“We were all jealous of them. Now we pity them. What’s fascinating to me is that the first assertion is not contradicted by the second.”

The room smelled of wood and old books, and the only sound I could hear was the subtle ticking of the clock coming from the hallway. The serenity and calm of the setting didn’t help, though. The feeling of stress I was experiencing was disconcerting and foreign. I hated it. Not that I would have traded it for the usual anxiety, though, as I despised it just as much. Although there would be something comforting about the familiarity of the latter…I kept my gaze on the stylized wooden desk, my eyes mechanically following the meandering curves in front of me as I tried not to think about what to say. I tried to hide my deformed fingers under the table and clutched my fists anxiously.

My therapist looked at me with concern.

“I can tell something is wrong. You have to talk to me if we’re going to get through this, Alex.” He said with a frown.

I had chosen to wear a thick long-sleeved hoodie that made me feel annoyingly sweaty in the faintly heated office. But more than any physical discomfort, the guilt twisting my insides was the most significant source of my uneasiness.

“I just can’t tell you. This isn’t the usual,” I replied dejectedly.

“Did something happen to you, Alex?” He asked with genuine worry.

“Yeah… Kinda,” I winced. “I can’t go into specifics. Believe me, it’s better if I don’t. It’s over now, and there are no risks anymore.”

“Risks, what kind of risks?” Dr. Santos asked, leaning close to me.

For the first time since I had met him, the man looked genuinely troubled. I did not like it one bit.

“Can’t tell you either, I’m sorry,” I replied dejectedly.

“Are you in legal trouble, Alex? You can tell me,” he said in a low voice.

“I don’t think so. It’s over now, anyway. The fallout is more of the… intangible kind.” I really didn’t want him to connect any dots there, so I just gestured vaguely to change the topic.

The cryptic reply earned a cocked eyebrow from my therapist. He opened, then closed his mouth, then furrowed his brow once again.

“Was it cause by something you did? Is it guilt you are talking about?” he asked, perplexed at my ambiguous answers.

“No… Not really. I did do something stupid, but I don’t think it was something reprehensible. I helped somebody who was in danger, in fact.”

Although I didn’t do it out of selflessness.

“Well, that’s –” The therapist looked taken aback. It was probably not what he had expected. “That’s good, Alex. Helping other people is always good.”

“Is it? What if I put someone else in danger in the process?” I asked back with apprehension.

As I recalled what had happened, my hand absent-mindedly drifted towards where one of the bullets had hit me in my torso. I caught myself before it rose above the level of the table. I didn’t want Dr. Santos to see my weird finger and risk him finding out about my power, so I kept my fists clenched as tight as possible.

We were in the middle of October, so I had a valid excuse to wear gloves outside to avoid unwanted attention. But in here, I had had to take them off. Keeping them while inside could have had the opposite effect, so I tried to keep my fingers concealed as much as I could.

“Did somebody get hurt? Is that what happened?” He asked.

“No… Well, yeah, me, actually,” I replied

“Do you regret it? Do you feel like you shouldn’t have done it?”

“No. I don’t regret it. I still feel like I took the right decision,” I said after a few seconds.

“Then, if that isn’t the issue, what do you think is?”

I sighed. I knew this moment was coming, but here went nothing.

“The problem is that I kinda liked it,” I took a breath. “I liked the thrill. More than the helping part.”

“Do you think enjoying the occasional thrill is wrong?” he asked gently.

“As I said, there is stuff I can’t tell you. Things I’m not supposed to like… Well, I didn’t like that stuff, but I enjoyed – no, loved the adrenaline, the adventure of it. And I’m afraid it will make me forget how terrible the rest of it all was.”

My therapist rested his elbows on the table and raised his hands to cradle his fuzzy chin in them.

“What do you think of people who go paragliding, Alex?” He asked evenly.

“I don’t know,” I simply said. I couldn’t see where this was going, but I knew he would make a point, so I indulged him.

