The sun, hanging low is like a spectator, caught in my outreaching mutated palm. It shines a muted white on the hairs that stand on it's alien flesh. They stir, not in the wind. Squelch not on command. I open my hand, take deep breaths and calmly exhale. I look straight with resolve, determination and grit. "Okay Kevin! Come at me! "

"Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! " He jogs with a start and breaks into a run, coming at me like a baseball baller as he pelts the stone with everything he's got.

It shoots out of his hand, rotating, careening as it makes its way towards me.

I smirk. "Now! Blast!"

My eyes ignite. Power and energy concentrate at the tip of my hand. It coalesces into a blinding bright light, erupting out of my palm into a jet ray of pure destruction.

Vegetation all around burns to a crisp as the corona makes way for the teeny-weeny pebble, paling in comparison to its might.

And then,

BOOM!

The explosion blinds us all in it's intensity and-

...

Ok I need to stop.

...

Yeah, I know.

...

Damn, that would have been incredible. But that doesn't happen. Nothing even remotely cool happens for that matter!

Ugh, why do I and my luck suck so much!!

The pebble carries on, following it's fated trajectory as it hits my palm square in the centre.

"Aaaaah!" I scream. "It hurts! " His aim was on point! Who is this child prodigy?!

As I am busy making cartoon faces, jumping up and down with my stupid! stupid! hand, the audience stir.

"Bahahaha!" Laughter erupts behind my back. I know the voice. It's Diana.

There goes my pride, diving deep waters before the ladies.

"Ughhhh! This good for nothing power-up! Get off me! Get off me right now!"

"B-but Jordan. We have only started with the first experiment. We have seven more," Kevin pleads.

"Oh come on. I can't handle this again for seven more times. I can't," I say, placing both my hands on my head.

"Guess being Iron Man is off the list, huh?" Sally remarks, chuckling.

"He's a good guy to begin with!" I retort.

She shrugs. "Well, what next then?" She's still smiling!

I sigh, catching my knees, then look up at Fiona. She fidgets from one side to the other. Her lips are pursed.

I grit my teeth.

"The other experiments make me look no less a clown. What do we have, checking if it is sensitive to fire, then shocking it to see if it stimulates to that. Everything, everything is just stupid!" All of it would end with me ooh-ing and aah-ing. I can't do that!

"But, we can still try stretching it, to see if it changes shape!" Oh Kevin, he pleads again. Dude!

"Ugh, this is no glove. It won't come off." It frustrates me more and more. As I take a look it's ugliness, it pisses me more and more. "It won't come off. It won't come off. You alien dungface, just get off meeeee! " I run off into the distance and hurl my left hand with as much force I can muster. I hear a thump. Yeah, probably my chest.

"What the-" Rocky gasps in bewilderment. Now he thinks I'm a joker as well.

I fall on my knees, panting. "This is no good, " I mumble.

With eyes filled with the remaining rage, I burn holes into my-

It's gone.

Huh? "HUUUH?!"

I can't... I can't see it. I move my hand. It's back to normal.

"Wh-what?! It actually came off after all?" My words seem foreign even to me. Because, this is just too good to be true.

I stand up, look off into the distance. "Wow, where did I send it off to. I can't see it. Can you guys-"

"Jordan, " Rocky says. His voice is unnaturally resolute.

I look back.

...

Hey, I haven't teleported right? So did somebody teleport the land or wha-

"Why is a crater here?!"

I scurry over to get a closer look.

No. Not only a crater. It's a gigantic depression. I can't see the bottom of it.

"This... wasn't here before. " Yeah, I would have fallen in had it been there. I have glasses, doesn't mean I'm blind y'know.

Now hold on a second. This doesn't feel rational. I threw it in the opposite direction. So why is a hole here?

"Why~ did it, suddenly appear?" I hear a sweet voice, trembling with horror. Even before looking I know who it belongs to.

Beth is shivering. Kevin is holding on to her, even more scared.

"What's going o-" I begin to say, when my legs give out.

"Wha-" Suddenly I'm lying on the ground. My friends (they are my friends right? Even if I have no one I know on this unforgiving world, they will be there for me right?) surround me.

"Jordan! Jordan!" I hear their muffled voices. Is something in my ear or what? Why does my vision seem blurry, I have my glasses on so-

Before I can raise my hand to pick at my ears, the whole world turns black.

...

Black it seems, is what my home is, now.

Yet now, I have lost all right to call it so.

What am I, now?

...

Nothing. I am nothing.

__________

A searing pain to my side jolts me awake. I scream at the pain as I inhale profusely, sweating all over. My eyes register everything, yet nothing. Colours and forms have fused together.

I don't have my glasses on.

"Where-" The pain returns.

I scream my lungs out. It burns! It burns!

The pain! Oh, the pain! What's jabbing me at the side? What's this agony!

"You dare lose the blessing! You, being so lowly yet blessed! How! How!"

"Please! AAAAHHH! Please! " I beg and beg as my eyes leak runny rivers of tears.

"Why! Why! Why did you lose the blessing! WHY!"

"AHHH! Please! I don't know what you're talking about!" What is this torture! Why are they doing this to me!

Child-like voices scream, in contrast to mine. Where am I? What happened?

All around, it's like lava. It's hot in here. It's like fire itself became a room. What is this incarnation of hell?!

"How could you show such disrespect! How could you do that to them!"

I feel the roots of my hair pop, my head is being stretched to its limit. I feel like my neck may just snap. My hands and feet are chained. Am I naked?

"I don't know what you me-"

"Don't feign ignorance! Your hand! Your blessed hand!" the voice screams.

My head is spinning. I can hardly concentrate. The world is spinning. I can no longer feel every cell within my body. It's like I'm feeling numb all over, but feel the pain.

"I don't know. I don't know what happened."

Next thing I know, the world comes crashing down. My forehead burns. My neck bends and I feel like my spine may just come out.

"LET ME GO! AUH, PLEASE, DEAR GOD."

I cry in pain and helplessness. I can no longer think. Is this the result of all my sins. Am I going to die now?

"You, disgraced them. Their heavenly grace, you disowned their kindness! Without knowing the worth, you threw their blessing away." The voice is so cold and high pitched. I feel disoriented. Don't look at me! Stay away from me! My teeth clatter on their own. Even in this heat, I am shivering.

"I...just wanted to figure out, what I was supposed to do with it. But it did nothing! It just stayed. It couldn't do anything!"

The fire returns. It scorches into my chest. I scream into the night. I feel my blood dry out.

"You feel you can do everything? You lowly fool. That's exactly why your rotten kind is where it is. Individualistic, you feel you can accomplish with what you have. You don't feel for others. Cooperation? Everything was selfish on your rotten planet. You have this funny phrase, 'Survival of the fittest.'"

"But that's nature's law. That's reality, " I croak.

"You never understood nature in the first place. Had you thought about everything, everyone, you'd have seen beyond cooperation, beyond selfish reasoning. You'd have found purpose."

I pant heavily, feeling I'd die any moment. "What do you... What do you mean? I don't understand."

Something slashes against my back. "AAAH!"

"The meaning of everything was in your reach. Purpose, was there that YOU let go! This disgrace! The Gods won't tolerate! They won't stand back. Such blasphemy! How could they have possibly chosen you!"

I anticipate another hit, and I almost feel I'd black out, but nothing comes. Nothing goes. I hang in hell, battered and chained and...alone, with only a few words left to me to reminisce my sin. "The Gods, would come for us. They'd exact justice for the wrong you've done. Your kind was doomed. Now ours is as well."

A slam resounds, which is odd, since they were all sliding doors.

And then, I am back to nothing.