For longer than I can remember, I've always had the same effect on people around me. They always seem tired... Or bored at best. As I'm walking up to a club or a bar, I can see the people inside drinking, dancing and carrying on lively conversations, but as soon as I get within a few feet of them, they show signs of fatigue: Yawning, drowsy head-bobs, lost train of thought and some have even passed out, spilling their drink and breaking their glass. It's a curse that follows me around everywhere I go. What makes it worse is that it seems to invigorate me. It's like I'm energized by being around people, but they're fatigued by being around me.

As I said, it's been like this for longer than I can remember. I've come to the conclusion that it's why my parents killed themselves. Short bouts of fatigue can be countered with rest, but when you're constantly fatigued over a decade, depression settles in like an unwelcome house guest that came for a day or two, but stays for weeks. Coping with depression isn't easy as it is, but add in the fact that every attempt at therapy and medicine failed to even have the slightest effect on my parents' mood and not a single doctor out there could explain why made it impossible to cope with. Eventually, they gave in. They were strong, no doubt, for withstanding it for as long as they did, but a decade of any constant, unrelenting negativity can push a person to extremes. It did just that for my parents.

My mom was first to reach that extreme. I don't think it was because she was the weakest, though. I think it has something to do with the mother/son bond... Or maybe it's that she dealt with it more closely and for a slightly longer period of time than my father. I had been told stories about how she was fatigued during her entire pregnancy with me. She was bed-ridden nearly the entire time. The weight gain probably didn't help her mood too much, either. She gained a lot of weight when she was pregnant and never regained the energy to get rid of it. She had been quite a bit overweight until the very end.

My dad put on weight, too. People said it was weight he put on because he was sympathetic to my mom. A common occurence from what I hear. The truth is that he was under the same effects that my mom was under, but for not as long and not so directly. He wasn't affected by my condition until after I was born. In fact, immediately after I was born. I've seen the baby pictures. The doctors and nurses were yawning in the background. Dad took the pictures so I couldn't see his face, but I'm sure he was feeling it, too. Mom looked seconds away from passing out in the pictures. Aside from my condition, she had just gone through labor. The last thing she needed at that moment was an energy leech to finish her off.

I was told that mom dropped me... Too tired to hold me. Dad tried to catch me, but he couldn't react fast enough. They said I hit the floor pretty hard, but didn't have a mark on me. Didn't even cry. Probably hurt the floor more than it hurt me... Literally. That's how this seems to work. Everyone around me gets weak and tired. I'm get energized, stronger, faster and more resilient. The more people there are around me, the greater the effect it has on me.

It's been like this for my entire life, but I didn't get the idea that the constant fatigue of others was my fault until I really started thinking for myself. It's that age when you really start to question the world around, authority and anything else that challenges you. That's when I really started to notice how people behaved when I wasn't physically near them and when I was. A group of kids would be chattin' and hollerin' and makin' all kinds of noise, I'd walk up to say, "hi" and see what all the excitement was about and they'd all calm down when I got within a few yards. Seconds later, the group would disperse and they'd go their separate ways. At first, I thought they did that because nobody liked me. Whether they did or not, it turns out they had good reason to not like me. Having the energy sucked out of you could definitely ruin your day.

I didn't really click to the idea that I was causing others to fatigue until I came across a group of breakdancers. Whether it genuinely interests you or it just makes you laugh, breakdancing is always entertaining. One of the guys was doin' some crazy moves, everyone in the circle around him was cheering him on and then I joined the circle to check it out. Not only did they quit cheering, but the guy who was dancing immediately fell to the ground in exhaustion. He was already worn out from dancing. My presence made it worse. He almost passed out. Everyone was freaking out because he fell so abruptly. He threw his legs into the air, started a headspin and before he even finished one rotation, he collapsed like a Jenga tower when you take the lowest pieces possible out first. I just backed off and walked away.

After that, I really started to pay attention to how people reacted to my presence and it was consistent. They'd have a lot of energy and they'd be very talkative before I was there then they would all shut off and shut down when I got within a few yards. It always had the opposite effect on me. They'd tire, I'd feel invigorated. They'd get quiet, I'd want to bounce some new ideas off of people. The more I paid attention to it, the more familiar I got with the intricacies of the effect. I figured out that anyone within roughly ten feet was affected and the more people that were affected at one time, the more energetic I felt both physically and mentally.

In school, my condition made me a great student. Well, I was great compared to the rest of the class. I had the same effect on my classmates as I did on my parents and it enhanced everything about me in the same way as well. I got straight A's all the time. Aced every test and did it in record time. It seems my condition affected my body as well as my mind. I didn't like being around my parents all the time because they never wanted to do anything with me. It's not that they didn't love me. They just didn't have the energy. Instead, I tried every extra curricular activity I could. I figured out that I was detrimental to team sports. I'd do great on the field, but the rest of my team could barely move a muscle. Fatigued, just like everyone else. When it came to sports, I had to participate in something that allowed me to be away from team mates for the time on the field. I found track to be the best option. I ran cross country. Got a lot of trophies and medals. It's easy to win a race when your opponents are all tired before it even starts.

