Have you ever been to the beach? Most people know that if you decide to take a step in the ocean it’s important to keep your eye on the shore. It can be easy to lose track of where you are when you’re having fun. One moment you’re going for a swim, collecting shells or just trying to avoid a wave. You look up to try and see if you can spot your beach blanket, only to find yourself pushed somewhere down the coast.

That’s the dangerous part of a current. When you don’t feel it, it just takes you.

I don’t know how far I drifted. How far my current dragged me. It was hard to focus, hard to pay attention to anything. I struggled to piece together the last few moments before my world fell apart. Before my body seemed to burn away, along with everything around me.

I must have travelled for miles stewing in a jumble of thoughts before I felt that same tingling pulse of electrical current in the air. I couldn’t quite see where. In fact, I couldn’t see anything. But I could feel it. The world was like flashes of contained fury vibrating in place, pierced by large gaps of nothing. There were objects, but it was hard to say what anything could be. It either was, or it wasn’t.

Something below me was. I had to know what.

When I finally tried moving my body things started to come together. I knew where my limbs were, where they should have been, but nothing seemed to work. It was like having phantom limb syndrome, only with everything. So what do you do when your body is missing? I stopped trying to move the way I was used to. Instead I thought about the first time I used my powers. I thought about Carla, and the way I took her life.

There was energy gathering in the air all around me. I knew the sensation well. It was comforting, even. Like riding a bike, or talking to an old friend. When I had a real body I would try and focus it to a single point, then release it like one of those snake-in-a-can pranks. It was never about containing the energy I drew in. I just held it long enough to direct it where I wanted it to go.

This was different, but almost the same. I felt coiled to pounce. Below me was a world of possibility.

My first jump nearly killed me. I think.

It wasn’t quite like falling, but there was definitely a sensation of movement that left me disoriented. A single lightning strike burst from the heavens. It was incredibly draining. I felt parts of me split off and arc through the sky, ripping energy from my being down ionically charged roads I never wanted to travel. It probably made for one hell of a light show.

The power transformer I hit was demolished instantly. I felt the spark of an explosion in the air, and as it died the world around me suddenly came to life. I was suddenly tethered to the modern world again. Rejuvenated. Every power line travelled somewhere, and I could see it all like an endless highway.

The storm had pulled me far from Bastion, probably miles away from where friends and family fought to the death. From where my body turned to dust. I could feel power lines branched out like a web across a network. Thin ones that passed electricity to small towns. Large ones that stretched across highways over the continent. I reached out to touch them, but was struck by a sudden fear. If I were energy, electricity, could I be dispersed into nothing? Could I be grounded? Drained?

I reminded myself I was living on borrowed time. I should have died standing. Fighting. Reaching out to touch a single line I felt strangely in control. Maybe just being here, I could still make a difference. I could explore this world freely. Find out what happened. Maybe there was still a way I could help. I just had to be careful.

I learned a lot of tricks after that. At first I stuck to exploring roads along the grid, like a wallflower in high school. The first thing you learn in the Federation is that every gift is a double edged sword, and I didn’t want to push my luck and fade into nothing trying to explore some suburban two story. There were limits to every power.

If it could conduct an electrical current, I could move through it. Appliances became safe havens that I could reside in. Storms could help restore my lost energy, but I could drain power from batteries or power generators too. It was a lot like being a ghost, if ghosts only haunted things like toasters or hardware store generators.

I spent a week as an electrical parasite in a ghost town, drawing life from where I could. Some days would just be a matter of testing the limits of what I could do. Through surveillance cameras I could inspect abandoned stores and roadways. Places that looked safe, but abandoned. Preventative evacuation was a big M.O. of the Federation. Everything was meticulously organized to help reduce panic and fear. You could tell people must have been scared leaving so much behind, but there was an order to it all. Minimal looting.

Other places were less lucky. There were signs of battle -- gunfire and superhuman alike. Burnt homes. Cars ripped apart, warped or shredded by some kind of force. Fires. It’s strange how long a fire can last. A busted up jeep could start a fire on one side of town that would take days to reach the other.

