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Not everyone who develops meta-human powers becomes a superhero or a criminal. Most simply want to have a normal life.
High school student Serenity “Ren” Miller used to have that. In fact her life was pretty great. She came from a rich family, had a large home and lots of friends. She was popular and was one of the best cheerleaders her school had ever seen. She was smart and was already on track for a full scholarship at a top college.
But on one fateful day, Ren’s perfect life all came crashing down.
After discovering her father was having an affair, Ren ran off in shock and disgust. She was so blinded by her own tears that she didn’t even notice she had run onto the road. She didn’t even see the car coming.
Ren was immediately rushed to the hospital. The doctors managed to save her life and did their best to treat her injuries. Unfortunately, due to swelling in her brain, Ren wound up spending several weeks in a medically induced coma.
When she finally awoke, her life was turned upside down. Not only because her fathers secret had come out and her mother was filing for divorce, but also because of the little green creature that climbed onto the foot of her bed. Ren’s blind panic confused everyone. She was claiming to see a monster and lashing out at thin air. Ren thought everyone had gone insane. Why weren’t they doing anything? There was a gremlin on her bed but everyone was acting like they didn’t even see it! She only calmed down slightly after she battered it over the head with a bed pan and it scurried away somewhere. But she was still panicking enough that her doctor warranted sedating her. Once again, Ren fell asleep.
The doctors became concerned that Ren had suffered some brain damage after her accident and was now hallucinating. True, this was a world where super humans were known to exist. But brain damage after a major head trauma was simply a more logical answer. No one really considered that there may be more at work here.
Concern only grew when Ren awoke and continued to rant about the monster in the corner (and then monsters) and her parents eventually and reluctantly agreed to have her admitted to a specialist psychiatric hospital for treatment. It was during the several months Ren spent here that she began to realize that the creatures she was seeing had no intention of harming her. In fact they actually seemed to want to help her. She slowly began trying to communicate with them. Mostly with the little gremlin that she had first seen after waking up. She named him Scar, because of the scars over his left eye. She didn’t understand a word scar was saying as he seemed incapable of speaking English and instead spoke his own bizarre language. He did seem to understand what she was saying though, for the most part, and Ren learned that he and his friends would do whatever she told them. Again, for the most part.
Ren was initially concerned that she had indeed gone insane. No one else could ever see these things she was seeing. But then they started to actually interact with the world around them, picking things up, opening doors and eating any kind of food they could get their hands (or respective appendages) on. Maybe she wasn’t so crazy after all. But no one would believe that if she kept telling them she saw little monsters. So she decided to pretend. She would tell them what they wanted to hear. The treatment had worked and she no longer saw things that weren’t there.
It seemed like young Ms Miller had made a full recovery and she was released to return home with her parents. Unfortunately, news of Ren’s stay in “the loony bin” had spread. Everyone now looked at her like she was still insane. This theory was backed up when she was occasionally caught seemingly talking to herself. The once popular girl now became a social pariah. No one at school wanted to be around her, except for her two best friends. It was quite a step down for Ren and she admits that if it wasn’t for these two friends, she may well have gone off the deep end and really lost her mind.
Her friends, Cassidy and Aiko, became the only people Ren felt comfortable enough with to tell about the creatures. They had noticed all the strange things happening around Ren lately that were actually the result of the invisible creatures getting up to mischief. They proved surprisingly OK with their friends news. After she assured them that they weren’t dangerous of course.
Cassidy dubbed the creatures Ren’s “minions” after their tendency to (mostly) follow her orders like she was some kind of overlord. Aiko, a certified genius and comic book geek, came up with a couple of theories about the minions origins. The first of these theories, and the one that Ren likes the most, is that they actualy inhabit a parallel universe or pocket dimension and Ren’s powers simply act like a gateway for them to enter and partially interact with our world, which would explain why they only seem to appear within a certain range of Ren and vanish when they get too far away. The second theory, which Ren doesn’t like at all, is that Ren is somehow creating the creatures herself. Like they’re a figment of her imagination given solid form. Partially anyway.
Whatever the truth is, with her friends support, Ren has come to terms with her new life and is learning to regain some semblance of normality in her life. There does however remain one speed bump on the road to normality.
A large, terrifying speed bump she has come to refer to as “the dark one”.
The dark one first appeared in a series of nightmares Ren had about a creature that looked like a tall, elongated version of her beloved Scar and his fellow gremlins. But while the gremlins had a playful innocence to their mischievous nature, the dark one oozed malice and filled Ren with terror. She comforted herself with the knowledge that it was just a dream. This comfort was not to last though. One night, while studying late at the library, Ren noticed the usual racket created by the minions had quieted down. She looked up to find that they had all gone. She didn’t remember the last time she was truly alone. But she was far from alone. The lights went out and Ren found herself in almost complete darkness. A chill came over her as she began to realize that something was very wrong. And then out of the darkness stepped a figure. An immensely large figure.
Ren forgot to breath as she realised who, or rather what this was. The Dark One!
It loomed over her with it’s menacing, psychotic grin, breathing the scent of death on her face. Ren felt paralysed by the creatures gaze. She wanted to run and hide. She wanted to scream out in sheer terror. But she was too scared that if she moved or made a sound, the creature would be on her and her life would be over. And then it was gone. The lights came back on and the dark one was gone, seemingly in the blink of an eye. The only noise Ren heard was the sound of Scar, whimpering beneath a nearby table, seemingly as terrified as she was.
After that terrifying night, Ren tried to go about her life, pretending as though nothing had ever happened. Maybe it was just a bad dream she told herself. Maybe she was just hallucinating like the doctors thought. But deep down she knew the truth. The dark one was real. She saw the monster lurking in the shadows several more times. Each time as terrifying as the first.
Ren continues to have nightmares about the dark one. She dreams about it killing her.
She worries that she has unleashed something terrible on the world. Worse still, she worries that same thing will eventually take her life. And what happens then? Will the dark one fade away with her? Or will it finally be free in the world?
All Serenity Miller ever wanted was a normal life.
What she got was far from normal.
@Nug said:
Loving your tiny bots! Very cool concept! When working with a wide piece i find it easier to select everything and move it all over till i get what I’m working on in the main view. Thinking about it though that’s probably what you had to do anyways, right? I don’t think its possible to work in landscape view.
Had I remembered that I could actually do that and if I wasn’t a complete and utter idiot I would probably have done that.
*Facepalm
I never use that feature though, so it didn’t even occur to me.
To most people, Baron Lander seems to be just a slightly eccentric old man with an admitted passing interest in aliens. But what few realize is that this “passing interest” is actually an ever increasing obsession.
The Baron knows that aliens live among us, masquerading as humans and even super humans.His interest has become a covetous lust for as much advanced alien technology as he can lay his greedy hands on in the belief that it can bring him power. Far more than he already has.Lander has been a continual thorn in the side of Comet and a number of other alien heroes for some time now. While he has acquired quite a large collection of otherworldly technology his schemes have been mostly foiled. It has been his connection to the British nobility (as well as his vast wealth) that has helped him avoid spending time behind bars, not to mention keeping his less than legal affairs out of the public eye.
