The door in front of him stood tall, it was made of a particularly dark wood, it felt heavy even without touching it, afterall, it was more than twice his size.

  Right over it, etched on a metal plate, were the words “pro libertate, potestate et vita”, the same words that kept echoing in Max’s brain as he pushed with his entire body in the hopes it was enough to open the door.

  It opened quite easily, actually, and the excessive force simply sent Max tumbling onto the floor.

  As he got up, he got a good look at where he was: a room, filled with natural light, coming from the glass roof, walls were a deep, shiny azure, doors were scattered on his left and right, and they continued into corridors, that eventually led to marble stairs, made of the same marble on the floor.

  In the middle of the room, right in front of a wall with a statue that depicted a man in a cape holding a scale, was a semicircular desk made of a smooth black material, and the top part of it was made of a deep blue epoxy, reminiscent of the ocean.

  At that desk sat a short woman in an elegant outfit, with blond hair tied in a bun, and piercing blue eyes she was using to peer right at Max, after his unceremonious tumble right out of the door.

  “I- Ah- Uh-” Max struggled to let any word that had actual meaning out of his mouth, after such an embarrassing fall.

  “Are you here to report a crime?” The lady simply shoved the documents aside, and placed her head on her hands, elbows resting on the table.

  “Actually…I’m here because…umm” After struggling a bit more, Max finally gave up, and pulled up his sleeve, revealing the bright orange bracelet.

  “Ah! I see. So you’re here for team…team…” she pulled out a notebook, and flipped a few pages “...orange means…orange means team Rehab! Oh wow, you’re a criminal? I would have never imagined, you look like you couldn’t hurt a fly!” Those words hurt Max way more than the hypothetical fly.

  “I mean- I uhm…I kind of got mixed in things where I shouldn’t have…It’s a long story…” Max put up an embarrassed smile, quickly pulling the sleeve back down to hide the bracelet, now that he knew it flagged him as a criminal.

  “Don’t worry! I am not the type of person to judge. Either way the door you’re looking for is the one over there.” She pointed towards a hardwood door, with a neat metal tag hanging on it.

  After thanking her, Max waved goodbye and got himself moving.

  As he looked back one last time, something caught his eye, on the other side of the room, what looked to be a flower, resting in front of a door.

  He was already running late, so he put his attention back to the door, and put his hand on the handle.

  I’m doing this for Abby

  He took a deep breath before pushing the door open.

  Inside was a small room, a central table was adorned with stacks of papers and empty cups, which were clearly previously filled with coffee from the coffee machine sitting over a wooden drawer on the side of the room.

  A bit of natural light came from the large window right in front of the table, but most of the light here came from lamps and the tv, which was on the news channel.

  Surely more striking, though, were the individuals in the room: Max recognised the metal head man, but other than that those inside the room were absolute strangers to him, he didn’t even see them in the news, which was strange, since he expected to see famous heroes in there.

  His eyes rapidly moved from each person to the other, while everyone was in silence, staring at him: sitting by the table were a girl with golden curly hair, kicking her feet while staring blankly at the table with a smile, and a guy with black hair styled in a wolf cut, wearing an orange suit.

  Then were those that weren’t sitting by the table: an individual, leaning by the window, completely fitted in a pest doctor outfit, a man by the coffee machine, he had brown slicked hair wearing yellow and white spandex with a yellow mask, his eyes were locked on a book he was reading, the engravings in the back read “the holy bible”.

  And then, of course, was the metal head man, who was just right of the man in spandex.

  “Am I in the right room?” an embarrassed smile appeared on Max’s face as he stood just out of the door.

  The metal head man was about to speak, but he was cut off by the orange suit guy.

  “YOHWOWOWAH! Is that another friend I see?” He jumped up, grabbing Max’s arm before he could do anything, and pulling up the sleeve, revealing the orange bracelet “YEAH! Another orange bracelet! You’re part of the team now!”

  Max was taken aback by his behaviour, and was about to step back before the metal head man stopped the scene.

  “Aye, Ignicus, no pestering new recruits" he lightly pushed Ignicus away, before turning to Max “Welcome to team Rehab, you’re here to accept my offer, I suppose?”

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  Max hesitated a little, before giving a firm “yes”.

  “Aight…new guy, first of all you should get familiar with the people here, and usually it’d be my job to tell you, buuuut, since someone is just soooo eager to see a new member, I’ll just let him explain” as the metal head man shoved him towards Ignicus, he turned to him and gave a concerned look, all he got for an answer was an “it’ll be fine” smile.

  “Soooo, why are you in?” Ignicus stared straight in his eyes, with a wide smile, while he tried to look anywhere but towards him.

  Max didn’t answer, as he was slowly starting to realize the gravity of his situation: he was inside of a room, filled with possibly dangerous criminals, completely defenseless.

  “Riiight, I suppose why you’re in *is* personal, then I’ll just tell you why *I* am in here! I lit an entire forest on fire! It was soooo beautiful!” He said so extremely lightly, like what he just admitted to wasn’t a huge crime “Oh, right, right, uhmmm…if I remember correctly, a conversation starts by stating your name, right? Snakesbane has been teaching me social etiquette.”

  The intense vivacity of Ignicus made Max all but more comfortable: he had started to wish he never got that offer.