“Do you think they would jump without a wing?” He continued.

“Well, no, but that’s just because they know they would die otherwise.”

“Doesn’t change the fact that there is a risk of death,” he said. “But I wouldn’t call them crazy for still doing it. Few people would.”

“I’m not sure where you’re leading with this,” I said.

“The takeaway here, Alex, is that most of the danger doesn’t come from jumping from up high. The part of it that does is negligible and usually a combination of factors. The real danger is the one you face when you jump without your wing. In that case, you’re not gliding. You’re falling.” He said, leaning forward for emphasis.

Alright, I think I’m starting to get it…

“And how can I tell gliding from falling when everything is so windy up there?” I challenged.

“I trust grounded people to be able to tell those two apart. And believe me, Alex, when I say you are most definitely on the ground right now,” Dr. Santos said with a confident smirk.

“I would also like to talk to her,” I said quietly.

“Her?” Dr. Santos said with a questioning look. “Did you save a woman in… a complicated situation, perhaps?”

The realization dawned on me that my therapist probably thought I had saved a girl from being assaulted. Perhaps it is better if he thinks that’s what happened. I didn’t exactly feel comfortable with explicitly lying to him. I’d prefer it if he drew the wrong conclusions by himself.

“Yeah,” I answered simply. “And we got away safely. But I’d rather not get into details.”

“Alright, I think I’m starting to see the picture here. So I will let the matter lie. But I would like for you to know that you can talk about absolutely anything here, Alex. Nobody besides us will know what is said in this room,” he said in a low voice.

“No, I trust you. It’s just that I’d rather not talk about the memory., I said in earnest.

“Again, Alex, the fact that this ordeal felt good is okay. Self-destructive tendencies are not dictated by what you enjoy, but rather by how you chose to act accordingly.” He paused. “Actually, most dangerous traits are based on the choice people make, not on their desires. A kind person is somebody that does kind things. Not somebody who thinks about doing them.”

That made sense. What had happened had disturbed me to the point where I felt like an adrenaline junkie. Hell, I had even drawn about it without even realizing it. But in the end, I knew it wasn’t the danger that had motivated me to act, especially not the killing part. I was still upset about that. What had pushed me to rush into that room where people were shooting was the moral pickle of leaving the person who had gotten me out to fight our captors alone. The fact that I ended up the rush of adrenaline was just the cherry on top.

I smiled faintly.

“I think we made great progress today.” My therapist said, smiling in turn.

“Yes. Thank you, doctor,” I said sincerely.

That wasn’t all. Hell, that wasn’t even the tip of the iceberg. But, some of the guilt I had carried with me since that day had gone away. The other issues could wait.

I sighed in exhaustion. On the one hand, this day had been a heavily draining day. On the other hand, today was the 15th of October, which meant that I was officially on holiday. I decided to celebrate the hiatus of my least concerning problem at the moment – school – and treat myself with something to eat.

The air smelled of fried food and the promise of diabetes, and my stomach was eager to answer the call. Indulging in some crappy food could be an excellent way to make my day a little bit better.

I made for a nearby kebab, indistinguishable from the surrounding ones, when a sign in one of the side streets caught my eye. The neon lights lit their encasing plastic case barely enough to make the markings on them legible. The font was tacky, the metal frame crooked, and the plastic on it looked greasy—all good signs for a decent kebab joint.

Surprise flared in my mind when I recognized the text on the sign. The “Stake Corner” did not have the spelling I thought it would. What do they even serve here? Judging by the surrounding establishments, I felt like they would serve kebabs or at least some sort of questionable hot sandwiches.

I made my way towards the door of the shoddy joint and carefully peeked inside. An odd feeling tugged at the back of my mind as I took in the sorry state of the place. The windows were covered in gunk and grease, and the door looked like someone had relieved themselves on it. As was becoming customary for me these days, I ignored the warnings and still went in. To be fair, I wasn’t doing it for a thrill this time, but rather out of sheer curiosity.

