The way your life can suddenly change can seriously screw with someone's head.
I'd been in the god-damn hospital for more than a month.
I still couldn't breathe properly without a machine. But thankfully Detective Tsukauchi managed to get me out of there before I literally exploded. A tube in my mouth was hidden by the huge oxygen mask I was required to wear and the machine was latched to my hip, attached to me like some walkie-talkie.
The first time Qamar saw the machines hooked up on me, she burst into screams of fear and horror, crying in a hysterical attempt to reach out for our mother.
She kept asking for them. Asking for mum. Asking for dad. Asking for our two other siblings.
Jamilah and Kolton. My older brother was her favorite sibling. Every time the door would swing open, her head whipped around, looking frantically for Kolton. Only for her to slump down in sadness when it wasn't him.
It broke me.
Jamilah had been older than me as well. She died saving my life. She lived up to the meaning of her name. She was truly beautiful; both in body and soul.
Qamar clung to me like I was her last lifeline. We were never close before. She was a baby and I'd been a child.
We didn't usually get along nonetheless... we had no other choice. I had no one else but her in the whole entire world and she had no one else but me.
I just didn't know how to tell her that.
How did you tell a two-year-old something like that? Would she even understand?
I was to be discharged today and taken to the hospital for regular checkups every week. Detective Tsukauchi had kindly taken it upon himself to take us in. He didn't even think twice about offering us his home.
We'd been warned about the utter chaos outside. Somehow my discharge date had been leaked to the press and the hospital was swarmed to the brim with paparazzi.
Great.
My family name was one that offered us a slight bit of power. We were a family known to have powerful quirks. My mum's quirk had been her amazingly impenetrable force fields that she could control at will and even cause explosive bombs with. My father was known for his telekinesis.
Jamilah controlled the weather and could summon natural disasters or lightning at will, effectively disabling anyone coming close.
Kolton was a master at telepathy, effectively hearing and controlling the thoughts and minds of the people around him.
They'd been training to be pro-heroes. The best of the best.
So how the hell did did someone manage to make them all fall?
It was simple.
The person who'd attacked us had the disastrous ability to absorb someone's powers and effectively nullify them. He could not use the quirk, but he did get excessively stronger with each one he absorbed.
He'd cut us down one by one. He'd targeted us individually and separated. When we had been all alone.
My father in the yard barbecuing god knows what. My mother in the kitchen making a snack. My brother in the garage, rocking away on his guitar making songs he could sing to us when we least expected it.
And finally my sister Jamellah, who'd been the first one to scream.
Her heightened senses immediately detected something amiss and she'd been the one to alert me something had gone drastically wrong.
She'd slammed into my room, her stomach a ripped up bloody mess.
She'd been eighteen.
She screamed at me to run, shoving me back and towards Qamar's room.
Her fists in knots by her side, her eyes wild and frightened, I'd ran in terror.
Her newer screams of agony forced me to fling my sleeping baby sister in the closet, hiding her best I could.
I had barely shoved the closet shut when he had walked in, dragging me sister in by her hair, a pool of blood trailing behind him.
She'd gone deathly quiet and she wasn't breathing. Her eyes were trained up at the ceiling staring at nothing.
I couldn't even scream. Because if I did, Qamar would wake up and she'd be dead in seconds.
My hands shook and my eyes were clouded in pained tears.
I tried activating my quirk to no avail and then decided to run when hope was dwindling.
He'd thrown Jamellah away and raced after me, throwing himself out of the window I'd escaped from and leaping after me like a panther.
Years of defensive training kicks in and I'm fighting for my life, screaming at anyone to help.
That's when he'd grabbed me in chokehold and dragged my struggling body to the kitchen to finish me off.
But not before I saw my dad's mangled corpse on the terrance and my brother's head lying sideways, his body no where to be found.
The shock had forced the nausea away, but seeing my decapitated mother on the floor had made me throw up.
And then the rest is history.
The police didn't need to tell me that it was an inside job, that the person responsible was someone who knew us personally.
I wasn't an idiot.
He'd targeted us so perfectly so precisely, that no one had even known something was wrong until they were dead.
