The three track athletes surrounded me, and the crowd of students kept me from running away. Everyone was silent, observing to see who would make the first move.

"Which one of you will get knocked out first?" I asked my opponents. They all gritted their teeth at the taunt.

From behind, one of the guys took his chance and attacked with a punch. Spinning on my toes, I grabbed his arm, throwing him into the guy directly before me. The third lad landed a blow on my left cheek. It sounded like a snap on contact and burned almost as hot as the sun. I ducked his next jab and pushed him in the chest. He crashed into the table just as the other two got up. The frustration burned brightly in their eyes, and I couldn't help but feel a bit cocky that I was winning.

Just as my body was settling into conflict, a teacher's whistle overpowered the rising excitement of the crowd, and he separated each of the fighters. A few other teachers told the other kids to leave and return to what they were doing. There were a few disappointing groans as the students left. All the adrenaline I had built up was depleted instantly when I saw the cold looks on the teachers' faces. The three boys and I were taken to the principal's office without a word.

It was a quick walk through the halls lined with green lockers and mostly empty classrooms. Many of the students would have been in the courtyard where the fight occurred or in the cafeteria.

When we reached the principal's office, one teacher told us she would like to see me first. I opened the door to the warm room with the sun sifting through the half-closed blinders. A blue rug, which matched the color of the walls, was in between two wooden chairs facing the principal's desk. Mrs. February sat behind the desk, fingers tightly knitted and resting close to her keyboard. She was a lovely lady with long red hair tied in a ponytail and was always smiling in her two-piece suit. She invited me to sit in one of the chairs and, as I did so, had a concerned look on her face.

"I'm told you got in a fight again," she explained, "and you instigated it. I'm inclined to believe the claim, but I also hope you can convince me otherwise."

It was hard to look at her directly as I didn't want to see how disappointed she was with me. "I did start it. They were messing with someone else, and I tried to stop them."

"By beating them up?" she raised an eyebrow, making it clear that she did not understand my motive. "Did you know this person?"

"No, but I didn't want to leave it be."

It wasn't a question between us that I had a habit of getting in the middle of trouble. Mrs. February even suspects I would go out and look for it, especially when it involves a fight. With my track record, I could see why she would think that even if I denied it.

"You can't always solve your problems with a fistfight, Joe," Mrs. February's voice was gentle and patient. "Isn't this why you were removed from that fight club?"

"You'd think they'd be proud," I said while smirking, but Mrs. February wasn't amused. I scratched my head, seeing that my joke fell flat.

Ms. February grabbed a sticky note and began to write on it. When she was done, she gave me the note and told me that that would be my detention time. 4:00 pm in room 401. "I expect to see you and the other three there then." She said, and all of the gentleness that was once in her voice a minute ago was gone. "I will also be calling your parents to let them know—"By that time, I stopped listening because I knew—or at least guessed —what she was saying. She also gave me a pass to class so I wouldn't be counted absent. As if the timing couldn't be more exact, the bell rang, signaling lunch was over.

The rest of the day went pretty fast. I missed many lessons because all I could think about was what my parents would say when they found out. After classes were over, I went to the four o'clock detention that was given to me. The three other boys and a teacher were sitting inside the room. Detention at this school was more like community service, where kids were made to help with school maintenance and activities. When I arrived, the teacher took us to help set up the Superhero Club he was the advisor of.

The club was held in one of the science labs as it had the most space and equipment for kids to test their ascendeit abilities. Since everything was set up when we arrived, we mostly had to wait for the club to end and then clean up after the club members.

The club had much more talking than using their powers compared to what I had imagined. It was more like a therapy circle as some spoke about how they got their powers and how those abilities affected their lives. To be an ascendeit means you have to have gone through a life-or-death event or suffer traumatic mental stress and somehow manage to push through. At least, that's the most commonly assumed method.

"According to an article I read," explained one of the senior members, "stress of any kind can activate an ascendeit ability. Some people can push their bodies to inhuman extremes and get power, but they tend to get the basic stuff like enhanced strength or speed."

"I just wish I could change mine," complained another member.

Would I want to become an ascendeit if this is what it took? It wouldn't just be the powers I would gain but also a particular class of jobs under the superhero title based on what you can do. Higher pay, special job openings, and more are too good to say no. However, outside of a few exceptions, you don't always get the power you may want, and it could be tied to the worst day of your life. That's why the people who use these powers are called superheroes.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

After detention, I decided to walk home instead of asking my parents for a ride. My house was just a short distance from the school, but you would not catch me walking in the rain. Thankfully, today was not a rainy day, and the room-like temperature of the air gave me a chance to admire the blooming trees as their red and pink petals fell to the ground by the wind. The wind carried with it the rich pine smells of the evergreens, whose large trunks were high enough to give me shade now and again.

When I got home, I noticed no sight of my mom's or my dad's car; they must be working late. I stopped by the brick-built mailbox near the sidewalk of my house to grab the mail for the day. As I walked up the wooden steps of the porch to get inside, I looked through each envelope and magazine to see who they were for.

