It was drowning in the middle of a flooded street. With a gasp it lifted itself from the water, sputtering and coughing until it cleared the water from its lungs. Slowly, it rose to its feet, watching its surroundings. It was night and the city was mostly silent, dark. Distantly, it heard dogs bark.

It… didn't remember. It examined itself, perturbed. It was wearing torn, wet clothes. Even the shoes were damaged. It had been in the water, so wet made sense. But torn?

It wasn't hurt. It realized it could feel itself, its body and flesh, and it was unhurt. The body was functioning just fine. But then why didn't it remember? And what wasn't it remembering?

It frowned, disturbed by the lack of… everything. Then it concentrated, tried rememberi-

surpassed him
horror
hatred
monster
in her eyes
any eyes

Monster

Doubling over, gasping for breath, it decided it wasn't that it couldn't remember, but that it didn't want to remember. Strange. Painful too. It needed more context and it needed to think if it really wanted to know. It opened its eyes, and it caught its reflection on the water it was standing on.

Brown hair, not straight. Brown eyes. Freckles. Female, plain, me.

The fugue was broken.

Amy stumbled back, righting herself quickly. Her breath came in short pants.

She knew who she was now. Amy Dallon. Panacea. She remembered. And she didn't. It was academical, like she had been lectured into who she was, her personal history memorized but not lived. She had memories, some crystal clear, some faded, but there were gaps. Big gaps.

"Oh God. What happened?" She asked, but there was no one to answer her. Shaking, she ran her hands through her hair, feeling the strands between her fingers. She had to calm down. Deep breaths helped, and a few minutes later she wasn't panicking anymore.

She was still scared. She didn't remember things. But she could think about that rationally. Humans didn't remember everything. In fact, she told herself, most memories people claimed they had were reconstructions made by the brain, filling the holes with what people wanted to remember.

But people didn't feel like did now, or at least she didn't remember feeling her memories like she did now, like she could leaf through them as if they were a book. She frowned. The last minutes, she remembered in absolute and clear detail. The rest of her life, not so much. And whatever had happened just before these moments…She shuddered. Fractured bits and pieces. Like someone had crushed the memory, tried to remove it.

From what she remembered…

Bonesaw
neurons dendrites connections
cannisters of fluid
fear

… she'd probably be the one to do it.

She stopped thinking about that, forcefully rerouting her thoughts from what she remembered to how she remembered. Had she triggered again? Gained another power? She had heard things, she knew she had heard things, about second triggers. An ongoing debate if second triggers really happened or if it was just surpassing the Manton effect. Victoria

angry shout

Victoria had mentioned that from the courses she attended to at the University. Maybe it was something like that. She didn't remember the exact moment of her trigger event, parahumans didn't, but the last memories before this felt like that, somewhat. It was hard to compare what she didn't remember.

It wasn't just her memories. She could feel herself, feel her body like she did when she touched somebody else, and it was different. Beyond the fact that she could sense herself, when she was immune to her own power. Her cells felt different. More plastic, mutable. Her DNA like it was at the tip of her tongue, ready to be unleashed. She felt like she could shape all of it.

Everything was instinctive, yet simultaneously precise and deliberate. She didn't dare look closer at her cells, her proteins and her biochemistry, fearing what she might find changed. And how it might be changed. Inhuman.

She licked her dry lips. With a sort of morbid curiosity, she willed the flesh. Be more. She clenched her fist and the muscles bulged, grew, the veins red and visible before the flesh warped and integrated them, nails growing into claws and extending into her flesh…

She stopped. Opened her hand and watched it return to normal, not on its own but willed by her panic, in the span of a second. Her breathing was still steady, like nothing had happened.

She had no words.

Shell-shocked, she wondered if her power still worked, if she could heal and

body organ tissue cell
horror hatred
blood muscles tendons sever
kill brain
never
too late

She couldn't. She couldn't do that anymore. She didn't want to and she wouldn't because she couldn't. Her powers had turned inwards and it was better, and she was crying even though that was a waste of fluids. She ignored the prickling across her skin, the microorganisms and dust mites. Her backpack had one broken strap and her cap was lying in the water just ahead. She grabbed them and ran.

She didn't remember what happened, but she remembered what it felt like. Guilt, despair, fear, horror. She had to get away, had to make amends for something, somehow.

Because she was one of them now. A monster.