Zoom, Academy for Superheroes: Part 1

Falling Slowly

        "Take this sinking boat, and point it home, we've still got time. Raise your hopeful voice, you have a choice, you'll make it now. Falling slowly, eyes that know me, and I can't go back. Moods that take me, and erase me, and I'm painted black. You have suffered enough, an warred with yourself, it's time that you won."
-Glen Hansard & Marketa Irglova

*****

        It was a quiet day at Area 52 on that particular Friday. The children were all out with their parents, it was a "visiting day" as they'd taken to calling it. These days came once every month, when the children would go home to their families, do fun things together, just try to be normal.
        But the children still didn't really know how they felt about these days spent with their parents. It wasn't like they hated visiting days, but they weren't exactly something that they looked forward to. Their families were all similar in the way that no one knew how to handle children with powers, the kids felt like outsiders in their own homes.
        Meanwhile, Jack had planning on going out into town for the night. Every year, on the last Friday of November, the town had a big winter festival. Lights decorated the the streets, live music around every corner, vendors, free booze and fireworks. Jack planned to meet up with Ray and Theo, the three of them had been going to the winter festival together since they were in their early twenties.
        There were usually children out and about for the first few hours, begging their parents to buy them junk food and taking pictures with the man dressed as Santa who made an appearance at the local coffee shop. But at about 9, the younger children would go home to bed, leaving the adults and the teenagers to turn the music a bit louder, get a bit rowdier and raise their intoxication levels.
        In their earlier years, Jack, Ray, and James always had a good time when they went out for this festival, staying out late, drinking beer and hitting on girls. But as the years went by, Jack got a kind of bored with that, some might say that he grew up a little bit. He left the picking up girls part to James and the getting too drunk to stand part to Ray. Don't get me wrong, he still went out and had fun, but he was a bit more mature about it.

*****

        Cindy's mother had agreed to take her out to McDonalds for supper, something that Cindy was always asking to do. She didn't exactly enjoy the food so much, but she just loved the play place inside the restaurant. While she played, her mom stayed at their table, fussing over Cindy's new baby sister. Cindy's visiting days usually consisted being taken wherever she asked, her mother's attention never once being torn from her baby, and counting down the hours until it was time to send her back at Area 52.

        Tucker's parents were filthy rich, and going through a divorce. They never had time to raise their youngest son in the first place, and now that they were in the middle of their lengthy divorce, Tucker was surprised they'd even remembered his name. All of Tucker's older brothers had graduated and moved out quite some time ago, and visiting days were nothing but an inconvenience for Tucker's parents.
        They would hand him a ticket to some big soccer game, or concert, or something else that their money could buy them, and had one of their chauffeurs drive him to his destination. Tucker was grateful for the expensive opportunities, but when he constantly had to attend these events alone, it wasn't worth it.

        Now that Dylan and Summer's relationship was getting serious, both of their families did things together, as one big group. Everyone assumed that they would, one day, be a family anyway, when marriage came into the picture, so they didn't see a point in having separate visiting days.
        Altogether, they balanced each other out. When Summer's parents looked at her, all they saw were her powers. They couldn't think of anything else to talk about, and they hated to even acknowledge that their daughter had powers, so they just didn't speak. Though, all Summer wanted was to talk to her parents.
        Dylan, on the other hand, didn't want to talk to his family. Now about his powers, not about his life, not at all. And Dylan's parents wanted desperately to talk to their child, so they turned to Summer. She would talk with Dylan's parents for hours, while he sat with her parents in comfortable silence.