Unity by Carl Stubblefield (epub read online books TXT) 📕

No room for argument. After the level up, the foreign-ness of the idea seemed less intangible and easier to accept. As if he had believed that way for a long time. With the clarity, other things became much more evident and his naivete made him burn with shame.

He buried his face in his hands, rubbing hard as he thought. Why can’t I get my act together? Am I ever going to have a place where I actually deserve to fit in? Or should I just accept my lot as a screw up and keep walking my lonely road? Am I unable to rely on others because deep down I know that I am unreliable and I’m subconsciously sabotaging myself?

If there was an opposite of the Midas touch, I think that would be my true ability. My first powers are all centered around the word “wreck,” and that can’t be a coincidence. Perhaps I’m just geared to take things down and ruin them, and I’m just causing myself a lot of frustration and pain by trying to swim upstream against my nature. All this struggle with nothing to show for it. If I’m destined to just ruin things for myself and others, I should distance myself and not drag anyone down with me.

I’m not sure what the Oracle wanted me to see, but for the most part, I just see how small I really am. That the problems I’ve built up in my mind are really insignificant in comparison to the real tragedies that people are going through on a daily basis. You would never know those struggles because they keep them to themselves and don’t wear it on their sleeves, yearning for sympathy and support. They deal with it stoically and don’t make it everyone else’s problem.

Supposedly I’m an adult, but I can’t stop relying on people for every little thing. Then selfishly grabbing any advantage for my own benefit, and somehow, I convinced myself it was so that I would have the ability to help others at some point. Trying to numb the realization that I may not be wired to be a super. That I lack that kernel of goodness deep down in my core that will make my motivations pure and selfless.

All my life I’ve been searching to fit in, to finally find my place. I’ve changed how I acted to be a part of the group. And even that was a selfish motive. I convinced myself that if the Crew thought I was part of the team, then all of these doubts that constantly resurface could finally be dismissed once and for all.

Gus sucked in a breath as a sudden spasm of pain started at the base of his skull and began creeping up his head.

“Oh damn, not again,” he groaned. He dug his index fingers into the area but the pain refused to subside. Perhaps Karma is real. And this is some kind of consequence for my past.

As if in reply, his father’s expression at the hospital haunted him, vividly remembered behind his closed eyes as he tried to dissipate the effects of the sudden headache. He had seen how his father had been almost broken when they found his mother in the state she was in. And that look.

His chest tightened as the wraith of guilt clenched around his heart. That look bored into Gus’ heart as he remembered it. You did this. She’s like this because of you. Though nothing was stated, Gus knew this was true without any words being spoken.

The brightness of the sunlight pouring in the room was intensifying his headache, so he staggered to the hallway. He leaned back against the wall and slid down to the ground. At some point the pain began to ebb and he opened his eyes and looked up at the ceiling, which shimmered with the reflected afternoon light.

He saw it play across the faint texturizing they had done on the ceilings, and it looked like waves. No, more like the swirling mists of Hinansho, but with fog so thick it swallowed those who ventured in, never to be found again.

A lost soul in a city of lost souls. The dismal miasma mirrored how he felt on the inside perfectly. Roiling darkness of equal parts rage at himself for his weakness, contaminated with depression for poisoning everything he seemed to touch.

They competed for dominance within him, one urging him to give up and go far away where he wouldn’t hurt anyone else. The other to get vengeance, to burn himself up in the attempt and rid the world of the taint of his negative influence. Perhaps he could do both and do the world a favor, and make things right again—at least for everyone else.

As he grabbed a hold of this thread, his resolve firmed, and the despair gave way to decision. This felt right; he could make up for all the damage he had caused. As long as he succeeded, it wouldn’t matter what happened to him afterward. The price seemed acceptable, and he wasn’t going to drag anyone else into his fights anymore.

The Crew only came here because they felt like they owed his father a debt, but he had done nothing to expect them to help him. They had retrieved his mother. The job was done. Everything left was up to him. They said they would eventually return, but what if Mengele disappeared while Gus waited and did nothing?

The void he felt inside worried him. Was something fundamentally wrong with him? He knew he should feel gratitude for all that the others had sacrificed, staying with him and his father as they risked their lives on the ridiculous adventure. He should feel gratitude, but there was nothing there.

He had always felt different than his peers, but the sensation of this lack of emotion seemed something that would align more with a sociopath than a super. Could it be that his path led him to a darker destination? If it did, why