“This isn’t my apartment building.” I note as Amelia pulls into the parking lot of her apartment complex.

  “You literally just got kidnapped and want to go to your shitty apartment complex while you still have that thing in your arm and still have that weird earring! At least this place has guards!” Amelia says leaving no room for discussion.

  I glance down at my left arm. I had forgotten that the syringe thing was still in my arm. The earring, at least I remembered, the jingling when I shifted my head bothered me.

  “Just for tonight. You can go decompress tomorrow, but you vanished only for me to find out you were kidnapped and now you don’t even look fully the same and can pass through things.” Amelia asks quietly.

  “Okay let’s go.” I agree getting out of the car. I don’t want to argue any more than she does, I imagine, and the idea of spending the night with one of my friends isn’t a bad idea.

  “The first thing you’re going to do is shower. You smell like you’ve been underground for two days.” She jokes.

  Well, she’s correct regardless.

  “Yeah.” I agree, shoving my hands in my pockets and trying to look as inconspicuous as possible.

  Not that there’s anyone around to see me.

  “You really planning on not becoming some sort of caped crusader surveying our city like you’re a gargoyle on the roof of a building or some shit?” Amelia asks as we walk through the front doors.

  The guard gives us a look but says nothing as we pad into the elevator.

  I wonder why my clothes are still so dirty. If I can phase through shit, wouldn’t all the dust had fallen off of me?

  Well, I’ve been phasing with my clothes so maybe I don’t have a great idea of just what all is or isn’t my clothes so I don’t have the power to just make it all fall off of me?

  That would make a certain amount of sense.

  “Do you have anything besides phasing?” Amelia asks as the elevator rises.

  I look up at the ceiling, trying to figure out if there’s anything else really notable. That I now know exactly what the exterior of an elevator looks like is certainly noteworthy. “Uh, I can sort of see around me like my mind is aware of everything near me?”

  “How many fingers am I holding behind my back?” She asks instantly.

  I focus for a second to look behind her with my mind powers. “Three fingers now four now, just your thumb now two, could you please stop that?”

  “Is that always on, or can you turn it off?” She asks, ceasing the finger shenanigans.

  “Uh I’m not sure? It’s kind of background noise if I’m not focused on it?” I shrug. It’s not like I can shut off my hearing, so I don’t know if I can turn off this type of power?

  She looks at me suspiciously.

  “Seriously!” I say, holding up my hands defensively. “I’m not getting any fine details right now. I just can sort of see around me.”

  “Can you see colors with your brain eyes?” She accuses, pointing a finger at me.

  “Not at all.”

  “I’ll decide to think you aren’t scum with that power for now.” Amelia says primly.

  Before I can respond, the elevator dings revealing us to the hallway where there’s still nobody here, but it feels significantly more awkward for me to talk in this space.

  After a bit of a walk we are in front of the door with Amelia rummaging through her pockets, looking for something.

  I raise an eyebrow at her. “Did you forget your keys?”

  “I just found out my best friend was kidnapped. The fact I remembered my car keys is a miracle!” She retorts in a hiss.

  “I'll take care of it.” I say, instead of trying to appease her.

  Before she can say anything, I phase walking through the door and ending up in the apartment with no effort.

  How did I walk through without falling through the floor? I wonder as I stare down at my feet suspiciously.

  There's so much about my ability that I don't understand in the slightest.

  I open the door to find an irritated Amelia pulling her phone out.

  “Thought I was going to leave you locked outside?” I ask innocently.

  “Maybe,” she admits breezing by as she walks over to her room to grab something.

  “Thanks for everything.” I say after closing the door, not sure what else I can say in this situation.

  “I got you a change of clothes. Just take a shower to reset. I'll make some snacks for us,” Amelia says after tossing a bundle of various fabrics into the bathroom.

  “Can do,” I say, pausing as I watch her expression flicker as I walk past. “You okay?” I ask gently, turning slightly so I can face her better.

  She laughs hollowly. “Long night, am I right?”

  “Long night,” I agree. “Movie you want to watch?”

  “Screw a movie. We are watching bad dating shows I don't need to think about,” she says, almost daring me to disagree with her.

  I’m not going to. I value my life more than that.

  I give a wave before shutting the door behind me, giving myself my first bit of private time in a while. Maybe escaping counted, but I don’t feel like I'm on the run right now, which is worlds apart.

  The first thing is I need to remove my presents from the science brigade. Well, I'm going to remove the ruined remains of my shirt first.

  Looking down at my left arm, I glare at the band and metal poking out of it. That syringe is the reason I am a super now, and it pisses me off.

  My left arm over the counter turns black as the sky with trails of the same colored mist trailing off of it.

