“Jacqueline, meet me at the abandoned warehouse when you come home. I’ve got a surprise you will not believe.”

Jacqueline had lost track of how many times she’d read that text. She still wasn’t sure if she should reply. Ben never texted anything else after it. Every time she checked her phone, that’s where their texts ended.

Jacqueline put her phone down. She knew it was only a matter of time before she pulled it up again, doomed to repeat the seemingly never-ending cycle of reading that same text over and over.

She didn’t want to be afraid. She hadn’t wanted to dread driving back home.

Her mind had other plans.

Jacqueline sighed as she put away the last of her groceries. She had a hunch that if she didn’t go into the warehouse, Ben would suddenly come into the house and try to scare her.

The fact that she was even able to imagine that scenario only made her fear grow.

***

Jacqueline’s pace slowed as she made it closer to the warehouse. She might have been able to ignore her quickening heartbeat before, but she couldn’t anymore.

Why was she so afraid? It was just Ben right? Sure, she was a little overexcited this morning, but that didn’t mean anything. Everyone has an overactive morning every once in a while. She was just overreacting, being overly paranoid. There was nothing to be scared of, she was sure of it.

Jacqueline took the final steps into the abandoned warehouse, trying to convince herself that she was imagining everything.

She was only half successful.

Jacqueline took her first steps into the warehouse, hearing them reverberate around the whole building. The entire place was eerily silent otherwise, so much so that Jacqueline’s fear began to take hold once again.

Her footsteps continued in a constant, repetitive motion.

Step, step, step.

Step, step, step.

She quickly darted her head around the warehouse. Where was Ben? Why wasn’t she coming to her? She had told her to come here, right? Did she leave?

Step, step, step.

Jacqueline’s breaths were beginning to grow heavy. She couldn’t shake off the feeling that whatever brought her here did not have good intentions.

Suddenly, Jacqueline heard a loud slam behind her. She quickly turned her head toward the noise and was met with the sight of Ben, wearing her athletic clothes. At first she felt relieved, but soon that relief was replaced by frustration.

“Hey.” Ben said.

“What took you so long?” Jacqueline asked. “I was getting worried.”

Ben chuckled. “I’m sorry. I just wanted to see your reaction when you came in. You haven’t been here very often.”

“Why? There’s never really a reason to come here.” Jacqueline said.

Ben chuckled again. “Oh, I just thought it’d be neat.” She began moving closer to her.

“Were you on the ceiling?”

“Yeah. Pretty cool huh?”

“How?” Jacqueline asked. “How did you just… fall down from there like it was nothing?”

Stopping her walk, Ben smirked. “That was part of the surprise I was talking about. Take a look at this.”

Jacqueline watched as Ben effortlessly jumped thirty feet into the air, grabbing hold of the metal handle on the ceiling. Staring up at her, she saw Ben take one of her hands off the handle and wave down at her.

“How did you… how did you get this… this ability?”

Ben let go of the handle and dropped back down to the floor. “It was part of the transformation, it seems. I don’t know the full details, but you have to admit it’s pretty cool, right?”

Jacqueline wasn’t sure how to respond.

“Hold on.” Ben said as she ran to the metal wall. “Check this out.”

Ben got into a fighting stance and began punching the wall. Her hard hits reverberated throughout the whole building. Dents were quickly forming on the wall with no visible bruises or damage to Ben’s hands. It wasn’t long before a hole had been made completely through the wall to the outside.

Ben took a step away from the hole, smiling as if she was showing off an accomplishment.

“Well…” Jacqueline started. “You can… punch through metal.”

“Yeah, I know.” Ben said excitedly. “Pretty cool right? Just think about it, with all this I could be the next big superhero.”

“Superhero? Ben, you already fight demons and monsters. You already help people. You don’t need to become a superhero.”

“I know, but with this strength I can do so much more. Hell, I can even track time exactly in my head. If I can do that, who knows what my mental limits are now.”

“Ben, I…” Jacqueline hesitated for a bit, but pushed forward. “I really need to tell you something. I should’ve told you earlier, but… you’re starting to freak me out.”

“Freak you out?” Ben questioned. “Look I know I was a bit hyper this morning but-”

“No Ben, it’s going much further than that. When I see you now, you’re not acting like yourself. Something’s wrong. Very, very wrong.”

“How so?”

“Ben, look at what you’re doing! Look at what you’re saying! You’re gaining all of these… these traits and you’re not the least bit concerned? You’re not the least bit worried? These are strong powers, and the way you’re so happy about them, being nothing but proud of them, it’s… it’s scary Ben.”

“Cut me some slack, I just found out I could jump thirty feet in the air. You can’t expect me not to be excited about that. If you suddenly woke up with a huge burst of energy, you’d want to use it, right?”

“Are you not the least bit worried about how you got all this ‘energy’?”

“Well…” Ben hesitated. “Look, all that’s happened is that I’ve gotten a little excited, and I have some neat powers now. That’s it. If there was something very sinister going on, surely the curse and corruption machine would’ve caught it. It’s top of the line technology.”

“And yet it couldn’t predict that you would be stuck like this.” Jacqueline retorted. “You can’t change back. If it couldn’t catch that, what else about you could it have missed?” She asked. “You were really afraid yesterday, what changed?”