He'd murdered my brother first.
He'd known my brother could read minds. He'd known our quirks beforehand.
So now the only person I trusted in the world was a two year old child.
I dress in clothes recovered from my house. It'd been cleaned and restored. The bodies recovered and buried.
The funeral was null and void. They'd been buried without a funeral, fearing for the lives of me and my sister. Fearing he'd come back to finish the job at my family's funeral.
I had yet to visit their graves.
That organization was going to die.
And I swore It'd be by my hands.
I'd cut the head off the snake like they dared do to my brother.
I haul my sister into my arms and instantly the police forces mares a wall of protection for us against the microphones and new reporters desperate for a comment from a sad little girl who'd had her life ripped from her.
The flashes and the shouts were so loud, Qamar starts to whine stuffing her head deep within the confines of my shoulder trying to hide.
Pictures were taken left and right and I inwardly cursed them all.
My eyes were red rimmed from the constant crying fit I always seemed to be in and they were strained from the lack of sleep.
I don't think I ever slept properly anymore. I was always being hunted. Always being strangled.
My family was constantly getting murdered.
It was a horror movie with no pause button.
We climb into the black police car and I strap my sister in sighing and readjusting my oxygen mask.
The scars on my neck were prominent as well as the green welts and purple bruises. They still hadn't healed properly.
Someone ducks in beside my sister's car seat and I stare at the man in shock, hands instantly out, my quirk ablaze and on, ready to defend Qamar.
"Easy there sparkle child." His voice was bored and monotone. His eyes stared at me in a pitying manner that made me want to punch him.
"Excuse me?" I snarl at him. "Who the hell are you?" I snap, aiming my electric fields in his direction. My voice was hoarse and scratchy, like I'd been smoking for sixty years.
"I am one of the pros assigned to protect you and your sister." He states calmly.
I give him a disbelieving look, staring at him top to bottom. He was a middle-aged dishevelled man who looked like he wanted to be anywhere but here.
"Hero name?" I ask.
"Eraser head." He muses putting his head on the seat beside him and closing his eyes.
"Identification?"
He opens his eyes and gives me a really? look but my stare is firm.
He reaches into his pocket and hands me a card I knew was real from my parents.
I nod and hand it back to him. "Thanks." I mutter and lean back looking at my sister who was staring up at me eyes wide.
"A cute one." He nods and the forced tone in his voice makes me crack a snicker.
"Are you finding amusement in my suffering girl?" He ponders.
"Yes actually." I tell him, crossing my arms.
"Oh look. You two are getting along fathomously." Detective Tsukauchi grins at us in amusement and he gets into the car.
Someone in a hero costume sits in the front and I recognize him as Present Mic.
"Hey kid. Sorry for your loss." He says smiling sadly at me. "Your parents were amazing heroes. Your siblings made them proud."
I nod slowly at him. "Thank you." My voice was muffled from the mask but he still understood it and shoots me a smile.
"Why the extra protection?" I ask out loud.
The heroes and the detective share a look and I stare at them deadpanned.
"We have reason to believe that the organization targeting your family might strike again. Today." The detective tells me.
I stare at them in horror.
"We are taking you to U-A where you will stay until we can safely get you and you sister out undetected. U-A is known for it's protective barriers. We intend on disguising you two properly to keep both the detective and you kids safe." Eraser Head tells me, looking at me through his yellow goggles that he places on his eyes.
"There will be police escorts of course." The detective tries to reassure me. "We brought an extra pro just in case."
My lips purse slightly and I nod, "If they're in any sort of vehicle-" I say my eyes suddenly swirling with blue electricity. "-they'll be down faster then they can blink."
"You won't use your quirk unless you have my permission to." The detective orders. "But if you are in a life threatening situation for you or your sister you have my permission to attack."
I grimace but nod. Quirks could only be used on other people if you had a hero license or permission from a supervising pro-hero or officer. Otherwise you were labelled a vigilante and you were arrested.
"Ready?" The detective asks me as he starts up the car. My jaw grits and an arm curls protectively over my sister's car seat.
I meet his eyes in the car mirror giving him a nod.