After the gunshots were heard down the hall, Josiah had decided to take a walk. He saw the group of people gathered around the unconscious boy and decided to walk the other way but not before seeing a head of multicolored hair disappear into its room. Josiah remembered seeing that head of hair when he first got here. The girl who it belonged to had been pretty and Josiah had wanted to talk to her but figured it was best if he didn’t. Things didn’t go good when he liked someone.

The boy walked down the hall, focusing on putting one foot in front of the other, while watching the ground and pushing his hand against the wall as a guide. He didn’t see the cart sitting in his way and it barely registered when he ran into it, pushing the wheeled contraption feet from its resting spot. A nurse came out of a room and saw the cart was missing from where she left it and ran after Josiah, who was absentmindedly pushing it further and further away each time he made contact.

“Stop!” the nurse finally shouted as the boy accidentally pushed it with his leg again.

Josiah looked up at her shout and saw the cart scuttling away from him. “Sorry.” He said as the nurse ran around him and grabbed her property.

“Name.” She said as she picked up a tablet and pushed a button.

“Josiah Jones.” the boy answered, nervous as to what she was about to do to him.

The nurse typed in his name and read the information that popped up. She looked from the screen to Josiah and frowned slightly, then looked at him with a kind of pity.

“Be more careful.” was all she said as she pushed the cart back to the room she had been working in. Josiah looked down at his feet and then made sure his hand was still on the wall and began to walk again. There usually wasn’t any punishment for him once his chart was read.

Josiah’s power had always been active. The minute he was born, the doctor and nurses knew something was wrong. He moved very little and never seemed to know when he was being picked up or laid down. As he grew, Josiah noticed that he had to pay attention to his surroundings more than others. He couldn’t feel if he was wearing clothes, or if he was walking, or if someone was touching him. There were slight pressures if he pushed hard enough but other than that, he felt nothing.

When he had turned sixteen he decided to ask the girl he liked out on a date. They went to the movies and he couldn’t tell if he was holding her hand and didn’t feel her lips on his when they kissed as the movie played in front of them. The walk home had been the most embarrassing. It had started to rain, but instead of getting wet, the drops of water just slid off of him, leaving him perfectly dry, while his date got soaked. He couldn’t explain it well enough to her and the girl had gotten nervous and left without a real good bye.

Without being able to feel, Josiah had become depressed. He wanted to know what it was like to pick something up and know that it was in your hand. He wanted to feel the sharpness of a knife and have it cut him, or the fluffiness of snow and the cold that came from it. Instead, he was left in a world of sensory deprivation, only seeing, hearing, and smelling. He had no taste and he had no touch.

Josiah fell deeply into his depression. He couldn’t find the surface of his drowning mind. His body felt like a trap, a cage without a key that he couldn’t get out of and so he decided to end it. Josiah walked to an overpass and jumped into oncoming traffic. A semi hit him full force and instead of killing him, it jostled his bones a little. There was a pain there though and for the first time in his life, Josiah got a small bruise. He became addicted to the pain. All he wanted was to feel something and he had finally found a way to do that.

Reports of a boy flinging himself into traffic were spread immediately and police arrived on the scene an hour after his first jump. He didn’t feel when they handcuffed him or when they forcefully brought him to the ground as they were trying to guide him to the back of the car. He couldn’t feel their hands on him but tried his best to cooperate.

Thinking that their son was on drugs, his parents bailed him out of the little jail and brought him home, intent on sending him to rehab. When they wouldn’t listen to his reasoning, Josiah decided to run away. Before he made it out of his window a man appeared, floating in mid air. He told the boy about a facility that could help him to feel and Josiah jumped at the chance to be admitted to The Sphere.

He had been in this place for a couple of months but no real tests could be done on him. Needles didn’t break the barrier around his body and x-rays came back black, without outlining his insides. Josiah had started to see a therapist to help mend his mind and it was working but he still had days. As he walked the hall, Josiah felt a tinge of happiness knowing that one of the doctors was working on a way to penetrate the invisible second skin around him.

Another alarm blared down the hall and Josiah looked around to make sure it wasn’t because of him. There was a slight rumble going through the building, which stopped after a minute or two. A squad of nurses came rushing by with the girl with multicolored hair strapped to a gurney, hands bleeding freely, and arms bruised.

A chess piece rolled down the hall beside Josiah and he watched it go the opposite direction of the unconscious girl being wheeled away to God knew where. A boy the same age as Josiah with symbols etched into his hands walked out of his room to see what was going on and saw Josiah standing there.

“What’s happening now?” He asked looking both ways down the hall.

“The girl with the hair got taken.” Josiah said, trying to have confidence. The boy wasn’t used to being approached and talk to since being in The Sphere. Most attendants and nurses left him alone if he stayed out of their way and many of the patients didn’t want to talk to anyone about anything.

“Another one bites the dust.” The etch handed boy said turning. “I hate this place.”

The door shut and Josiah began to walk again. He didn’t necessarily hate this place. They were helping him after all, but it did feel stifling in a way. So many people with abilities and none of them were allowed to use them, unless they were permanently on like his. It didn’t seem like a bad place though. Maybe it was all about perspective Josiah thought. Maybe the other boy didn’t like it here because he couldn’t see what good work these people were doing for people like them.

Josiah continued to walk down the hall, content and happy that he was able to be in a place that was striving to break through his barrier so that he could be normal for the first time in his life.