All my life I believed that I had never once broken a bone before. Now I wasn't sure. I wondered how long my powers had been manifested. When was the last time I had been ill? How many times had I thought that I cut myself only to see blood on unharmed skin? What kind of idiot had I been to overlook that?

I had considered myself lucky to be Powerless. The Powered were drafted by default for the army, made to fight and die in the sand or on the streets. Their carrot stick was the paltry consolation of a grandiose funeral and persona, while their task was to face the probability of brutal death every day. They were made to be fighting dogs.

From where I stood, a gawky nudist on the early morning sidewalk, I could see every reason to keep walking. My plan was simple. I would wait until the heat died down, grow out some facial hair, and start a new life. I couldn't use my bank accounts and I couldn't use my name. Not if I wanted to be certain of dodging the draft.

I was pretty conspicuous in my present shape. If the police picked me up now, it would be over before it began. There was no good place to grab free clothes, though. Stealing them brought its own obvious risks.

"Aaah, there's a naked man in my house in the middle of the night," I deliriously cackled. I was giddy. A little light-headed, even. It seemed I might really be in shock, I thought, but there was nothing to do about it presently. Maybe I wasn't thinking clearly, but these weren't significantly novel thoughts I was acting on. The belief I acted on now was a long-term cynicism towards people and their bullshit.

There was really only one option at this point; to impose myself upon the one person I could kind of trust. I knew where his house was. He'd invited me over once and he was probably going to live to regret that. I would have to feel bad about it later, though.

The streets were ghostly at this hour. Still, I had made it far enough out of the center city that there were unlit roads and bushes to duck behind when cars came by. No less than three miles away, I was sure that I could reach my destination.

As I was watching and cautiously proceeding, I heard someone call out. The light flipped on and he was almost hysterical. "What in the hell are you doin', crazy-ass white boy!?" There was a middle-aged black man with a cigarette on his lips, pointing at me from his porch. He was calling into the house for more to come and look. It wasn't every day that you saw something like this.

Naturally, I started running, swinging in the wind. There was garbage and glass on the side of the road, which confined me to sprinting on the asphalt and in the full view of the streetlights. More and more porch lights began to snap on as a consequence.

Moving at full speed, I could just barely keep ahead of the few people loud enough to carry the commotion forward. It didn't take too much effort to get ahead. Once I got farther away, their voices had dimmed enough so that nobody else was alerted. Although I was tiring myself at this pace, I was almost to the end. Ten solid minutes of running later, I was sure of it. If I could just get off the street, I would be home free.

Beyond the next empty lot and one wildly barking dog stood the unassuming little house that was my destination. It was less than a block away, now, but it was about to seem a lot farther.

Blue lights came around a turn at the road's end, directly ahead of me. Without time to think, I dove to the side over a short fence. It didn't take me long to realize exactly which front yard I had thrown myself into, however. I heard the chain draw taut and snap less than a second later, and I regretted my whole entire life. 

The dog could be heard only by the rattle of the chain trailing it in its' single-minded dash. Laying flat on my belly in the dirt, I did the singular thing I could think to do. I did it reluctantly as hell, but I had no other choice.

"I can heal, I can heal, I have superpowers," I chanted to myself. Then, I felt it. The teeth clamped down on the pink fleshy arm I had offered up in exchange for my face and the dog ripped it right open. Using my free hand to muffle my own screams, I tried to keep the noise to a minimum. I tried in vain to go with the dog's jerking, tearing motions, and let him drag me away from the fence. The sweeping blue glow was washing like a wave down the street, sure to reveal me as it drew near.

"You stupid damn pitbull," I hissed, beating him over the head while he growled. "Gah!" 

Crawling as fast as I could and watching my arm gush blood in disgust, I made it around the edge of the house just as the cruiser passed by. They went on without stopping. In relief, I breathed a pained sigh. Loud enough, apparently, that the lights inside the house came on above me.

Alerted by the combination of dog growls and strange moans, they were on their porch in a flash. I swore under my breath as the door swung shut and their footsteps hit the dirt out front. My panicked attempts to dislodge the dog's teeth from my arm were not moving fast enough, but I had managed to stand. In a final desperate move, I began to spin my entire body. The dog's legs picked up into the air just as I heard the owners exclaim. "Shit! Lord Jesus! What the hell is this!?"

"I'm sorry!" I cried, slamming the dog into the side of the house with its momentum. The instant it let go, my bare ass vaulted the next three or four fences, disappearing into the night.

At long last, I had arrived, wheezing and half-drunk on blood loss.

I truly was sorry.

Having snuck around the trash cans and the two cars that were in the driveway, I came to the back door of the small white house. I knew that my friend slept in the back of the house, so I was certain I could get his attention without alerting the rest of his family. I understood that he still lived with his parents, but I had never met them. He had invited me over just to play video games once as a bid to get me into his Church group. That was all.

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With several heaping gallons of embarrassment and mortification, I knocked gently on the door.

He was probably asleep, so I knocked and waited a few more times. I upped the volume as much as I dared to and gritted my teeth. After that, I simply stood shivering and listened. There was a stirring, I thought. It could have been nothing. 

"Did he have a cat?" I asked myself. "Oh, God. He didn't have a dog, did he?"

"Walter?" A timid voice emanated from behind the door.

"Markus," I hissed. I was elated. "Is that you?"

I could see his head pop up in the door's window, behind the screen. He took one look at me and his eyes widened. I tried to look pitiful of course, but it occurred to me just then that I was not only naked but covered in blood. With no injuries.

He just said my name again, this time slower. "Walter..."

"Look, man, I've been hurt. This is my blood, okay? Please, help me. I don't have anywhere else to go."

