(Christopher Jenkins' POV:)

Everyone wants superpowers, or wanted them as a kid. Our favorite characters on TV shows and movies had crazy abilities like flight or being able to control fire. These role models made having those kinds of powers seem like such a cool thing. You'd be unstoppable. Everyone would love you. Right?

Not in the real world. No ordinary human would have the ability to control the elements, fly or teleport. A being like that would be considered an anomaly in the study of life. The natural response of the rest of the world would be fear.

My name is Christopher Jenkins. I started off my journey as a normal kid with little knowledge of the bigger world. Had it stayed that way, everything would have turned out better. Everyone would have still been… never mind.

I was a relatively quiet kid. I didn't speak unless I absolutely had to, mostly because I never had anything to say. I didn't focus in class, focus during conversations or try to contribute to any conversations. I was average at just about everything I did. Average in grades, average in athletics... I wasn't a noble person either - I had no big goals like a movie character. I wasn't ready to sacrifice myself to save the world. I wasn't ready to make any significant difference. A quiet life was exactly what I liked. I liked being average. Being average meant I had no expectations to worry about.

I lost my parents in a car accident at the healthy age of three years old, and lived with my aunt and uncle until… that's not important. I don't remember much about my parents - only their faces, their smiles, their voices. My aunt and uncle and I moved from Ontario to Quebec when I was seven. My new school was where I met my current group of friends, in a group project about weather that I'm pretty sure we all failed.

Jake Tayak: a hyperactive class clown with intellect far below average, but sporting abilities that eventually landed him in the same high school as me. Most of the time, Jake spoke on my behalf, but I didn't really mind it. He resembled a comic book character with spiky red hair, and had lifeless gray eyes that contrasted the rest of his energetic aura.

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Erica Suzeya: she looked the most similar to Jake, with long red hair and green eyes, but a personality quite the opposite. She preferred to stay out of trouble and not do anything dangerous, but often got roped into whatever Jake and I were doing. Erica seemed to get along with Jake the best. Even though they were complete opposites, they were like two peas in a pod. She was the second tallest in our group, second of course to me.

Julia Smith: probably the quietest person I knew - and still know. She was relatively short, with silver-blonde hair and blue eyes. She was, and still is, Erica's best friend. They were friends even before our friend group became a thing, and practically everywhere they went, they went together. I'm sure we were the only ones to ever hear her speak.

The world I lived in was home to one glaring issue, however. Beings who could manipulate the forces of nature, beings with godlike power, with control over space and time… did exist. Beings that, no matter how hard we would try, were always so far above humanity that fighting back against them would prove impossible.

"Anomalies", as they were called, were seen as such threats to our peaceful society that, for years, governments and factions all over the world had joined forces, all with a single common goal: to exterminate every last Anomaly that walked the earth.

Anomalies had been behind every major incident in the last ten- no - fifteen years. More civilian casualties had resulted from destruction caused by Anomaly attacks worldwide in the last few years alone than those of the world wars.

It was the second of August, 2023. The day I turned sixteen, and also the day my life was turned upside down forever, and nothing I knew would ever be the same. Any chance I had of living a normal life would slip out of my hands. I was doomed from the very start.

A skinny, tall kid with black hair and brown eyes would wake up that day hoping that the day would bring him something to be happy about. That was, of course, me, back when I was blissfully unaware of the things going on around me in the shadows. Little did I know that everything was about to get completely messed up that day. This was the beginning of my journey, of the horror I was about to go through. Of the process which would allow me to ascend past the limits of humanity.

This is the story of how I, a completely average fifteen year old, became the Death Vessel.