How To Be a Super-Villain {an origin story}

1 • Have a Tragic Back-Story

She only continues looking at me with those manic eyes, refusing to pry her hands away from her skull. Her screams continue.

"Grab my hand, now!" I yell at her, taking a few more steps forward. The flames nibble at my bare toes and I take an involuntary step back. It doesn't matter anyway because my mother doesn't uncurl herself to reach a hand back out to me.

"Help me!" she takes a break mid-scream to cry out, and I'm tearing up due to both the smoke and frustration.

Ignoring the fire, I step forward again, this time dropping the towel to reach out with both hands. "I'm trying!" I argue, "but you need to give me your hand!"

She starts shaking her head frantically, jerking it left and right like a broken doll. "Help me!" she cries again, except this time it sounds different. Too close. As if she's inside my head.

A searing pain shoots across my legs and I let out a bloodcurdling scream. I look down, confused when I don't see my legs burning to crisps, then look back at my mother and see her flame-engulfed legs. She's doing it again. She's inside my head, channeling her thoughts as well as her pain.

No, not again.

I throw up a mental shield - something I taught myself years ago when my mother would punish me by channeling pain into me through telepathy. As the years went by, the punishment became a source of pleasure. She does it whenever she feels upset. Whenever she is in pain, I am in agony. Whenever she is afraid, I am terrified. Whenever she is angry, I am furious.

But the mental shield isn't working this time.

Fear tears through my heart and I try to step back, away from the fire. Away from her. I'm not doing this again.

Seeing my retreat, my mother's eyes bulge and her brows draw into an angry "v", even as she continues to scream. Help me. She demands in my head, and I feel myself relinquishing the control over my body in favor for hers. Suddenly, I'm walking back towards her. And then I'm in through ring of fire, just a yard away from my mother.

I scream, knowing the pain I am feeling right now is not hers, but mine. I can even smell my burning flesh as the flames crawl up my back from behind me, and eat at my feet. My mother is completely mummified by flames, and only her pale face is left unmarred.

Her eyes look triumphant and my heart heats up with a new feeling. When the anger builds up, I know it's not hers, but my own. I attempt another mental shield, this time throwing it up with more force than necessary, but it does the trick. My mother is slammed out of my brain, and I feel the instant effect when my body loosens and I get control over my motor skills back.

Help me.

Her voice is a distant echo in my head, but it fuels my fury. Get out, get out, get out! I scream at her in my head.

"No!" I shout out loud, fists clenched and chest heaving.

I feel myself accidentally release a surge of power along with my anger, but I don't have time to regret it because a loud cracking noise makes us both jerk our heads upward. The ceiling cracks open like porcelain, splintering into tiny fissures at the base of the chandelier. Time slows as we watch the elaborate chandelier rip away from the ceiling and crash towards the floor - right where my mother is.

Instinctively, I suck in a sharp breath and throw out my hands. The chandelier is pushed out of the air by an invisible force and crashes into the TV instead. 

The air seems to be completely still, and the silence is as deafening as the screams from before. My mother's head slowly turns back around and she pins me with suddenly blank eyes. She's not screaming anymore.