I locked the door behind me before I sat at the kitchen table to separate the mail. As usual, I placed the mail into two piles, separating my dad's mail from my mom's, until I came across one that had my name on it. It looked like a college brochure depicting a moon in the top right corner in front of a blue and white background. The school's name covered half of the front page in bold white letters and encased in golden lines: White Castle University. Curious, I opened the thick booklet and skimmed through descriptions of the campus, a list of majors and minors, and so on. As I scanned each page, I couldn't help but feel something was off. All of the information sounded legitimate, but none of the pages had a single picture of the school, the students that went there, or the faculty.

I pulled out my phone and typed in the name White Castle University. Only a restaurant came up. I looked through the brochure again to see if a location was given. From what I could read, the school was in or around Caerleon, South Wales.

"I'm overthinking about this," I said into the empty space as I got up and warmed up the leftovers of what was cooked earlier in the week. In a worst-case scenario, this whole thing was a scam best ignored for now.

After eating, I went up the carpeted stairs to do my homework in my room. Walking in, I cleared some room from the desk that was left of the door and slightly opened the blinds of the window right above the desk. I leaned my backpack against my bunk bed and snuggled into one of the corners of the white-painted walls. Across from the desk was the closet, where I grabbed a change of clothes and passed a full-body mirror to get to the closet's door. I stopped at the mirror to see if my dreads needed to be redone. Not this time, so I undid the tie in the back and let all of the upkeep braids fall past my shoulders. Once I was settled, I went straight to doing homework.

My parents came home when I was nearly done with my homework. It must have been a busy night. I was glad that they were home, but at the same time, I didn't want to face them after what happened today. If only I could disappear for a minute, I would still have to face them.

Knock knock.

I looked up to see my dad standing at the entrance to my room. His eyes barely overlooked my dread-covered head. His skin was tan in the areas where the sun would shine. I always thought it was funny that the color of our skin was different—mine being a light brown—and yet we were still related. His hair was black and cut in what he called a military-style: short on the top and faded on the sides. He had a look in his eyes that told me that he knew what I did at school. It wasn't a look of anger or disappointment but concern and something else I could not read.

"Can I come in?" he asked.

"Yeah," I responded, hesitating to talk with him.

He took the extra seat beside the computer and sat across from me. My dad doesn't get angry quickly but can stand his own when a situation gets out of hand. There hasn't been an argument that my dad has been in where he didn't have the upper hand, even when it seemed the odds were not in his favor. My mom always asked him why he never tried to be a lawyer, and he would say it wasn't for him.

"You're not hurt, are you?" he asked as he looked for any injuries on me.

"I'm fine," as if I've been severely injured in a fight.

"Good."

There was an unintentional pause for a second. My dad knew what I did today, so I might as well own up.

"I know I'm in trouble, and I'm sorry for dragging you and Mom into this issue."

"I understand that you started the fight because someone needed help."

"Yes."

"Why?"

"I don't know. I saw that he was in trouble and knew I could help."

"And how do you figure that?"

I don't know, I thought. Honestly, there were a lot of things that I didn't know. Sometimes, in my history class, I would know the answers to a particular question, whether they were in the textbook or not. Other times, I would get into fights with someone all because my reflexes would react to the wrong thing. I've been to therapy, put on multiple prescriptions, and was even checked to see whether or not I was an awakened asendeit, but no matter what I did or tried, I never seemed to understand why I was the way I was. Since I wasn't giving him an answer to his question, he continued the conversation.

"There is nothing wrong with wanting to help people, Joe," he said, "but fighting everyone isn't going to do that."

"Hey, Dad."

"Yes, son?"

"Do you ever wonder why you're alive?"

"A lot when I was younger."

"So what changed?"

"My perspective on life. The thing is, I have had good things come my way. For example, I was able to marry your mother, live in a stable home, and have you. But remember, Joe, life does not treat everyone the same way. We didn't end up here without your mother and me going through our challenges. And as for why we are alive, I don't know. Think of it this way: a prize horse can't win a race if it was never born." Having nothing else to say, he stood up and began to exit my room. Before he did, he said one last thing that may have been the worst thing he could have said that day. "Mom is the one who is thinking up the punishment this time. She said she was going to get 'creative' this time."

Great.

After finishing my homework, I went to bed on the bottom bunk. As soon as I closed my eyes, I started to dream. Do you remember when I said I would have flashbacks of past events or something along those lines? Well, I would often have dreams of similar events.

This one starts with me roaming the woods sometime during the day. The woods were not familiar to me and hard to describe. After walking a bit, I noticed a man riding a horse carrying a staff about his length. I felt both angry and scared, and I wanted to attack that man then and there. Instead, I waited and watched as he rode the beaten path. The scene changed, and I stood beside the same man, looking out over a vast landscape that I did not recognize but still felt familiar.

Each dream has different settings with only one thing that stays consistent: the man with the staff.