The Changed: Origins

Changed

I don't remember walking home from work that day. I do remember deciding not to go back. Eventually I found myself locked in my apartment a few weeks later on an "extended leave" from work, drinking cheap wine at ten in the morning in my pajamas and wondering what the hell was the point of it all.  I couldn't even find the energy to go back to bed. If I had just turned on the damn television, just once, I might have been better prepared. No, that's not true, nothing could have prepared me for this.

I had just started thinking about the bills again, and all the people who must think I'm a nut job, when my head exploded. Well not literally but it certainly felt like it.  At first I thought I was dying and, in my current state, didn't mind too much beyond embarrassment that the EMS would find my place such a mess. After a few seconds it became apparent I was not, in fact, about to get an easy out, so I shut my eyes and buried my face in the couch cushion waiting for the pain to subside. I don't know how long I laid there but when I opened my eyes again the room was full of bright white light. It was blinding and hot. It hurt to move my head. Something is wrong. I should run, I should scream. But I didn't, I just laid there as the walls began to blister from the silvery heat. This isn't right.  But still I just watched. I couldn't breath.  I don't want to die. That realization should have meant more but it was just as disconnected as the horror show going on in my loft. I raised my hand to shield my eyes from the light destroying everything around me. But not me. I looked down at a body that no longer felt like mine.  
The light, it was coming from me, pulsing from my chest, ebbing from my hands. It's inside me. I was the light. And that's the last thought I had before I blacked out.

I woke up in a pile of ashes that had been my couch. What little that hadn't been burned to nothing was black and smoldering. The line of small windows overlooking the alley had shattered and cool air rushed in, stirring the ash and smoke. Maybe there was an explosion, the memories of the burning light only a crazy fancy caused by a concussion or shock. But that didn't explain why I appeared to be completely unhurt, not a scratch or blister on me. Even my clothes, though nearly black with ash, seemed untouched by the fire. The headache was just a memory too. Actually, I felt better than I had in a long time. I was terrified and confused, I had lost everything I owned, but my mind was clearer than it had been in months. Maybe I should have given that a bit more thought.

At that moment though I was much too worried about where I was going to live and how I was going to eat and if the apocalypse had just started. My first thought as I pried open the ruined door and walked down the narrow stairwell was to go to the police. Oddly that caused an irrational but strong desire to run away; away from my apartment, away from the smoke and the ash, just away. It was like a childish fear of the dark, like something was lurking in the shadows just waiting and watching. Surely someone had heard what had happened and notified the authorities already anyway Luckily, apart from a few scorch marks, it looked like most of the damage had been confined to my apartment. I would just wait for them outside on the street.

But the bubble of fear in my chest didn't lessen when I got outside. I was surprised to find the sun was setting. How long had I been out? I still felt the need to go, to run and hide, and it was getting worse, closer to a panic now.  I caught sight of my reflection in one of the downstairs windows. Saying I was a mess was far too kind. My normally brown shoulder length hair was grey with ash and sticking out in odd places, my t-shirt and pink fuzzy pajama pants were streaked with black soot and, to top it off, I wasn't even wearing shoes, my socks just as grey and dirty as the rest of me. I looked like the kind of person you cross the street to avoid. Surely the police would want to talk to me, they would want me to go places and talk to other people. I couldn't go like this! What if they thought I had something to do with all this. No one else's apartment had blown up after all. I know I wouldn't take anyone seriously that looked like me.