This is an ugly story. It contains violence, murder, genocide, dehumanization, and some of the most rotten examples of humanity. The sad part of it is that it's based on real life events. It's not meant to make light of those events or downplay them. It's not meant to simply exploit them for others' entertainment.

This story is meant to show people something, to give them a small glimpse of what countless people throughout history have suffered through and what many still suffer through today.

It's an ugly, yet beautiful story, and if you can stomach reading it, I hope you'll get something more out of it than a simple fanfiction to occupy your day.

Note: Takes place in season 2. The breaches are closed, and Zoom is trapped on his own earth. He will not be appearing in this story.

Feeding the Flames

Barry sometimes really wished he could be one of those people who never watched the news. Sometimes he wondered if it would be better to just be blissfully unaware and ignorant. It seemed like there was never anything positive on the news—only negative after negative, and this was especially true lately.

There had been yet another metahuman attack, one the Flash hadn't been able to stop. A metahuman—one with the ability to control water—had lost it and attacked a local grocer. He seemed angry, like there wasn't any one particular thing he wanted. He just wanted to make a scene—to contribute to the mayhem plaguing the streets lately. Barry always thought the Reverse Flash and Zoom were his biggest troubles, but it was really this—this rising tension. It wasn't any one speedster or metahuman. It was all of them, as a whole. It was society. The more people hated metahumans, the more they wanted to act out. It was a vicious cycle, and both sides were only feeding the flames with their hate.

Barry had gotten there quickly to stop the metahuman, but not only could the guy control water, he could also control the water inside other people's bodies. He could bend people to his will and move them around like marionettes. Barry hadn't been able to defend against that and had soon found himself being slammed repeatedly into a wall, completely out of control of his own body.

He had tried to track the metahuman down, but it turned out the guy also had the ability to turn into water, and he disappeared down the first drain he saw, which was actually kind of gross.

Barry was frustrated as he watched the news report covering the incident. The reporters were discussing the Flash's failure, contemplating his ability to protect this city from metahumans. It was quite the debate, to say the least. They had been discussing for the last hour. The newscast soon went to a reporter who was out on the streets, interviewing random civilians about their opinions of the Flash. Barry's stomach churned when he listened to the interviews.

"We can't count on the Flash anymore," one woman said into the reporter's microphone, "I love him, and I know he does the best he can, but something else has to be done about all these metahumans. We can't rely solely on the Flash to protect us from them, and some action needs to be taken to stop them from destroying our city. The Flash just isn't going to be enough to keep us safe."

Barry felt even worse when another man spoke into the camera.

"I don't trust the Flash at all," he said firmly, "I think it's only a matter of time until he turns on us, too. He's the only meta so far who's tried to do good with his powers. The rest of them have all lost it and only used their powers for bad. Who's to say the Flash won't cross over to the dark side, too? Maybe their warped DNA makes them all go evil eventually. Who knows?"

Barry was glad to see not everyone felt this way. A few people who were interviewed stuck up for the Flash, saying they still believed in him whole-heartedly and that the city should continue to support its one and only hero. Barry still felt uneasy, though. It seemed like more and more people were losing hope in the Flash every day. For all his triumphs, it only took the occasional failure or slip up for them to criticize him and stop believing in him.

And it was frustrating.

The tension revolving around the metahuman crisis was building. People were calling for more action to be taken. Metahumans were being almost exclusively regarded as evil and untrustworthy, which wasn't helping the issue at all. One man, Clinton Price, had been speaking out very publicly about how he felt about metahumans.

"They're all evil—every last one of them," he said angrily into the camera, "They can't be trusted. Their powers corrupt them and turn them all dark eventually. We can't stand idly by while they destroy our city, and we can't put the task of stopping them into the hands of the Flash, who is really just another meta who will inevitably betray us in the end. When it comes down to it, the Flash is going to choose his own side eventually. He's going to side with the non-humans."

Price's campaign against metahumans was starting to pick up and grow in support, and tension between humans and metahumans was building at an alarming rate. Barry knew it was anti-meta behavior like this that was pushing metahumans to act out more. The water-controlling metahuman in the grocer didn't even seem to have any particular goal in mind. He just seemed angry, like he was acting out just to make a statement. Really, his "statement" wasn't helping the situation, though; it was only making metahumans look worse in the public's eyes. Just like with any political issue, the more propaganda and hate being issued, the more both sides fed the flames. The problem only festered like cancer until everyone was blind to the truth.

There was no innocent. There was no guilty. Both sides wrong, and both sides were right. Barry just wished he could them to see that. He understood the people's fear, and he understood the metahumans' anger.

Barry was getting a little angry, himself. Well, maybe "angry" wasn't the right word for it. "Frustrated" was more like it. It felt like despite all the good he did, people still didn't believe in the Flash, and the violence in the city seemed only to be getting worse as tensions rose. He didn't know what more he could do about it. He was the Flash. It was his responsibility to stop things from getting even worse than they were. It felt like he was alone, though. He had his team, of course, but they could only do so much. He was the one who needed to step up here.

But he didn't know how.

"Barry, why are you watching this?" Iris asked angrily when she walked into the living room.

She promptly turned the TV off.

"That Clinton Price man is an idiot," she huffed, "I don't know why anyone bothers to listen to him."

"He's running for mayor," Barry said quietly, "And his anti-metahuman campaign has been getting a lot more media attention now."

"That lunatic is running for mayor?!" Iris asked incredulously, "How did that happen?"

"People listen to what he has to say," Barry said somberly, "It seems like more and more people are agreeing with him now."

"The man is pure evil!" she said angrily, "The way he talks about metahumans, like they should all be rounded up and treated like they're not even human, like they don't even have rights."