Most of the time it was stuff I could explain, or piece together. But every now and then I left with more questions than I had answers. Bodies bent or twisted in ways that didn’t make sense. A pack of bodies huddled in a dark corner, dried like husks left out for months in the sun. One town was entirely gone. Missing. The best angle I could catch was from a security camera at a highway gas station. It was like a black spot on the horizon. A second sun, setting as a shadow underneath the first.

Once, in half-collapsed wreckage of a shopping mall, I found survivors. They must have been family. A mother, father, and three kids. The oldest couldn’t have been more than a teenager. She carried the youngest, who was three or four at most. The group had just finished searching a clothing store when they’d wandered into Digital Boutique. The father was ruffling through the shelves, probably looking for batteries. Or anything useful, really.

I watched them from an old security camera as they scavenged through used handheld games. The group hadn’t seen a good bath in weeks but otherwise were no worse for the wear. Whoever mom and dad were, they had gotten good at scavenging. Tired but well fed the pair turned over every inch of the store while the kids helped themselves to some portable games.

Their hunting had almost come to an end when the father began struggling with a locked door at the far end of the store. Employees only. Jumping through the grid I felt an electronic security system that kept the door shut. The power had died long ago, setting the lock in place. It takes a small part of me to activate the mechanism for a brief moment, causing the father to stumble through the doorframe to the other side.

It’s a brief moment of respite for all of us. He called his family over to share the good news. Batteries. Stale snacks. Unopened games that had never made it to the display behind the counter. It was nice to let the weight of their good fortune and relief wash over me for a time.

I was too distracted to notice a group of men and women in emergency response attire make their way through the ruined mall. A mismatched collection of police officers, firemen, EMT, and military fatigues. It was hard to tell who they were or if they knew the family. These days almost anyone can walk around with a special forces uniform. All you needed to really do was find the body of a special forces officer.

The father spotted them right away. He took a lucky blind shot from a sidearm that clipped a police officer in the shoulder. The invaders fired in response, forcing the family to duck for cover in the back room. Electronic cases shattered in a violent mix of plastic and drywall that filled the air with dust. Too afraid to enter the family’s line of fire the invaders waited a moment for a member of their team to pull something from their bag.

There was some deliberation among the group. One of the men seemed to shout passionately before walking away with his hands in the air, argument defeated. The others kept their defensive position.

Cameras inside the electronics store were video only, leaving an eerie silence while the ringleader poured a bottle of something vigorously across the store. He shouted to the family, arms flailing in open furious gestures. The others turned away as their leader tossed a match into the store, causing a burst of light to blind my camera’s vision for a moment. I winced at the sudden bright flare.

Wait, could I wince? No. I changed to a security camera in the main hallway instead.

The fire grew strong and fast with plenty of fuel to burn. There was a visible tension as the group lingered just outside the store, watching the flames as it spread throughout the interior. Their leader was still screaming enthusiastically while the blaze continued to grow. Something pressurized must have gone off as a flashing spark caused the group to take another step back, only to finally retreat when licks of flame began to snake toward the store’s ceiling.

I waited as long as I could in that camera, watching for any sign of the family. When the fire slowly crept out of the electronics store I moved to another. I had to abandon the interior cameras as the interior of the building became impossible for me to traverse. While the mall became a pillar of black smoke I felt those copper highways running through the walls slowly fade away like the nervous system of some great beast.

From a security camera posted in the mall’s parking lot I watched as it bellowed dark ash for hours. No one ever came out.

I left that town just as aimless as I’d ever been. All of this power and nothing to show for it. Trapped, haunting whatever lens I can find just for the chance to watch over a world I was no longer a part of.

It was probably days before I saw another survivor. So many empty towns. Vacant cities. It didn’t seem worth searching for signs of normal life any more, so I went elsewhere. I was still determined to try and do something with whatever time I had been given.

When I arrived at the lonely Fort Derringer I didn’t know what to expect. If it weren’t for Zachary Gilbert, I may have lost my mind.