The Day The Sun Rose the Highest...

It was June 20th when it happened. Remember that day Heidi? It was another day like any other. Heard that a million times though right? Thinking about it now, I wish it was. I wish we would have just continued walking from the park to my house, where we would finish the rest of the afternoon watching old VHS tapes while eating trail mix. Too bad that never happened. Even worse than that day, the world changed. This was harder than I thought. My therapist advised me to come to talk to you as it would be helpful, therapeutic even. Yet the only thing I feel is anguish and this churning in my stomach. I have to do this. I need to let you know what happened, what happened the day the sun stood still and when the world almost went up in flames.

We did get home, but not by walking, but by my big brother Mathias, screeching to a stop in front of us in his car and yelling at us. We never hopped in there so fast! It was almost fun, well at least to me. To you, you looked so scared. I remember the way your eyes shook and how frozen you appeared as he blurred off back to our house. A part of me hoped you didn't think he would hurt us, that he would hurt you. Mathias may have been an MMA fighter but he was anything but harmful.  Especially towards you Heidi. We didn't have proof, still don't to this day, but we knew, still know that your father and mother weren't the best of people. Especially to you.

I remember seeing the long tendrils of smoke rising to the sky off in the distance, towards the city before he all hopped out of the car and ran inside. Mathias never locked the doors so fast. I thought it was just some prank he was pulling, like that time he ambushed us with a bunch of water balloons. But no. It wasn’t. God, I wish it was just a joke. All three of us, alongside my Mom, all lay stone flat on the couch, staring with unblinking eyes at the tv as CNN and other news outlets splattered almost the same headlines: Flying men and women. I thought it was a movie at first, some teaser for a new superhero movie or something, but it was the truth. Men and women, even children, were flying across the skies, some of them speeding in a blur. Others had lightning in their grasp and from what we later learned, others could breathe fire. Literally. The more we absorbed the news, the more terror I could see on my Mom and brother’s faces. I thought they would be excited! I thought they would be as ecstatic and filled with so much so as I had, and even you had when we realized that all across the globe, people were showing up with superpowers. People by the hundreds of thousands, elderly, middle-aged, even toddlers appeared with abilities we only saw in our favorite comics. Across the world, in India, a man was forming the wind like mold, another woman, healing all of her sick patients in the hospitals. It was spectacular! That’s what it seemed like at first.

I want to laugh, but not in front of you. I want to laugh because reality has a cruel but prankster way of saying “you really fell for it didn’t you?”

After the hours of news watching ended, Mom decided to finally get up off the couch and pull Mathias to the kitchen. She told us to stay put, and if we couldn't do that, at least stay in the house, hang in my bedroom. It would be boring, yes, I didn't have a grand spanking HD tv like Mathias had, but hey, I did have plenty of card and puzzle games for us to play, and I really wanted to show you my newest game of Clue and some cold case files I found online. 

Thinking about it now, you didn't really favor that sort of thing, did you? But having your head hurt from deductions was better than having your head hurt from the dark bruises under your hair which you hid from us. You thought I didn't see it, but I did. I just didn't know it was from him, until all these years later. We went upstairs and I was already blabbering about the news, jumping up and down on my bed in excitement. I was ready, I was prepared, I felt like destiny finally arrived and most of all: I could save you.

“Can you see it, Heidi! I need to come up with a name! Oo! How about...Silver Bullet? Or wait! The Nuclear Bullet? Yes yes yes!  Imagine my origin story! Middle schooler Calvin Mannis was an ordinary kid until he was exposed to lethal radiation! But instead of killing him, instead flooded him with extraordinary abilities. With his molecular speed, indestructible skin, and emerald energy blasts, he vowed to protect his small town in Illinois from the forces of evil. He became known as...wait for it… THE NUCLEAR BULLET!”

I jumped off my bed in a full 360, hoping you saw it. Instead, you were by my window, now open and staring out into the sun. It was already 7:00 and the sun looked as if it was still noon. The smoke billowing in the distance increased. Even though the clouds were gone, replaced with dark smoky hunks of darkness, the sun still stayed still, untouched by anything, other than the invisible air in front of us. You stared up at that thing for how long? Felt like ten minutes to me, but it felt like seconds to you. I could see it then, something I never saw in you. Yea, you got happy, scared, angry, excited, at times, but never this before. You truly looked curious at something so familiar that’s been a part of our lives for so long. Something else too. I saw it build up in your shoulders, saw it heave your chest in and out, and I saw it make your cheeks flush pink and you dyed pink hair look like glowing rose in the light. Your hazel brown eyes started to water and tears started to stream down your face. Finally, you burst out crying! I didn't know what to do!

I put a hand on your shoulder. I told you “hey Heidi. No worries. We can be a team together. The Nuclear Bullet and the Empress. Sounds cool right?” and when that didn't work, when you balled as if the world was ending, collapsing down on us, I said “Don't worry Heidi. You can stay here tonight if you want. Mom can convince your parents to crash here for the night. We can watch movies, play Uno, anything you want. I won’t let your dad do it okay Heidi? I won't let him hurt you again.”

I realize now, you weren't crying from tears of sadness, despair, or pain. The smile on your face told me the truth it took three years for me to realize: it was hope. I didn't even notice how your feet left the ground and the wide-open window appeared non-existent to you as you floated out of it. I didn't notice you were off the ground until Mathias yelled and rushed toward you. He couldn't grab you in time, Heidi, and by then, I was too frozen in awe to realize that one true best friend, the girl which I realized I was in love with, was flying. Actually flying!