Barry nodded, but he had a sullen look on his face.

"I don't see how I'm much better," he sighed, "Didn't I do the same thing? Last year, didn't I lock up metahumans without trial, as if they didn't have rights?"

"Barry, that was different," Iris insisted, "You didn't have a choice then. Half of them were murderers, and Irons Heights wasn't capable of holding them, yet."

"Well, I'm glad it is now," Barry said, "It's one thing for the Flash to stop criminals, but it's another thing entirely to play judge and jury. At least this way we're working with the law now."

"Yeah, well if they go ahead with this Metahuman Registration Act, I don't know if I fully believe in the law anymore," Iris gritted, "Why the hell is Singh not putting his foot down, anyways?"

"That's out of Singh's hands if that happens," Barry said quickly, "We can't blame him. If that law goes through, it will be because of this Clinton Price guy, not anyone at the CCPD who's just following orders. The CCPD enforces the laws. They don't write them."

"Still," Iris said bitterly, "I can't believe anyone is seriously going along with this."

Barry fully agreed with her. The entire thing seemed so ludicrous. When Clinton Price had first proposed the idea of registering all known metahumans into a compiled list, thus forcing them to out themselves to the public, Barry had thought the insane idea would be dismissed quickly. He was shocked that now, only a few months later, not only was it being taken seriously, but it was a likely possibility that it was really going to happen.

The flames were growing, and Barry feared that soon, he wouldn't be able to contain it. It was out of his control.

Everyone was quiet the next day when Barry walked into STAR Labs—walked, not ran, because he was completely exhausted. Barry had been working extra hard as the Flash because of everything that was going on. He wanted to restore the city's faith in him as their hero, not really fully understanding what he had done to lose it in the first place. So he didn't always manage to catch the bad guy; that didn't mean that he was becoming one.

Human citizens were starting to lose faith in him, and metahuman citizens saw him as their enemy because he kept apprehending them. Barry was starting to feel hated by both sides. Even at STAR Labs, he felt lonely now. With Cisco gone, Barry was the only metahuman there. Barry had insisted Cisco leave town, just in case the act went through and things took a turn for the worse. It took a lot of arguing, but eventually Cisco agreed to leave and lay low at his parents' house just outside the city for a while until the whole thing blew over.

They all were trying to get Barry to leave, too—Oliver had even offered him a place to stay in Star City for a while—but Barry had refused. He felt that, as the Flash, it was his duty to act as the bridge between humans and metahumans. He felt like it was his responsibility to try to keep the peace. The Flash was the only metahuman who was out in the public eye—aside from Mark Mardon, who had only displayed the negative aspects of metahumans. The Flash was the only public face to represent metahumans in a positive light. Maybe if he could convince everyone that there was one good metahuman, then they would believe there were others out there like him—others who didn't abuse their powers but instead used them to do good on a day to day basis.

He also wanted to stay and do his part as Barry Allen at the CCPD. He didn't know what he was supposed to do, but he thought maybe with his position in law enforcement he would be able to do something or at least try to keep things from getting too out of hand.

Everyone at STAR Labs was extremely supportive of him, telling him not to listen to what they were saying in the media and that the Flash had always been only a force for good. Barry appreciated their support, but it wasn't much consolation to him. They were trying, and he knew that, but Barry felt like they didn't fully understand the position he was in. He felt like he was being forced to choose between the two sides: humans and metahumans. His friends and family just didn't get that.

They were all human, and he wasn't. He felt like they forgot this about him sometimes. When he was fighting metahumans all the time, it was easy for them to forget that he, himself, was also a metahuman. He wished Cisco was still here. He would understand.

"Barry," Caitlin's voice ran through his com system, "There's a metahuman attack on fifth and Broadway."

"On my way," Barry said immediately before flashing to the scene.

It was pandemonium. Barry got there just in time to snatch the airborne bullets out of their paths, all of them directed towards one individual: the metahuman. When he came to a stop, the man shouted out at the cops.

"Please stop!" he sobbed, "It was an accident! Please!"

Barry put himself between the five cops and the metahuman.

"I've got this!" he called to the officers, before turning back to the metahuman.

He really hoped the police would trust him. He never knew now days how they were going to respond to his interference. At least for now, they didn't seem to object. They all stood back and let the Flash take over.

The entire street was torn apart, large cracks taking up a good portion of the pavement, all leading back to the metahuman. He was visibly shaking in fear, and Barry could see new cracks starting to form at his feet. It seemed that the more upset the man got, the less control he had over his powers.

"Flash," the man cried, his eyes widening in fear as he looked at Barry.

Another wide crack appeared in the street, inching dangerously close to a nearby building. If it had reached the building, it was likely that the instability of its base would have brought the whole thing down.

"I'm not going to hurt you," Barry said sincerely, taking a careful step forward, but it was too much for the distraught man.

Suddenly, several large cracks burst violently through the pavement, one of them going right to where Barry was standing. The shifting beneath his feet was just enough to destabilize him so that he was distracted for a moment as he tried to regain his bearings.

In that moment, everything went wrong.

Each of the cops all fired at once, their bullets propelling through the air at just barely subsonic speeds. Barry scrambled to catch all of them, but as he was catching one, he felt another rip through his shoulder. Barry instantly could feel blood gushing from the wound, and he gritted his teeth through the pain while he ran. He managed to catch two more bullets, but as he was going for the last one, black spots appeared in front of his vision, and he found himself stumbling forward, snatching blindly for the stray bullet.

His hand grasped at empty air, and he only had less than a second to feel horrified before the ground came up to meet him.