Once he had made it to the back of the parking lot Jake began to move more quickly across the sports fields behind his school.

Jake carefully observed his surroundings to make sure that no one was paying attention to him. The fewer people that got the same idea the safer he would be.

Jake only saw one other person running towards the forest. A girl that he knew was in his homeroom class. She was on the other side of the field from him but a few things stood out immediately. For one she was essentially glowing golden. She was moving far faster than made logical sense, and Jake swore he could see the tips of elvish ears poking out from her hair.

Furthermore, running up her arm, Jake could see three glowing lights. Focusing more on the lights, one green and two yellow, Jake was surprised to be able to feel the intent behind each similar to his own symbols. The green one felt comforting and warm, the top yellow empowering, and the bottom yellow harsh and hot.

Jake pulled down his sleeve to cover one of the symbols on his arm and was pleased to see that it no longer gave off the feeling it did before. "I should probably find a way to cover these up as soon as I can," he thought to himself.

After making it to the end of the sports fields Jake stepped into the massive forest that sits adjacent to the fields. With practiced ease, he quickly weaved his way through the thick brambles until he reached a sturdy tree covered in carvings, taking a moment to trace his finger along one of the carvings longingly Jake continued past the massive tree.

A few minutes later Jake came across a second rather large tree. It took a few minutes of looking but he eventually found a rope carefully camouflaged as a vine wrapping around the trunk.

Tugging on it Jake felt a bit of resistance before the rest of a stirrup style rope ladder fell out of the tree. Jake smiled fondly looking up into the canopy as he tested his weight against the ladder.

It had been almost three years since he had climbed this ladder, but just from feeling it in his hands, Jake could tell that it had been kept in good shape.

Jake put his foot into the bottom loop before beginning his ascent up the ladder. The trip up was just as scary as he had remembered with the sturdy rope swaying with the weight of his body.

Eventually, he reached the top of the ladder and pulled himself carefully up onto a rather large platform with several trees supporting it.

Testing with his foot to make sure the wood wasn't going to crumble under him as he moved across it. Jake noticed some much newer planks mixed in with the older ones.

After making sure it was structurally safe Jake relaxed and sat down with his back against the central tree holding the platform.

Jake remembered the summer he had helped build the treehouse. Helped an overstatement for the amount of work he actually did, as he was only nine at the time, but it was a blast. As quickly as he had fallen into reminiscing, however, Jake stood up knowing he could not afford to get distracted.

He began to pull up the rope ladder up to the platform, making sure to carefully slot it into its container so that it could be pulled down again by someone on the ground.

Checking his phone again, Jake saw that it had taken him almost a half hour to get to the treehouse and there was now only about ten minutes before the estimated arrival time.

In the ten minutes, Jake decided to try as much as possible with his new abilities. It wasn't entirely noticeable at the time but he could definitely feel a difference in his body after he absorbed the battery, it was odd, almost like a buzz in his core, he could feel it pushing against its containment waiting to be released into the world.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Deciding that might as well be where he started experimenting, Jake closed his eyes a moment to center himself and let out a deep breath. After he was sure he was ready Jake began trying to access the buzz.

It was surprisingly simple and after less than ten seconds of effort, Jake could feel the energy begin to stir. Focusing on that energy he began to lead it out of its containment. The second it left, what he could only assume was the pool of elemental energy, everything changed.

It felt as if a wall had been broken. It became effortless to move the energy out of its pool and into his body.

Now that he could move around the energy Jake brought some of it to his hand and tried to move it outside of his body. This seemed to be significantly harder as the energy was apparently completely blocked by his skin.

After a few minutes of focusing, Jake began to feel an odd tingling from his hand. when he opened his eyes he was pleased to see little arcs of electricity sporadically discharging from his hand. Deciding he might as well experiment more, Jake tried doing something a bit more extreme. Gathering up more energy into his palm, Jake struck at the air in front of himself while also imagining the lightning flying out of his hand.

*CRACK*

A massive arc of white-hot lightning shot from his hand and hit a tree in its path. Jake was disappointed that the full result of the arc was only a lot of noise and a small little black burn spot on the tree, but he figured with more refinement he would be able to make this power more deadly.

At the same time, however, he was also grinning like a madman. “That was so FUCKING awesome!” Jake screamed in his head.

Jake began to experiment further with the lightning pool. He quickly realized that while the source certainly did not, the lightning once outside his body largely followed the laws of physics. Unless he focused on directing it, the arc would almost always immediately attach itself to the ground. He was also able to arc lightning between his hands by projecting it from one hand and absorbing it with the other, but there was a significant loss of energy, presumably from the light and heat it created while traveling through the air.

All the glee Jake felt from having literal superpowers was sucked out of him when he felt something change in the air around him. He quickly checked his phone and sure enough, the time was exactly an hour after the first gray slate message.

After the air came the noises. Probably about a mile away from where he was he could hear a piercing inhuman shriek. He then began to hear movement all around him in the forest.

At this point, Jakes's hands, which were still a moment ago, began to shake. I hope choosing the forest as a spot to hide wasn't a mistake… Jake thought to himself.

After a few moments, all the noise began to die out. The shrieking stopped and the forest once again regained its sense of calm.

Jake was just about to let out a sigh of relief when he suddenly froze, then with monumental effort, he shoved himself abruptly into the center of the platform. This action was performed just in time as the space where he was previously seated now housed a small furry creature.

If he was being honest the winged furry little squirrel creature that was currently hissing at him was quite cute, but his mind had no time for thoughts like that as he watched stunned in place as the ball of fluff flung itself at him again.

Whipping out his hand in pure instinct Jake could feel the elemental pool inside him stir and then: *ZAP*, a bolt of lightning flew from his hand and impacted the wing of the little creature.

With a pained cry, the thing fell right out of the sky and began to twitch on the platform under it. After a moment it stilled. Jake stood stunned as he felt the adrenaline begin to flow out of his body.

He slumped down, suddenly exhausted, just in time to watch the corpse of the creature dissolve into little motes of light and float up into the sky, leaving nothing behind.

Jake sat for a moment just staring at where the creature had been. He could feel his eyes get heavy as the last of the adrenaline, that had been present without him even noticing since the first screen appeared, drained from his body. At first, he fought it, he knew that it was dangerous to fall asleep in such a potentially hostile place. But it was a losing battle.

Not even a moment after Jake passed out.