  This was the first time I had ever seen myself phase, and I stare in fascination at the effects of my ability.

  A torture device no longer in my arm, I release my power in time to catch blood dripping from the hole in my arm where the syringe once resided.

  Thankfully, Amelia is significantly more prepared than I am and keeps bandages in her bathroom, so it doesn't take that long for me to wrap up my arm and stop bleeding all over. And to reduce panic later, I clean up the spilled blood.

  I'm going to elect to not think about potential internal bleeding and say my super powers are going to cover it.

  Arm taken care of, I phase my head, letting the ear tag fall into my waiting hand.

  Sitting on the toilet, I focus my mind, trying to peer deeper into both of them with my new powers. Trying to see if there's any tracking devices or if they are just solid metal.

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  The ear tag doesn't seem to be anything more than a solid metal tag that has a QR code looking thing pressed into it.

  Maybe that's to scan it and instantly pull up my file? Tempting, but I’m not in that big of a rush to deal with that.

  The needle is just an elastic band with a hollow curved spiky tube of pain.

  “Why did you not care enough to put anything on to track me?” I ask the things as I place them to the side before finally turning the shower on and begin waiting for it to heat fully.

  I take the time needed to phase my hand and pass them through the tokens multiple times to see if I can feel a difference in material as I’m passing through it.

  Absolutely nothing, they're just one solid mass.

  Unless the metal itself has special properties to broadcast my location, I don’t think they’ll be able to find me using them?

  Or my sense of mystical through thing’s touch isn’t nearly as good as I would like to think it is and there is a tracker.

  I choose to believe that they don’t have anyone tracking that, though. They would have sent someone already, right? The only way one of their “volunteers” could escape is if they developed powers and then they would want to come for me.

  Unless I want to believe someone like Andromeda actually is a somewhat good person?

  Stepping into the shower, I let out a sigh of relief as warm water soothes my body and spirit. My mind as well, but I can’t help but be thinking about other things as well.

  There are so many things I want to try. I mean, I have super powers! I want to see just what all I can do with them.

  Though right now I’m more concerned with finally feeling clean.

  More than that, I relish the chance to break down.

  At least with the water crashing down I can pretend that nobody else can hear me break down, though now I wish I turned on the fan, since that would be another layer of sound to defend me.

  Maybe Amelia is already watching something so she can’t hear me breakdown.

  I’m not sure how long I sit there trembling as I let myself finally feel everything I’ve been going through in the past few days.

  “Never again.” I finally say to the world around me, but more importantly, to myself.

  Pulling myself up to my feet, I try to take a moment to plan what I want with my future. I’m not sure I want to be a superhero or anything like that, but can I live with myself, letting other people get kidnapped and not try anything?

  I don’t know if I can do that.

  But the idea of getting captured again and this time not being able to escape?

  The first time gave me the power to get out of anything. No physical thing can hold me if I want to. I can even escape the ground. Not that I know what will happen if I just let myself fall and I’m in no hurry to try that.

  What if it’s taken away from me? That I become a bird trapped in a cage. Does my power seem cool enough that I would at least get a gilded one or would I be in chains?

  Taking things slow sounds like it would be a lot better for me at least right now. Learn how my powers work and figure out just what exactly I want to do with my whole new existence.

  Having wasted enough of the hot water in the apartment, I end my shower, though an idea crosses my mind that won’t get out of my head.

  I don’t think I’ll ever need a towel again to dry off completely.

  At least if this works.

  Taking the time once more to get everything in my mind settled, I lift my right foot off of the ground and phase everything except my left leg.

  With a thwunk, the sound of water hitting the towel in one big rush is music to my ears. I did it!

  Somehow I phased myself enough to let water pass through me! Take that water!

  Pleased with myself, I set my right foot down to do the same thing with my left leg, but my right foot sinks through the ground. I only catch what’s happening after my ankle passes through the floor.

  “Fuck.” I curse, pulling my feet up and trying to go fully solid.

  Pressing my hands against each other, I am pretty sure that I am fully solid once more.

  My foot goes through the floor again.

  Fuck!

  “Okay, can’t pass through myself.” I note waving my hand through the shower curtain every once in a while to see if I am fully solid again or not.

  It takes a lot longer than I would prefer, but I eventually go fully solid. However, ?I’m not playing this game anymore, and I dry off the rest of my body normally.

  At least my experiment paid off at least a little.

  Ignoring the pile of dirty clothes I really don’t want to deal with at all, I put on the clothes offered to me by Amelia and I’m going to just hope that she picked nothing too ridiculous.

  A pair of leggings and a plain blue hoodie later I’ve determined it’s not anything ridiculous which I’m going to take.

  I tilt my head, wondering if I want to look at my eyes.