The regulars inside of the place seemed to match the state of the storefront. Not one of them looked like they were here to eat. A guy in a puffy parka with a dirty looking beanie and shabby mitts was either sleeping or dying on the table, two shady looking patrons were having a quiet yet heated discussion in one of the cubicles, and a guy at the bar was simply looking at the ceiling as if it were the most exciting thing in the room. He isn’t totally wrong. It’s probably the cleanest part of the building.

I stepped in and looked at the man behind the counter, who was currently operating one of the electric grills.

“Hum…” I cleared my throat. “Hey…”

The man turned around and looked at me with tired eyes. When his gaze met mine, surprise immediately lit up his face.

“It’s you! You came!” He exclaimed. “You want something to eat? Come, come, I’ve got a table in the back just for you!”

What? What table?

“Hey, how come I don’t get my table?” The man I had presumed was either dead or asleep mumbled without even lifting his head from the table.

“The back is for folks I enjoy,” Tim said as he shot the drunkard a deadly glare.

“Aww, fuck…” The man replied, still not moving his head from its resting spot.

I followed Tim into a cramped back room where three dusty tables took up most of the space. He quickly wiped the dust from one of the tables and stacked one of the other onto the third as I sat down on an old-looking yet comfortable padded chair.

“Uh, thank you,” I said awkwardly as he set down a rough and somewhat cheap-looking piece of yellow paper in front of me. The single page on which the whole menu fit was torn in a few places, and grease stains marred most of the bottom. I could even smell faint traces of cooking oil emanating from it.

“Take your time. Everything you get is on the house, but ya better eat it all!” He said with a wink.

“Thank you… Tim, was it?” I asked. I snapped my mouth shut after realizing my mistake. The only reason I knew his name was because he had been brutally beaten mere meters away from him, and I heard his aggressor call his name. I didn’t want him to think I had heard his screams and hadn’t helped, or worse, like having something to do with his beating.

“Yes, I’m terribly sorry. I think I forgot yours,” he said with a pleading gesture.

Whew, close one. I sighed in relief.

“I’m Alex,” I said.

I barely started raising my gloved hand for a handshake when he promptly grabbed them with his and proceeded to shake vigorously. I found it curious how much I didn’t find any trace of the man I had found curled up in a mob den a few days ago. The Tim I had in front of me now was brimming with such positivity and energy that I considered whether it might have been somebody else Alison and I had saved.

“Well, met again, Alex, thank you so much for… The other day,” he said with a tense smile.

At least that confirms that it’s truly him.

As he left back to his kitchen, I took a closer look at the menu he had given me. The prices seemed to be quite affordable, I noted, without much interest.

The patio was quiet and didn’t smell of anything suspicious. All things considered, this place was rather cozy, if a bit decrepit. If I was honest with myself, actually, it looked like it could have been a lovely establishment at some point. I was willing to bet that something bad had happened at some point, and if my last encounter with Tim was any indicator, it probably had something to do with money issues.

My mind drifted away as I waited for Tim to come to take my order. I felt… Okay. Not thrilled, which was insanely better than my usual mood these days. I… I like this.

Tim came back with a sincere-looking smile, rubbing his hands together as if he were about to make a good deal with me.

“What will it be, Alex?” he asked in a cheerful tone.

The man was not the warmest person, nor was he the most charismatic, but the way he made me feel at ease and slightly upbeat was something I didn’t know I had needed until now.

“I’ll take a serving of skirt steak, medium rare, with Aïoli and a serving of fries. With Sprite, please,” I said with a faint smile.

I had initially been quite surprised that the man served such an uncommon cut of meat—especially in a kebab joint. My curiosity had once more pushed me to make a questionable choice.

What was served to me was genuinely surprising. The meat was definitely of decent quality, way more so than I would have thought coming from a place like this. Maybe it’s not even beef? Well, don’t look at a gift horse in the mouth. Wouldn’t it be ironic if this cut came from one? I cut short the idle train of thought before it could dissuade me from eating.

