The Archetypes

                I'm not a violent person, I never have been. I never wanted to be. Sometimes though, you have to do bad things for good reasons. Of course if I'd known what would happen, I wouldn't have done it, or maybe I would have, who knows. I guess I was kind of playing the white knight there, trying to save the nice girl from her jerk of a boyfriend, but let's just say it didn't exactly go according to plan.

It was around middle school when I realized I wasn't quite like the other kids. They didn't shock everyone they touched, lights didn't flicker when they walked into a room, and outlets didn't catch fire when they walked by. It only got worse as I got older, more powerful, and more obvious. I learned though, not how to control it necessarily, but how to hide it, and how to redirect it. I think maybe I felt like I was a different species entirely somehow, like I didn't deserve to be called a human.

It went on like that for years, up until last Tuesday at least; I thought I was going to be fine just hiding forever. There was this girl, Ashleigh; I didn't know her too well, but everyone knew she was a saint among men. We'd all noticed when the bruises started showing up. It was when she showed up with a broken collar bone that it all went south. I snapped. Her boyfriend, ex now, was hospitalized. His parents tried to sue, but this agency found out. They gave my parents what I now know to be a well-rehearsed sob story, told them everything they wanted to hear, that it wasn't my fault, that my powers weren't the end of the world, that I could learn how to control them, do great things, help people. They carted me off to a place they called "The Academy", so now I'm here, just a freak stuck in a building full of other freaks that kind of smells like old socks. Needless to say, the situation is not exactly ideal.

I sat up, slamming my head into the poorly placed shelf above my bed for the umpteenth time that week and slumped back down, groaning. It was around this time that the small garbage bag that had been sitting on the carpet by the door flew across the room without warning. I ducked to avoid the projectile, but was unable to dodge the aftermath of its impact as the contents of the bag exploded all over my bed. "Oli!" I called angrily, standing up to brush the many tissues and wrappers off of myself.

"What?" my roommate shouted back, irritable as always.

"Quit it with the poltergeists man! You're friend just dumped trash all over my bed, which you're cleaning up by the way."

The boy lifted his nose out of his book. He was no more than fourteen, and man was he a brat sometimes. He hadn't had a roommate since arriving at the Academy and needless to say, his people skills were a little rusty. "I've told you over and over Nick, I can't control them, only call them." He snapped back, brushing a few wayward strands of dark hair out of his eyes. "If you want it gone so bad, grab the salt and start looking, I'm busy."

"You're such a pain in the neck." I grumbled, falling back onto my bed, rising immediately after as I realized there was still garbage everywhere.

"I'm a pain in everyone's neck." Came the muffled voice of my almost-friend as he spoke into his book.

This particular day was the first where I'd be allowed to eat a meal in the cafeteria and I was more than terrified. The lamp by my bed had been sparking all afternoon and Oliver's "friend" wasn't helping at all. For the past few days since I'd arrived I'd been cooped up in my dorm. They'd showed me around and then that was it; I was shoved away like calculus homework. Tomorrow would be my first day of "lessons" as they put it, though I was still a little uncertain as to what that meant.

"Dude calm down, even the ghosts can sense your anxiety's all out of whack, it's messing with them."

"Well what do you expect, I haven't spoken to anyone besides you in days, and I'm about to go down to a room full of people with crazy powers who could probably kill me if they wanted to!" I exclaimed, gesturing wildly with my hands, nearly smacking Oliver in the face. The small boy grabbed me by the arms and shook my whole body with a force I was surprised the scrawny looking kid had in him.