time
Time cannot be stopped.
Those who try and toy with its fabric share a destiny:
The most horrible kind of death. Fate itself has irrevocably doomed all those who stand in its way.
My first love was called Lena Castillo. We were childhood friends - I don't think there was a time where I did not love her. When I laid my eyes upon her, I just knew. The love had always been there, but I did not have a face to connect it to until that day. Funny, how people typically always have an in-depth description of the day they met someone like that. I don't. It was probably summer - we were classmates, so it was the start of the school year - but I don't remember a single thing, except for what she told me. "There's something in your teeth." Before I could ask her what she was on about (after all, there was a mirror right next to me) she clarified that she meant after lunch. She got the present and the future mixed up pretty often. I don't think I need to say that she was entirely right.
By the time we were teenagers, Lena saw the flow of time perfectly. Perhaps that was her mortal sin. Maybe we need to give something up to avoid fate's ire. I did not give her up, but she left us all the same. Throughout my life, I have seen many gruesome deaths. Hers was the most gruesome by far, and I predict mine will outdo hers.
The worst part was how long she stayed alive, squeezing my hand so, so tightly. Telling me that it was supposed to happen. That- that I'd be better for it, and the world would too. The most agonising part is that she was right.
That very day, I awakened. I can't tell you whether the power I awakened to was a consequence of hers or some sickening cosmic joke.
I'm not sure why I made this. Maybe it's my last 'fuck you' to the universe, you know? Like, I know what you have in store for me, and it won't stop me. Until that miserable, sickening death you have in store stands face to face with me, I'll keep fighting, and I'll keep saving people, as part of the greatest fighting force this world will ever know.