“Look, Jacqueline. There are plenty of reasons I could be stuck like this. It doesn’t have to be a curse…” Ben thought over the situation, seeming almost strained to come up with something. “That machine mainly checks for negative things anyway. This…” She gestured at herself. “This is not a negative thing.”

Ben reached her hand up to touch Jacqueline’s face, but Jacqueline backed away, concern and fear overtaking her features.

“Jacqueline… there is nothing wrong with me.” Ben said

She continued backing away.

“Jacqueline, trust me.”

She turned swiftly and ran out of the warehouse.

“Jacqueline!” Ben tried to call out, but her cries were left unanswered.

***

Jacqueline ran into the bedroom, quickly shutting the door behind her and locking it. She needed to be quick, she had no idea how fast Ben was now. She sat down, with her back right against the door, and brought herself into the fetal position.

She brought her head down between her knees, wrapping herself up in a tight ball.

She didn’t want to run away from Ben. She didn’t want to be afraid of her. She wanted to believe, in her heart, so badly, that she was just worrying too much. That everything was in her head and she was blowing things out of proportion.

But no matter what, whenever she looked at Ben that day, she just looked so… wrong, in a way Jacqueline just couldn’t explain.

She needed some time away from her. She didn’t know how much, she thought the few hours spent driving in circles and stopping at a single store would do it. Apparently not.

She closed her eyes and wrapped herself up tighter.

She heard a knock on her bedroom door.

“Jacqueline?” She heard a woman’s voice say. “Are you in there?”

It was Ben. Jacqueline opened her eyes, but didn’t come out of the fetal position.

“I don’t want to talk right now.” She said.

She heard a quiet sigh from the other side of the door. “Look, I’m sorry about what happened earlier. I didn’t mean to get carried away… again. It’s just, I was so excited about my new powers. I wanted to show them off.”

“Ben.” Jacqueline said. “This whole situation looks really bad. I don’t know how you can’t see that.”

“Jacqueline, me becoming stronger is a good thing. Everything that’s happening here is good.”

“You don’t sound convincing. Do you even believe that?”

“Why can’t you just…” Ben sounded frustrated for a bit but then paused. “Okay… let’s- let’s dial this back a little bit.”

Jacqueline didn’t respond.

“Would you feel better if I made an appointment with a magic doctor?”

“Ben, that’s something you should do for you, not me.”

“I know, but… would it make you feel better?”

“I don’t know.”

Ben was silent on the other end for a while. Jacqueline didn’t hear anything from her until she seemed to pull something out of her pocket, and dial for someone on her phone.

“Hello?” She heard her say. “Yes, I’d like to schedule an appointment… um, magic doctor, please… uh, Benjamin Cross… yes I know it’s a man’s name, it’s a long story… I, uh, I seem to have some powers now too… oh, not much, just some super strength and agility, basic stuff… yeah well they’re common powers… common for people who have powers anyway… Oh shut up, this is just semantics now… Tuesday, yeah I can do Tuesday… alright, thank you, bye.”

Ben ended the call.

“Does that make you feel better?”

Jacqueline slowly raised her head up from her legs, getting up from her position and unlocking the door. She opened it to see Ben, still in her athletic wear.

“Let’s just take it easy for now, okay?” Jacqueline said. “Can you promise me that?”

Ben nodded. “Yeah, I can do that.”

***

For the rest of the day, Ben stood by her word. She did take it easy, even when her body was screaming for her to let out some energy. Whenever that happened, she managed by sneaking off to the bathroom and doing some flips.

It was crazy how easy it was for her to do flips now.

Thankfully this energy calmed down by nightfall. She could rest knowing she’d be able to get some sleep.

By the time she got into bed, Jacqueline and her had loosened up considerably. She could tell Jacqueline still wasn’t entirely relaxed, but it was manageable. At least she wasn’t running away from her in fear.

“Jackie.” Ben said, reaching out to stroke her cheek. “I really liked what we did last night…” She held onto the pause after saying that. “Do you want to do it again?”

Jacqueline was quiet for a few seconds.

“I’m not in the mood. I’d rather go to sleep.”

She turned over on her side of the bed. Ben grinned as she did so, reaching up to kiss her lips.

“Good night, my love.”

Ben didn’t notice the drop of drool that fell onto Jacqueline’s cheek before she fell asleep.

It lightly burned the surface of her skin.

***

“Isn’t it beautiful?”

A very familiar voice rang out. It was the same as before, it wasn’t an explicit voice she could actually hear. She just knew something, somewhere was communicating with her.

Ben gazed around at her surroundings. She was right in front of a huge waterfall, cascading harshly below.

“Look.”

She didn’t need to guess what she was told to look at, she already knew. She turned her head upward, catching sight of the floating island that was always beyond her grasp. She reached her hand out to it. Nothing happened.

She needed to get up there.

She tried leaping into the air, hoping she’d be able to make it.

She couldn’t make it. At the height at her jump, the island was still far, far away from her.

“Beauty is in all nature. You have been given an opportunity to take part in it.”

Ben noticed she didn’t fall back down. She was stuck floating in mid air.

“Make it count.”

Suddenly, everything disappeared, and Ben was left alone in the dark once again.