  Nonetheless, Ignicus continued “So, we’re not supposed to be using our real names, so you can call me Ignicus! Also, I should be telling you who everyone else is…” He got up, and grabbed Max by the arm, dragging him behind as he went person by person, explaining who they were:

  First, they stopped in front of the individual in a pest doctor outfit.

  “This is Medela, they are really good at stitching us…errr…me back together, they’re here for illegal medical operations and all that stuff I don’t understand”

  Max stared deep into the mask, but all that came back was a deep silence, filled with cynicism.

  Either way, before he was able to say anything, he was dragged to the next person: the girl sitting by the table.

  “This is Miss. Goldilocks! She can turn into a bear! She’s in for…bear related crimes? I dunno.”

  As opposed to Medela, Miss. Goldilocks was surely more friendly, and let out a simple but warm “Hello!” to Max.

  He tried answering, but once again, he was pulled away by Ignicus.

  The next person was the man in white and yellow spandex.

  As soon as they stopped by him, he closed the bible, and interrupted Ignicus before he could even start speaking.

  “Hello, My name’s Snakesbane. I am here as team leader, and as such my job is that of aiding in the rehab of the criminals that form this team.

  I am not here because of a crime, if you were wondering, what I am here for is the simple task of assisting you in anything that may come your way.

  Please, do not hesitate in asking for help, I will do my best to come to your aid.

  That said, I hope you enjoy your stay here, and come out a fulfilled person.”

  The striking cordiality and calm Snakesbane possessed gave Max a small amount of comfort, maybe this place wasn’t going to be so bad…

  That’s when he got pulled out of his thoughts, once again, by Ignicus, who started pulling on his arm once again.

  “Aight, I think introductions’ all done, you can let him go” The metal head man appeared behind them, and finally separated the lively Ignicus from the scared Max.

  “Damn boy, you’re pale, your first day is already troubled, huh?” Max simply stared back, with a lost expression, before recollecting himself and answering.

  “I-No! No, it’s ok, I was just…a bit taken aback, that’s all.” His frantic answer prompted a short but fat laugh from the metal head man.

  “The name’s Head Honcho, I’m here as second in charge. I guess the entire spiel Snakesbane gave you works for me too, but I’d say leave the heartfelt and profound talking to him, and the bad guy shredding to me!” Something about this man seemed familiar to Max, but he didn’t get the time to think about it, as Ignicus intruded himself in the conversation.

  “That’s right! I don’t know your name! Your hero name, not your normal name, normal names don’t belong here.” Max turned to him, and stared at him with a blank expression.

  “My hero name?” He spent some time thinking “I guess…I didn’t think about that yet.”

  “WHAT? You become a hero, and don’t have a hero name in mind??? Even Medela had one in mind when they came here, and they aren’t the kind of person that goes along with all that popular stuff, you know?” Ignicus seemed absolutely flabbergasted at the idea of Max not having a hero name in mind “Oh! Oh! I know! We can just give you a name based on your power!”

  The mention of powers made Max ever so more uncomfortable than before.

  “Soooo, what’s your power?” Ignicus said so in a clearly impatient way.

  “I…” Max took a deep breath “I don’t have one.”

  “WHAT?! AN HERO WITHOUT A POWER?” Ignicus’ jaw hit the floor.

  “I mean, I do have one, but it’s so utterly useless, I don’t really think it can be classified as an actual power.” Max admitted, almost as if it was something to be ashamed of.

  “Oh come on! I’m sure a truly useless power doesn’t exist! Just tell me!”

  “Well then.” Max started the explanation of his power with an example “Do you know those star stickers, those that you put up in children’s bedrooms, that absorb light during the day and let it out during the night? Well, I guess I work a bit like that, but the inverse: I absorb darkness, but since you can’t really let darkness out like you would with light, I can’t really do anything with it. I wouldn’t even know I had a power, if it wasn’t for the check-ups.”

  Ignicus’ eyes and jaw were open wide, as he listened to Max.

  “Well, I mean, I guess” Ignicus cleared his throat and recollected himself, and tried to keep his cheery attitude “Maybe it’s not a bad thing! Snakesbane here doesn’t use his power very much, but he can still be strong! Maybe your hero name can be centered about something of your character! Something that defines you!”

  “Let me think…I don’t know, I’ve always been kind of a painfully normal person, nothing out of the ordinary, you know? Even if I tried, I’m sure nothing especially extraordinary could come from me” he laid his person out almost as a joke, but you could tell something in the way he exposed it made it real.

  “Hmmm…well, I don’t think Normalman sounds good for a hero name…I got it! You can be Normalicus, so we’re twins!” The sincerity with which Ignicus said that was scary.

  Just as Max was about to refute Ignicus’ name ideas, an alarm started blaring, making him jump from the scare.

  “Aye, this time it looks serious, we needa get a move on people!” Head Honcho went from laughing hysterically at the scene before him, to leading the entire team, the switch up almost felt surreal.

  Max took a second to process what was happening, but Snakesbane was quick to snap him out of it.

  “Hey, man, come with me, I’ll get you a temporary costume, we need to be fast, this is serious.”

  As Max followed him out of the room into a storage room, he looked back: everyone was in a frenzy to leave, they seemed like completely different people, as they got ready for action.

  Was that what life as a hero really looked like?