I somehow made it outside to see you, only tens of feet in the air. Your arms were wide and you were looking up at the sun. The warm sun to you, but a hot ball of magma to me. It was already in the late eighties and it didn't look like it was going to cool down anytime soon. But there you were…

I’m sorry. It’s just that. I don't cry often...Anyways…

I called up to you. I screamed your name as neighbors left their houses and looked up at the girl who defied gravity. In your moment of clarity, you floated down, just enough so that you could stare at me in my eyes, long enough for me to realize your eyes were changed, no longer brown that would light up to gold whenever you got the chance to hang out with me after school or grow dark when you realized that the streetlights were on and you had to race home or else. No this was something else...they were pink! Glittering like jewels. And your smile…

You didn't say anything to me then, just floated. And floated, floated, ascending up until our screams couldn't be heard anymore and no police, no planes, no helicopters could find you or see you anymore. That was the last time I saw you. With you gone, the chaos began.

June 20th was the recorded longest day of the year, no only because of the sun staying in the same place all over, but because of the events that transpired that left people mentally and physically mortified for the rest of their days. Yes, children could run at the speed of light, but that didn't mean that friction didn't exist for them. A toddler could be in a corner, down the street, then found on a stretch of road, its skin burned off because of the superheated air molecules in its path. A man could have super strength, yes, but his bones couldn't take it, and he would just be a pile of tenderized meat on the sidewalk.

There were others too. Remember the guy in India? Well turns out he was a schizophrenic and ended up making a tornado that blew away two cities. People who could shoot lightning from their hands, fire, who could breathe underwater, who could teleport, read minds, be bulletproof, sooner or later died, or worse...some became killers, finally giving in to their insatiable desire they inhibited in their subconscious for so long. Families gone, wives forced to watch as their children disappeared, and fathers forced to peer into the minds of pedophiles down the street as they prayed invisible on others’ children. 

The government was not even close to ready. No matter how many guns, tanks, jets they had, they could fight long enough against their own people. Do you know how many police departments were attacked and destroyed? How many protesters went up against rival protesters, how many punk little kids decided enough was enough and that they no longer needed an AR to get vengeance upon their school when they had the ability to shoot laser beams out of their eyes? How many screwed-up relationships, divorcees, stalkers, partygoers, whiny kids who lost at a  game of Fortnite woke up one day to have the ability to get back at the world that wronged them?

Let's just say there was enough so that after that day ended, the world flipped upside down. Parents who were forced to watch as their children floated away into space protested enough so that plenty of states passed laws and the government made a new order. World governments agreed to one thing: superpowers were dangerous but temporary. You see ever since you floated away, on the same day, June 20th, the sun would be out longer and longer and with the sun, people of the rundown would appear with new superpowers. The government got smart, made a new police force to contain and even kill those “infected” by the light. In The public, they say the infected are housed safely in camps, but I know the truth.

Three words: experimentation, slavery, and darkness. Do you know how many people who were documented as infected just never got to see their families again? Even if they were falsely accused, they would never see the light of day again! Some parents and people were so scared, they never left their houses again except at night. Depression, anxiety, PTSD, all skyrocketed in the next few years. Too many funerals. Funerals like the one you should have had…

But your father just announced you dead and was quick to get you a tombstone. The same one I’m talking to you at now...but you're not even under there. You're off somewhere in space. Maybe you decided to fall and your remains are in the sea or in a landfill. You could be way past a whale’s stomach by now. Or you could have floated down, and started a new life somewhere, away from your father and mother. at least your new life wouldn't be filled with grown men who wanted to fondle and beat on their own daughters. Or friends who were too self-centered to realize you needed help, a hero to save you from rotten men like him.

Or maybe you were captured. Maybe you’re being experimented on, sociopathic scientists who want to know how you and others can become gods overnight. Maybe one day, you’ll escape and find me. I would help you, Heidi. Not only because I still love you, even after three years, and I and other kids are stuck in our houses for two days until the sun passes and nothing catastrophic happens again, but also because I have a secret too. It’s a big one that I've been able to hide for so long. There were times I almost blew it, where I thought armed men in featureless masks would come and take me away from my family, from everyone, and cut me open too. I was careful though, careful enough to sneak away on the night before June 20th, or as the world calls it now “The Brightening” ( I know, it stinks but hey it got popular thanks to Twitter), and make it to your grave. I just wanted to vent to you after all these years. To tell you the truth. It didn’t happen on that day the year after you floated away, no, it happened on that night, when I was in my bed, thinking about you, frustrated and saddened still over you that my hands started to glow emerald green and I felt myself float out of my bed. The day I had my Brightening too.

I didn’t tell anybody, not a soul. Except you. I’ve kept this secret, harnessed and trained my abilities in secret. I’m different from the others, I can keep my powers even after June 20th, but on that day, just a while now, they are amplified. Amplified enough that I won't be able to hide anymore. They will come for me. They will have me. Try to have me. But I won't let them. They are planning on blocking out the sun, permanently, no sunlight, no warmth, nothing but darkness. I can't let them do that Heidi, because I feel it too, behind the crackling surge of energy emanating from me. Behind the tears and the anger, I have at the world. I just want to smile because as the sun is rising now, as it beams down at me, sighting me, and filling me with a power I could only dream of,  I understand that feeling again: Hope. Hope Heidi. It's why you floated away. And it's why I’m fighting to keep the sun alive, to be seen. Because with light comes hope. Hope for a better world, better people, and a better future.