  And I am way too curious. I fully turn my gaze towards the mirror, looking at the black voids of my eyes.

  Undulating is a gross word, but it almost looks like the black voids are undulating.

  I actually have decided that I am going to use the word rippling instead. The black voids in my eyes seem to ripple ever so slightly, as if there’s something breaking the surface of my eyes.

  I…

  Nope, I will not try to stick fingers in my eyes to see if there’s something actually to those depths.

  Tearing my gaze away, I decide it’s finally time to return to the land of outside this bathroom.

  “Your hoodies always smell like the library.” I accuse as I walk to the sofa.

  “That’s because I’m cultured!” She retorts, throwing a piece of popcorn at me.

  “So…” I trail off, sitting down and pulling a blanket over me to curl up in a bundle.

  “I’m going to tell the police about you. I don’t have powers, nor am I visibly super. Which means can drop off the stuff and say it was in the area I found you,” Amelia says before leaning over and hugging me tightly.

  “You don’t have to. I can figure it out.” I shrug.

  “Nope, I’m going to do it because you don’t need to do everything and I am the only one who can,” she disagrees.

  “Yeah maybe.” I agree halfheartedly as I pull a knee to my chest.

  She gives me a tight hug. “It'll be okay. I'm a badass bitch. No super punk is going to get the drop on me.”

  “I need sunglasses.” I muse. “It would let me pass as entirely normal.”

  “Eh, you're not cool enough to pull off the sunglasses' inside vibe.” Amelia disagrees while selecting what show she wants to watch.

  “Can I pull off black hole eyes vibes?” I ask, raising an eyebrow as I turn my head to look her in the eye.

  “Hmmmm.” She considers with great thoughts.

  “You going to keep looking into my eyes?” I ask, fidgeting slightly but keeping the eye contact with her.

  “You know, if there wasn't that vwoo-roo effect, I would think there is not a thought on your head behind those.” She says, tapping me on the nose before looking away.

  “Vwoo-roo?”

  “Duh, that's the sound effect your eyes make for your future comic book series.”

  “Wouldn't that be cool if I could buy a comic book for myself?” I laugh.

  “You need to take a self defense class. There's that new gym that has an instructor willing to teach free or at least way cheaper classes to superhumans.” Amelia says changing the subject.

  “Probably.” I agree. She's for sure right, but I'm not sure if I plan on taking a class.

  Do I need to defend myself when I phase through anything?

  “You're going to actually do something with all of this, right?” Amelia asks before finally selecting some bad reality tv dating show and putting a bowl of popcorn in my lap. “You're a literal superhuman now. Don't just stay stagnant.”

  “Aren't you supposed to be telling me to go to sleep?” I ask, not wanting to open that can of worms of my capacity to move forward.

  “Are you tired?” She snorts, probably guessing exactly what the answer is. She’s probably feeling the same, I realize.

  I glance down at my hands, watching them tremble uncontrollably.

  “Definitely exhausted, but I can’t sleep yet.” I admit.

  “Then enjoy the popcorn and the mindless television.”

  “Do we really have to watch this one?” I groan, recognizing the opening to this show.

  “It’s my favorite bad dating show and you’re going to like it.” She cackles, leaning away as I try to swipe the remote out of her hands.

  For a moment I consider cheating and phasing to grab the remote, but I don’t want to do that.

  One I have not a singular fucking clue what would happen if I phased through someone and I’m in no hurry to find out.

  Two, maybe mindless television is just exactly what I need for right now. There’s just enough for my brain to focus on and then that will let the rest of me shut down.

  Three…it's Amelia’s favorite show and I don’t want to take that away.

  “Do you know where the entrance to their lab is?” Amelia asks as the intro continues to quietly play.

  “I can find it. Why?”

  “Because I’m going to say I saw them kidnap someone and drove to the entrance. This way, they can’t say they couldn’t find something.” Amelia says grimly.

  “You don’t need to do-”

  “I do need to do this! Someone needs to do this! And you’re not going to!” Amelia snaps, cutting me off. “And you’re right to not. You need to do a lot to readjust to being a super, but that doesn’t mean we can just wait! They’re kidnapping people off the street to torture them! They need a hero and so do you! And I’m going to be one.” Amelia says stubbornly.

  “I’ll find the location for you.” I promise, scooting closer and leaning against her.

  “You’re not happy.” She accuses.

  “I’m not sure I could ever be happy. It sounds really dangerous what you’re planning on doing. Or it could be. If it gets out that you’re the one who tipped people off…” I take a breath to calm myself. “What if they come after you?”

  “Then they’ll regret it. I’ll be fine. Now be quiet. My favorite person is about to come on screen.” She hushes me.