In school, they always ask us what our one chosen superpower would be. Kids go crazy, saying that they want to fly, that they want to be able to be invisible, and my personal favorite- travelling time. But I don’t need to choose my superpower.

I already have one.

It all started when I learned to read. I had always seen the bright lights over everyone’s heads, but when I realized that they actually meant something I felt as if I whole world had been opened to me. Seeing words like “stupid”, “fearful” and “forgets everything” over people's heads always made me laugh. I had always assumed everyone saw it, that I wasn’t alone.

It wasn’t until seven years ago that I figured out what it meant. My best friend Opal had the words written “over confident” on the top of her head, following her around. I began to notice that trait suited Opal very well. She always presented to the class first, always went out on the mile way too fast, and was always talking
about herself. It took me a awhile, but I began to realize that often that this overconfidence often led her to challenges. She passed out when running the mile- twice. Her class project was a fail because she forgot to write out her sources, something she would've done if she saw someone go before her. With everything she did, her over confidence made her fail.

I realized that it was her greatest weakness. Now, when I saw the words “not careful enough” over someone's head and watched them fall into a trash can and break their leg or tell a big secret, it made sense.

Of course, first the thing I did when I found out what was “wrong” with me was tell Opal herself, with lots of detail. She looked at me strange when I told her, like I was making it all up. I should of been more careful. She told her dad.

Opal’s dad the the word “jealousy” over his head. As soon as I saw it, it made sense. He always wanted to best for his daughter. Opal always had the nicest clothes, the best vacations, and the coolest room. So when he found out that one of her friends had something that gave her an advantage, he went crazy. He and his daughter moved out of town and I never saw of head of Opal again again.

Until today.

My Saturday morning started the same way it always did- getting up at 12:00 and staying in bed on my phone until I had to do homework. I lived for Saturday mornings- junior year in high school was already stressful enough and I needed something to look forward to. But this morning, I saw more than just my normal hundreds of texts from group chats and friends asking about homework.
There was about 100 emails, all from the same address. Though there was no clear sign that they were from Opal and her dad, but it was pretty obvious. I had known Opal for 10 years before she had moved in freshman year and the writing seemed exactly like her.

The first email wasn’t anything big, just asking how I was and if I would be willing to tell her what her greatest weakness was. But then they got worse.

I wasn’t sure how much of it was true and how much of it was Opal’s over confidence making them more dramatic, but they were enough to really scare me. All of them talked about how they were going to find me, kidnap me, and send me to a hospital. There, I would be forced to to reveal what was wrong with me. If I didn’t cooperate, they would kill me. At first, I didn’t believe them at all. How would they get all of this stuff down when they had no proof?

But things started happening in my life that made things seem really scary. I kept seeing someone in black, baggy clothes following me around, the words “over-confident” over her head. I was almost positive that it was Opal. I had seen others with the same weakness, but the handwriting looked exactly like her.

Now, everywhere I went, there was always the same person following me around. It would walk behind me when I was walking to school, follow me as I walked through town with friends on my way home. My eyes always had a look of fear in them, I always had to look around before entering the room. To my surprise, no one else was seeing the same things as me. None of my friends had commented on seeing someone walking around town.

But my mom, always caring and worrying about me, had noticed that I seemed “sad” all of my time. One day after dinner, she walked into my room as I was doing homework. I jumped, immediately expecting the worse.
“Hey,” she said, sitting down on my bad with a look of worry, “is everything ok?”. As much as I wanted to tell her, I knew that she wouldn’t be able to do everything.
“Yeah,” I replied, giving off a fake smile, “just stressed about school”.
She smiled as she left the room, not suspecting anything.

I had never been more grateful that the word “gullible” hung over her head.

The next morning, I did not see Opal following me around. I had never felt more relieved. Maybe it was just me hallucinating. For the first time in a week, I was smiling as I entered the school.

I only made it past first period before things started to go wrong. I was called down to the office and asked to collect all of my things. My dad picked me up, a sadness in his eyes that I couldn’t explain. We picked up my younger brother at middle school and drove home.

The car was silent. There was no radio, no one talking. Though I had no idea what was going on then, I could tell it wasn’t going to be good.

We entered the house in silence and followed my dad as he sat on a couch in the living room. Something seemed different.

“I really wish I didn’t have to tell you this”, he began to say. Shaking, praying, crying, I took a deep breath. “This morning, mom had an accident. I tried to get to her before...” his eyes began to tear up and he stopped talking.

My heart stopped. It was pretty obvious what had happened.

He cleared his throat and started talking again, his voice shaking.  “I’m so sorry.” he whispered.

I was speechless. Never in my life would I have imagined something like this happened. Suddenly, my phone went off. I thought it was be a sympathy letter from a friend looking out for me, but it was the complete opposite.

I looked down to find a text from an unidentified number. What it said almost made me burst into tears.

Anyone who suspects your “talent” will die.

I had to hold in my breath to control my scream. They had killed her. They were the ones who let the car hit her, the ones who made sure that it was in a remote area where the cell service was weak, where it was take a long time for an ambulance to come. All because of me.

In a way, I had killed her.

But I couldn’t do anything about it now. If I ran away, the whole town would suspect something. I couldn’t get them all killed.

So I sat there, the feeling of guilt in my stomach making me want to throw up.

