right. Thank you.” Emily skittered away as if she was being chased by some monster in one of those horror movies she’d made the mistake of watching once.

She reached the elevator at the back and stepped in at the same time as a young man who tapped the ‘IV’ button on the panel. “Which floor?” he asked.

Emily had to take a couple of deep breaths before she could reply. “F-five.”

He nodded, tapped the ‘V’ for her floor and, much to her relief, pulled a phone out and began to stare at its screen. She caught a glimpse of some new article about Power Day and how the local police chief was going to be on the look-out for new villains, but she averted her eyes as soon as the boy looked her way.

“So, you new here?” he asked.

Emily worked her jaw to answer, but nothing came out. By the time she had worked through the complex mathematics of social dynamics to say ‘yes’ the door dinged open and the boy left with a huff.

She swallowed again, huddled herself smaller now that no one was looking, and waited until she got to her floor.

The corridor to her room passed in a flash as she all but ran to her door, unlocked it with another swipe of her phone, and slipped into her room.

It wasn’t her room yet, not in the sense that she felt like home inside it, but it would be one day, she hoped.

Emily had convinced her dad to move up a pair of bookshelves and her favourite chair from back home, a big plush thing made of faux-leather that was far too big for her to sit in. She could curl up on it, legs bent under her and still have some room to spare.

The bed off in the corner was a twin that had been left over. It was so much bigger than her bed back home that she knew she’d feel lost in it.

She surveyed the desk, the charging laptop in one corner, then looked over to her little bathroom. It was a bit cramped, but she didn’t need much more than the little shower and amenities it had. The room, with its view out into an alley behind the Quantum Mothman building, was more than enough for her.

The sigh that escaped her left with all of her worries and pulled a weight off her back. She locked the door, then trudged over to the bed and allowed herself to crash into it.

After a minute of recharging her social batteries from empty to near-empty (which was as full as they would go for her) she rolled over and pulled her phone out of her pocket. A scan of Writeit showed that all the popular threads were about Power Day. People were placing bets and waiting for the new heroic faces to appear.

She skimmed over a few ‘If It Happens To You’ threads and found a webpage filled with images of cute animals doing cute things.

If people were her kryptonite, then pictures of kittens, foxes and dogs were... whatever the opposite of kryptonite was.

Her mind, the part not looping through a series of ‘awws’ at every picture she scrolled down to, was still working through a few things. She was alone now. No mother to call on, no huge stoic dad to fix every big problem. Just Emily.

Her classes would start in the morning.

She didn’t know how to describe what she felt about that, but decided to settle on terrified.

When the ball of stress in her stomach grew too large, she set down her phone and jumped off the bed. Gifs of kittens being spooked by tin foil wasn’t doing it for her.

With a long-suffering sigh, Emily undressed, realised she didn’t have a hamper to put her clothes in, and settled for refolding it next to her bed, then she slid on some walrus-print PJs and settled in. She knew that she wouldn’t fall asleep anytime soon, and that was okay. The internet was a never ending font of cuddly things to look at.

Eventually, despite the early evening sun still bright outside her window, Emily blinked a final time and slid into a restless slumber.