Down we fall
Darkness and all
Through hell
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Ever have a deafening silence? The kind that just seems to burst your eardrums with its sheer raw power? No matter where you go, what you do, how loud you try to hum, it follows you around, constantly looking over your shoulder and lurking, ever lurking. It seemed like that’s all her life had become lately. She had received so many countless warnings, so many weird looks from the staff about keeping herself in check, keeping herself conscious. “Lots of people here have dangerous powers, but so far you are the only one who can’t…” Here the woman chose her words carefully, “… quite manage them yet, Ms. Dan. Until school gets back in, we need you to be extra careful, to take extra care, not to hurt anyone, OK? We need to you to be extra aware. Can you do that?” the woman, whoever she was, stared at Nemara like a cross between a suicide risk and a little kid. Ms. Dan? Who the hell did she think she was kidding? Next she was going to be ruffling her hair and calling her “sport” or some such crap.

But it hadn’t stopped at her. The staff that had chosen to stay on during the summer break watched her, constantly, always checking in on her. During her first few days, they had even escorted her to her room, as if she’d blow the dorm up without an adult chaperone. It was bad enough this was the first time she had been away from her twin siblings. Bad enough that she thought about them just about anywhere she went, hoping they were OK, only for her imagination to run wild and images of them hurt, mangled or dead from freak accidents floating around in her head like so many storm clouds. She hadn’t called them. It’s been at least two, maybe three weeks since she’d heard their voices.

That’s when she started seeing his face everywhere she went. She could smell his stinking breath on the back of her neck, the touch of his rough hand on her skin, that twisted evil smile spreading on his face would come rushing back to her like a sledgehammer to the head. Then, it would become all flames and screams. It wasn’t unusual for her to break out into tears at random, only for it to lead to manic laughter nowadays. Occasionally, she would see him and he would stare. He would just stare, his burned and crackling eyes boring straight into her. He was always there, always appearing where she least expected to him.

Sometimes, he would be joined by her stepfather, broken, bleeding, his neck bruised and sitting as a funny angle, like her mother’s broken lamp, the blood pouring down his Roman-looking face like candle wax that was melting much too quickly. How many times had Nemara run to find a towel? Run to mop up all that blood? She could smell it, an acrid coppery taste that always somehow made its way to her mouth, only for her to realize that it was her own cheek she was biting so hard, her own blood filling her mouth.

She couldn’t see the actual dead. She wasn’t a necromancer. She wished she was. That way this could all be explained. Instead, it just meant that she was crazy. Crazy Nemara. Crazy brooding untouchable Nemara. When was the last time she had slept?

Now, here she was, alone. The library was closing soon, but she was in no rush to return to her dorm. He might be waiting for her there. Instead, she rested her burning cheek on the cold imitation wood of a severely carved up table. Outside, summer’s rain insistently pounded on the windows, tiny taps like tiny fists. She could feel her temperature rising. Fever? Or was it sleep deprivation again? Damnable sleep. It would always come so easy to her at home. After he died, of course.

Voices. Young voices. Nemara’s slate colored eyes flicked open and she shakily sat up. Kids from her freshman class. They were yelling. She could hear another voice, a boy’s voice, as he feebly tried to defend himself. Nemara felt a sharp pain in her hands. She looked down annoyed. She’s been digging into her own skin and now angry bloody marks stared up at her. Where the hell was the librarian? Did no one else hear this?

She heard the boy cry out in pain. Before she realized that her body was in motion, she was up and zooming around the corner, a Valkyrie in motion. There were four boys and a smaller one lying on the floor terrified, blood pouring from his nose, a veritable fountain of crimson. These couldn’t be kids from her school. Reborn deities weren’t supposed to act this way, especially not with what they could do. Apparently not seeing the doom they had just called upon themselves, one of the boys began to levitate the small one, while the others proceeded to punch him, a grotesque piñata. They ignored his tears, his askew glasses. He looked so very much like her brother…

“Hey!” She screamed at the top of her lungs. Then a dam broke and hell was unleashed.

The energy surged out of her like a tidal wave of pain, sorrow, anger, and pure white hot vengeance. Everyone on the top level felt it, like a punch to the face, a memory of a dead loved one, a dark realization of wasted potential. For the first time, her karmic energy was visible, very like a burning cloud of acid. If anyone says they’ve never done a bad thing in their lifetimes, they lie and Nemara brought it out. Everyone within that building was punished. A girl who had once pulled her sister’s hair suddenly found spiders emerging from her shirt and crawling over her face. A boy who had kicked a stray dog suddenly found that his hands broke out into a painful rash. The librarian, who herself had broken a young man’s heart as a teenager, found herself face to face in the mirror with her own rotting and bloated face, an image of her future once she had ceased to be. So many more terrors, so much more karma, so much vengeance was dished out for every wrong committed by anyone in the building.

And the boys? One found his clothes came alive and tried to strangle him. Another began scratching at his hair as it started to fall out in clumps. The other two turned on each other, clawing at each other’s faces. The small boy only stared up in horror at the happenings around him.

The sprinkler systems hissed to life, but she didn’t feel it on her burning skin, her long soaked hair. Books began shooting out, smacking people like projectiles. Whole bookcases toppled over, giving the domino effect. Random fires erupted around her. All such unlikely events and all of them happening at once to inanimate and animate objects alike. Probability Manipulation. That’s what they had called it. It had seemed so harmless at the time. Just words.

And through it all, there he was. Staring at her, his cold dead eyes, accusing her, haunting her for what she did to him. She was just a child…

“Stop it, stop it, STOP IT!” She screamed so loud her lungs burned, tears pouring out of her eyes, her face a snarl of agony. But it didn’t stop. It poured out of her like warm blood from a stab wound. Then, her mind went into shock. She was no longer there, but her body, as if controlled by some manic puppet master, took over. Nemesis. That’s who they said she was. Maybe it was her that took over now.

Nemara felt the vibrations in her body as a wall blew out from the pressure of some much chaotic energy, bricks flying every which way as if a few hundred pounds of C4 had gone off. She felt it like one feels themselves falling in a dream. The cold air did nothing to cool her skin, the pounding rain now hitting her slender pale body did nothing to stop this torrent she had unleashed.