Just as quickly he snapped out of his fear of me and into his fear of doing the wrong thing. God bless the eager to help.

As soon as the door opened, I rushed inside. To my huge excitement, we were in the laundry room. There was a sink beside me and spare clothes lying everywhere. This would work perfectly.

Markus was already trying to assess my wounds, but he couldn't find them. Deciding they must have been hidden under the blood, his mind leaped straight to the next step. "I'll get my parents. We'll drive you to the ER, Walter."

He was almost out of the room before my hand gripped his arm, stopping him. I told a baffled Markus, "No... We can't get anyone else involved." 

When I began to wash myself off in the sink, his eyes turned from worry to fear again. "Why?" He kept searching for my wounds, only growing more and more concerned.

"Because... I'm in some trouble, man. I don't need help from the police or the hospital, I just need to get out of town."

"Where are you hurt?!" He demanded to know.

"A dog bit my arm, but it's healed. This is my blood, dammit!" I cringed, trying to keep my voice low. "I'm just... Oh, hell... Dammit to hell, Markus..." He was staring at me. I decided to just come right out and say it. "I'm a Super now. A healer. If you don't believe me, you can feel free to stab me with a fork and by God I'm naked because I got caught in a fire and you cannot imagine what that feels like. I left the scene of the fire because if I had let the police process me, I would never be able to dodge the draft. Do you understand? This is the worst day of my freaking life, okay? I know that we don't know each other that well or anything, but I would be unbelievably... blessed... if you could just keep quiet, let me finish getting this blood off my skin, steal some damn clothes, and get the fuck out of here."

He was stunned. I was exasperated. When he finally got the mind to speak, all he could say was, "Okay." 

With that, I picked up my pace again. I was nearly finished washing. "Thank you. You have no idea how much this means to me. I promise to send you a Christmas Card when I've got my new identity so we can keep in touch."

He sheepishly laughed. "Yo, this is crazy. I'm sorry... I just." I could see that he was thinking it all through. Slowly, he was coming to believe that the blood wasn't in fact mine. That it was... that it could only possibly be... someone else's. I could see it on his face, and I couldn't really blame him.

His arms were tensing up. I knew, given any more time, he would tackle me to the damn ground. As such, I made the only sane move left. The first move. 

I grabbed a screwdriver off the shelf above the sink and stabbed my hand. Instantly, it hurt twice as bad as the dog's bite. Piercing flesh with a blunt flat-head turned out be harder than expected, having to break through bone and tendon on its way down.

Still, Markus' sheer confusion bought me the precious seconds I needed to show him. I threw down the screwdriver and quickly dunked my hand in the sink. He was able to see then, that I was unharmed.

"I wouldn't have believed either," I said, grimacing. "But I still think you're a bastard."

While stunned silence reigned, I rifled through the clothes stacked up on the dryer. As I was muttering hallelujah, finally putting on a pair of underpants, Markus painstakingly connected the dots. "You must have had it all along," he said. "That's gotta be one in a million, bro. You say you survived being caught in a fire? That's like a real miracle."

"I suppose so. I would have preferred that God didn't light me on fire in the first place, of course. Like, no shit. But I guess that's a pretty tired old complaint."

"Yeah."

'"Man, what do they call that again?" I found a shirt and jeans. I realized shoes would be trickier. "It's like a special term for a type of theology. I told you about it when I was over last time."

Markus was having a surreal experience. But he did remember after all. "Theodicy." He nodded rapidly. "But what does that have to do with anything?"

I laughed. "Nothing. That's the point. There's no grand scheme here. I have a problem, Markus, and I've got to solve it, regardless of where it came from, ultimately. Any lesson here has got to be practical because I'm sick of being taught philosophical lessons. The guy who lit me of fire was into that. But I'm not into that shit today, you hear me."

"I just think maybe you're not seeing straight. There's always a plan, right? It feels like you're running away."

"I knew that's what you were thinking. That's why I'm telling you. Don't you dare let anyone know that I was here, you got that? You understand? This is my choice."

Blue lights made another drive-by through the neighborhood, briefly flashing through the screen door behind me and stopping my heart. Markus seemed to be thinking deeply, but he at least set me at ease with another nod. "Just be careful, man."

I gave him the most awkward hug of my life and thanked him. "I wouldn't have made it without you."

"I'm just glad I could help."

I really looked up to him for that. Maybe there was something to this whole religion thing. Pure goodwill and everything. But with that, it was time to move on. With a pat to the shoulder and a manly nod, I left Markus behind.

Hot damn, I was one lucky bastard, narrowly scraping by.

The moment I stepped into view of the street, the sirens exploded. Cop cars had been waiting for me the entire time I realized, no doubt having learned from the folks with the dog that I was hiding nearby. They didn't waste a second stepping out of their car, guns drawn. They were more than ready to shoot.

So much for luck.

Officer friendly and officer friendliest started screaming at me to put my hands in the air. Which I did, of course. 

I'd had my hand and windpipe crushed, my entire body immolated, my arm mauled and of course there was the matter of being stabbed by a screwdriver. As it stood, I had no desire to be shot.

I wasn't going to run or fight back. I had been counting on Maximal and the police's laziness. Part of me had hoped beyond hope that he would simply let me go. It wasn't really supposed to be his problem! Cops let the feds sort out the runaways, usually. But instead, he had decided to start a city-wide manhunt. God knows why. 

As the police cautiously moved in to handcuff me, I could only stare into the pretty flashing lights. I wondered vaguely if public indecency would put me on the sex offender's registry. That would suck.

I had been so close, I thought. So close to escaping it all. 

Yet, I had failed. And there could only be one consequence. The very thing I feared most in the entire world. Permanent entrapment to society.

On that very day, it was decided. I, Walter Watson, would become a SuperHero.