I tentatively took a bite and was pleasantly surprised by the taste. Although it might have been nothing to write home about, it was definitely pleasant. I happily cut myself another piece of steak and wolfed it down like a starved dog.

My appetite seemed to have grown since the day I had met Alison. At first, I hadn’t given it too much thought, but I wondered whether it had something to do with my power. Had it messed up my metabolism, somehow? Or was it just some confirmation bias at play?

I bit down on a large chunk of juicy steak as I mulled over the matter. Would being hurt too much make me thin down? Would I be sturdier if I was a bit more portly? Calories certainly had something to do with my healing, but would burning my body fat have the same effect as just having big meals after receiving large wounds?

Also, why had I started showing this ability just yesterday? What had changed? I knew most Impacted found out about their powers quite late in life, but if my memory served me right, it was conjectured that most of the Impacted had powers from birth if they were born after 2002 or had found out about them pretty soon after the Big Rip. Being part of the former category myself, I didn’t know if any of my peers had ended up in the same kind of situation. Now that I had time to think about it, I didn’t know much about Impacted and superpowers.

To be perfectly honest, I had quite envied them when I was a kid. When I was a teen, I had started hating them, as they had something I could never have. They were the center of movie plots, inspirations for countless books, majestic beings treading the same floor as puny men like us. In essence, to the most significant part of the population, they were the epitome of the human race. And my ten-year-old self had drunk every single one of the deceptions that promoted their legendary portraits.

Since a few years ago, though, I simply pitied them, as I started understanding that they were just pariahs in modern society and that superheroes simply did not exist outside of fiction. Superpowered individuals on TV were mostly reality tv personalities. Their lives were scripted to the point where, to me, it felt pathetic and sad. That feeling had only grown worse when the seams started showing in the cape of tightly woven myths and untruths humanity had desperately tried covering them with.

A popular show had made a good parody of how Americans had tried creating a superhero squad out of people who were simply not heroes. Although the show portrayed superpowers as way more impressive than they actually were, the portrayal of actual psychopaths instead of champions of virtue had seemed entirely plausible.

To be fair, the Impacted usually weren’t any crazier or meaner than the average Jean-Jacques. As in fact, they tended to be ordinary in every aspect except for their super abilities. And that wasn’t even my own judgment. Studies—many of them—had come to that conclusion. Funnily enough, some of them were trying to prove that the lack of superheroes was because the Impacted were all crazy or evil. Still, in the end, they had just found out that they were, psychologically speaking, perfectly ordinary.

The sad part was that many people still thought that they should be glorified and praised. As a result, modern society had deemed it too dangerous for Impacted to be left roaming about unchecked and had founded the now infamous Impacted Humanity Initiative.

As with many entities created out of fear and paranoia, it had quickly devolved into something very controversial. I don’t know if one could call the IHI an overreaction to the Impacted problem, but I had to admit I could understand people would feel that people like Alison were a potential danger to society. I guess that includes me as well now, though.

I had followed many documentaries about the sociological impact the sudden appearance of superpowers had had on society, but the truth was that my knowledge and interest in the topic were superficial at best. What I knew about superpowers had remained from my childhood craze and what few articles I had randomly stumbled upon on Reddit in the last few years.

I will have to inform myself about the practicalities. This concerns me now, after all.

When Tim came back, he looked pleased to see that I had finished my plate. I reflexively hid my hand under the table as he approached.

“Look at you, big guy eating steaks like they’re appetizers! Want anything else?” He said playfully.

“No, thank you, Tim. How much do I owe you?” I asked.

“You? You’ll never pay here. You’re a VIP forever.” He said, sounding almost offended at my question.

“Okay, then,” I awkwardly answered.

I felt sated—both emotionally and physically, and the severity of my problems felt ever so slightly subdued.