I knew that I had to do something for my family. Both my brother and dad had the words “dependent” over their heads. My mom had been the biggest support system for both of them. This loss could destroy the family I had left if I didn’t do something about it.

After a few minutes my dad finally got up, legs shaking. I tried to reach out and grab his hand, but he balled up his fists and said “Leave me alone. I have a funeral to plan.” I nodded sadly and watched as his trudged upstairs and slammed the bedroom door.

My brother, who was always smiling and happy, had silent tears streaming down his face. When I tried to give him a hug, he just flinched and starting crying harder. Knowing there was nothing I could do, I just sat there with him for what felt like forever.

For the next days, the house was silent. My dad only left his room to get the takeout we were constantly ordering. He said he was planning the funeral, but I knew from the home phone that he had hired a planner and from the thousands of tissues in his room that he had spent most of the time crying.

The constant stream of family members coming into town to help us out was noticeable but didn’t help. By this point “I’m so sorry for your loss” had been repeated so many times that it had no meaning. Plus, I should be the one apologizing. This whole death was all my fault. Every time I saw someone knew trying to give me support, I would just walk away.  I was afraid to touch them, to talk to anyone. If anyone ever even had a thought about me being different, they would be killed. I wouldn’t let that happen.  

My brother was being as annoying as ever. The words “dependable” were brighter than usual. He refused to even get off the couch. Every meal, every card, every blanket had to be delivered to him personally and shoved into his hands.

I hadn’t gotten any texts yet, and I hadn’t seen any figures walking around. In a way I was grateful, but not seeing anything following me around reminded me of the day my mother was killed.

The day of the funeral came faster than expected. For me, it was hard to believe that just five days ago I had talked to her, seen her and been with her. It was the first day that my brother actually did something for himself. He woke up early, showered and got dressed into a fancy suit. As he walked down the stairs to meet me and my dad, he was smiling.

Though my dad was a little scared to get into the car again, we got the funeral and walked in. I was surprised to see how many people were there. But I was even more surprised to see two familiar faces in the crowd.

Opal and her dad.

They were smiling softly, mingling with other guests. When Opal saw me, she winked and gave me a smile. I knew that it was all fake.

I quickly turned my head around, trying to get as far away from them as possible. I wasn’t going to let them ruin this day.

I mostly zoned out throughout the whole funeral. Every time a sob rang out, someone starting crying or a speaker's voice cracked, I felt guilt rush through me.

Finally, the last two speakers came up. It took me awhile to realize, to come out of my daze. But nothing could prepare me for when I saw Ivy and her dad, standing proud in front of us and with a long speech prepared in front of them.

I shivered. This could not be happening. My hands shook with rage and my voice tried to speak, but nothing came out. I began to stood up, my hands shaking, my eyes cold. But I felt as if someone was pushing me back, forcing me to sit back down. The text I had gotten before rang through my ears. Anyone who will suspect your talent will die. Flinching, eyes wide, I sat back down with a frown. Ivy smirked at me.

“I have known Opal and her family for a long time now,” she began, a mischievous grin on her face. “I know a lot about Opal.”

My heart stopped.

“And I know that she will make it through this.” She smiled at me, a kindness in her eyes that only I could see as fake.

Ivy took a deep breath and continued to speak. “She is strong. She is...” she leaned into the microphone “special.”

I watched with horror as she pulled out a piece of paper from in her coat. She brushed the speech on the table, the speech that had been approved for the funeral, to the floor.

“Opal is different. She’s weird.” Everyone looked at me, bewildered. All I could do was sit there, helpless.

“When I was 10, Opal told me something about herself that most of you don’t know. She has a talent. She can....”

I stood up, ready to storm out before I could watch my life ruined before my eyes. But I saw Ivy’s dad, standing next to her with a proud look on her face. When he saw me begin to stand, he gave me a scary look. His fists balled up and he slowly began to take step towards me. Defeated, close to tears, I sat back down. I had never been more humiliated in my life.

“Opal knows something about all of us, something that we all strive to figure out. She knows our greatest weaknesses.” I let out a gasp. “Why can’t she tell everyone else what she knows? I don’t know.”

“Over the past few weeks, we have tried to get Opal to tell us everything. We are hoping to use this information for the greater of the world, to help everyone overcome obstacles that they face in their life. But when we tried to approach her to get the information, she went dark. Threatened to kill us.”

She put a lot of emphasis on the word kill, as if that was what was they were planning to do to me.

“We continued to ask her, politely, friend to friend, if she could help us out.” By this point, everyone had been stunned into silence. As far as I could tell, there wasn’t a single person who was hanging onto her words and believing everything she said. Only I knew that most of it was a lie.

“She continued to refuse. She became violent. She tried to kill me, then my dad.” She pretended to cry, a tear “rolling” down her cheek. “Then, one day, five days ago....” my breath got caught in my breath, and everyone gasped. We could all tell where this story was going.

“She didn’t go to school that day. We noticed this, and we followed her. We watched as she followed her mom go to work. Though we wanted to find a way to stop her, she had a scary, haunted look in her eyes and we were fearing for our lives. We watched with horror, with great, great sadness as she hit Julie, her very own mom, and drove away. We called an ambulance, called Steven, who was horrified and saddened to hear about his wife’s accident.  But there was nothing we could do. She had killed her.”

To be Continued!