I tried some extracurricular activities that were more mental, too. Just as with the physical sports, I had to be a solo act. I tried math club, but they'd have the hardest time with the easiest equations... Easiest to me, anyway. I opted for science. I could do science fair projects by myself. My ideas were always way out in left field and too complicated for the judges. We had to stand by our displays while the judges came by and explain how the project worked. That hurt my scores. The judges were too fatigued to comprehend what I was saying and doing. I didn't care. I knew what it was and how it worked. It was probably better that I kept a low profile. Too much attention can raise suspicion. I preferred to just coast through school as a jock. No one messes with the jocks.

I never had a chance to see if I could do anything of those things on my own, without the vitalizing effect of draining another person's energy. I'd probably be as slow as a sloth and have the memory of a goldfish if it weren't for my condition. I'll never really know, though. I've been like this for my whole life and I don't see any sign of it ever going away.

I never missed a day of school either. I never had a reason to miss any days. I never got sick, never broke a bone, nothing. Whatever my condition is, it kept me healthy as well. My parents were sick quite a bit along with the fatigue and depression. There lives may as well have been over the moment I was conceived. They ended their lives while I wasn't even home. I was at a track meet. It's not a scene any teenager should come home, too. They went quietly so no suspicion was raised for the neighbors. No loud noises from a gun shot or power fluctuations from electricity. Mom slit her wrists... With a steak knife. Apparently, she was eating dinner and watching TV. I don't know what pushed her over the line, but it did it halfway through her meal. It's like it was an impulse she couldn't resist. That little voice in your head that says, "Ah-ah-ah, not a good idea" must've been too tired to speak up. Dad was in the shower when she did it. Didn't find her until it was too late. That's what pushed him over the edge. Slit his own throat using the same knife mom did. That's not what you expect to see when you come home from a sports victory. Mom sittin' on the couch, blood covering her and the couch. Dad was wearing nothing but a towel. He was knelt down on the floor by mom when he did it. Fell face first into her plate. Most of the towel was red with blood.

They were long gone by the time I got home. There was nothing I could do to save them. I tried to join them. I used the same knife. It wouldn't pierce my skin. That's how I found out how tough my condition made me. At that time, steel couldn't pierce my skin. I laid there and cried for hours before I finally called the police and an ambulance. The funeral was on a Monday. I skipped town on the following Tuesday. I decided at the funeral that no one else would be pushed to such great extremes because of me. That's when I made the decision to keep moving. I couldn't let anyone else be affected by my condition for so long.

I wandered the country for a few years. I found that I like hanging out at comedy clubs the most. I couldn't get in because I was too young at the time, but I would stand outside and listen to the comedians tell their jokes and the audiences laughing it up. It was a place where the purpose was to get people to laugh at even the most tragic situations. I learned that some people believe comedy equals tragedy plus time. By the time I turned eighteen, making me old enough to be allowed in a comedy club, it had been three years since my parents killed themselves. My life seemed to fill in the equation quite nicely. I had been writing jokes before I turned eighteen so by the time I could get into the clubs, I was ready to try out some open mic nights. I stuck with it for eight years, building a small fan base. I had an extra challenge to overcome, too. I weakened and tired my audiences because of my condition. That made it harder to get them to laugh. I pushed through it, though, and became enough of a success to live on the money made from it. I felt like I was doing something to counter the effect I had on people and I wasn't around any of them long enough to leave a lasting negative impression. I thought I had found my purpose in life.

In my travels from club to club around the country, I kept hearing about a group based out of the Great Lakes area whose sole purpose was to help people using the special abilties, powers and talents of the group's members. I never really paid much attention to the news whether it was on TV or a newspaper. It just never interested me, but people in the clubs were talking about this group that had been making national headlines and boosting national news ratings on a daily basis. It was worth checking out. Google was always just a keypress away. I found out that it wasn't just a human organization. They welcomed anyone whether human, alien, robot or any other sentient creature who wanted to help people. The group was called "Watchfire". They had heroes who fought for truth, justice and the American way and they had heroes whose methods might be considered questionable by the average person. They had all kinds of people with all kinds of capabilities. They seemed to be able to find purpose for anyone with the will to help. I already had purpose, but this seemed like an opportunity to gain a higher purpose. I could use my condition to positively affect people on a national, if not global, scale. I trekked up to their base, called "The Beacon", told them the short version my story and signed up. I've been an active member ever since, doing everything I can to help whoever needs it. As always, working with others has its complications, but that's another story for another time.