Strains

Prologue

The easiest part of my existence has been dying. I didn't see it coming, I didn't have to do anything, I didn't make a stupid decision, and I probably wouldn't have avoided it. I was in the back seat with my seatbelt on, so I did everything right.

Yeah, dying was always the easy part.

You never learn in church what I had to after I woke up in this damn place. That no matter how old you are, everyone that shows up from the living world has to go through the academy. It doesn't matter that you were four months away from a BA in English. Everyone goes through the academy.

The kicker is that no one ever graduates.

Only 'true heroes' get to graduate, and when there's no one needing saving, where's the chance to be a hero?

I wish someone could explain that to me—the logic in that. But the only people I get to rely on for information are the people who forced me to enroll in this damn place. Like military recruiters back in the living world, they sold me on a dream, eternal glory. My little twenty-something life could mean something and I could be a superhero, with genuine powers and everything. I could make a difference, once I proved myself capable of using my powers and graduated.

Did they have to lie? No, they chose to.

Everyone has a superpower they have to learn to control. They're all the same, the powers, I mean. All organized into four boxes that make up the four dorms everyone lives in. But strains, that's what they call the powers here (because why be cool when you can be lame), all tie everyone together differently. The fastest runner rooming with the fastest talker, the strongest arms sitting beside the strongest stomach, things like that. You know, because everyone has a strain they have to control even when it sucks.

Unless you're me.

If you're me, then your whole existence sucks, you don't have a strain and you're stuck living in a basement, alone, with no one to complain to but this guy Matthew who thinks everything will be fine as long as you stand up straight. As if my erect spine is going to keep the jerks around me from beating me out of alignment. Still, I'm here. Why, why am I here? Well, everyone enrolls in the academy and no one ever graduates.

I guess if you bothered to withstand my complaints so far, you might be interested to know who I am. My name is Elizabeth, and I'm everyone and no one at all.