I got up from my chair, but not before taking a 10€ bill out of my wallet and set it down on the table after Tim got back to his kitchen. No matter how much he owed me, the man had to make a living, I reasoned.

Over the following weeks, I made it a point to stop at the Stake Corner every Friday after therapy, have a decent meal—usually skirt steak with some garlic-rich sauce –, chat with Tim, stack 10€ on top of the growing pile, and then head home. I didn’t bother counting, but I knew that there were already close to a hundred bucks in there.

I had even come to know the regulars a little bit. The drunkard who rested his head on the table wasn’t actually a drunkard at all. He was just loopy because of his medication, which he apparently only took before coming here. The two shady-looking men in the cubicle were Tim’s nephews, entrepreneurs as I gathered, and the man who spent most of his time at the counter staring at one thing or another was just a regular creep. But he tipped—a rare thing around here—and didn’t raise any fusses.

On an otherwise pretty ordinary night, I was dutifully minding my own business in the Stake Corner’s back room when I heard sounds coming from the front. Judging by the bits of sounds reaching me, Tim seemed to be rather excited at whoever had stepped into the restaurant.

Perhaps? I thought excitedly. After a few quiet moments, the door in front of me opened, Tim barging in with a smile plastered on his face.

“Hey, look who’s here!” He proclaimed with excitement.

Next to him stood somebody I had both dreaded and looked forward to seeing, the source of my recent peak and subsequent dip in my mood: Alison.

My heart rate picked up at the sight of her. Her face looked way better than the last time I had seen her, now that her wounds were healed, but it wasn’t her looks that had me all excited. It was the implications of her pleasant. Like I was standing next to a sleeping monster or at the edge of a massive ravine.

She looked at me with a slight smirk, not a particularly pleased one, but one that seemed to be rife with interest.

“Wassup, princess,” she said with a smirk.

“Uh, hi, Alison.”

“What’re you eating?” She asked, feigning interest.

“A steak,” I said simply. What is she really here for?

“Could you give us a moment, Tim?” she asked with an astonishingly perfect fake smile.

My heartbeat picked up at the implication.

“So… What’s up?” I asked nervously.

“I need your help in dealing with nasty people,” she replied as she took a seat across from me. “Would you be interested in partnering up again?”

There it was—my opportunity to get a hit on my favorite drug, adrenaline.

“Why would I do that?” I asked.

“Why, it’s very simple. You dove back into action last time. You enjoyed it. That, and I’d pay you 4000€,” she said, flashing a purple wad of cash in front of me.

My eyes threatened to pop out of their sockets at the casual display. That was more money than I could spend in a year.

I can’t take this, though, can I? I thought anxiously. She killed people. And to make matters even worse, I had ended up helping her.

But that’s the thing, isn’t it? I helped her. She didn’t force me, nor pay me, but I did it anyway. After she explained why she was doing it, I had followed her. Not because I was an adrenaline junkie—or at least not just because of that—but because I felt like I couldn’t let her go alone. At some deep part in my heart, it felt wrong to leave my co-detainee to fight our captors alone. I did not want to play the hero, for I knew full well that Alison wasn’t one. But maybe this wasn’t about wanton killing like last time?

“Just out of sheer curiosity. Who would we be dealing with?” I asked after steadying my breath.

“Remember those two cops I told you about? They were in on a… tragic story?” She asked.

“Yes?” I asked, narrowing my eyes.

“Well, we’re going to break into the house of one of them to look for incriminating evidence.” She said eagerly.

So, not murder, but break-in. In a cop’s house, though. But if that guy was linked with the people from last time, maybe I should do something.

“What if we get caught?” I asked warily.

“We won’t, or, not by cops if that’s your concern,” she said.

“How do you know?”

“I can’t tell you that before you accept.”

“I’m not saying yes, but just in case. What’s your plan?” I asked with barely veiled interest.

“Oh, you’re going to love it.” She said with a toothy grin.

And I just might. I smiled faintly.