A young, blond boy sat huddled on his bed, in his room that was no bigger than a closet. He heard many kids being jealous that he had his own room through the door, but they didn’t know how much of a curse it was. He was rarely allowed outside, the caretakers were afraid he’d hurt the other kids. They would never listen when he told them he could control his power just fine!

There were other kids way more violent and dangerous than him, and they weren’t treated like prisoners.

He hadn’t done anything wrong, it wasn’t fair! He wanted to have a friend, but no one was allowed to go near him. Even if they were allowed, everyone would be afraid of him. None of them bothered to look past the power and see the boy.

His hand spasmed, he winced. He’d figured out he needed to let some power out regularly, otherwise it overloaded his nervous system and made him twitch like that. The longer he waited, the worse it would be. He hadn’t tried, but he guessed he could electrocute himself if he waited long enough.

He let some sparks fly out of his hand, but it wasn’t enough. His hand cramped, demanding to let more out.

The boy stood on his bed and examined his obstacles. The bed and the dresser filled the small room, but he could dash back and forth; up and down if he had to. Electricity filled the muscles in his legs and he ran through the room, only a few feet wide. He jumped on his bed, jumped on the dresser, jumped against the ceiling, and bounced against the wall.

“Hey, quiet down in there!” someone yelled, distracting him, causing him to run into the corner of the dresser and cry out. He fell to the ground, electricity leaving him. The area around his eye hurt. He felt it with his hand, there was something warm and sticky. His eyebrow was bleeding. It ran down along the side of his face. He crawled to the door and knocked on it. 

“Help!” he called out. “I’m bleeding.”

“Yeah, yeah. We’ll see during your bathroom break,” one of the caretakers answered.

He teared up. “No, I really am bleeding, please!”

“We won’t fall for it, you little freak.”

He curled up against the door and cried, blood continuing to pour out of his eyebrow.

When they let him out for his bathroom break, they discovered he was, in fact, not lying. They pulled the rubber gloves on him again and let him go to the bathroom before helping him. 

He looked in the mirror. Half his face was covered in blood, interrupted by tear streaks. He had a black eye. His hair had blood in it, too.

Stupid rubber gloves, as if he could only use his power with his hands.

He sat on the counter in the kitchen while one of the caretakers, one of the nicer ones, tried to treat his wound and clean his face. She’d given him an ice pack for his eye and was stitching his eyebrow. 

As he sat there, he heard some other kids excitedly talking about an adoption day. He knew it would mean nothing to him. They never let him out of his room during those days, they didn’t want any of the potential parents to see a little freak like him.

“What kind of families do you think will come?” one asked the other.

“Rich ones, I hope! Imagine if you were adopted by one of the richest families in the city.”

“Oh, like the Devins family? That would be cool!”

At least they had something to hope for. This boy would be happy with any decent parent adopting him and getting him out of here. He knew it wouldn’t happen, though. He’d have to wait until he was eighteen to leave this hell.