Prompt #1: Who am I?


If I'd been raised differently, maybe I would've been Claire Petrelli, or Claire Gordon, but I wasn't, and I don't regret it, although I'll cop to wondering what that might have been like. My biological family was -- is -- pretty screwed up, I think, but I would've really liked to know them better, especially my father. My uncle was kind of amazing, for the short while I got to know him.

I grew up in Texas, with my mom, and my dad, and my little brother. I always did my best to fit in, and I don't even really know why, these days -- it's easy to blame that on peer pressure or something dumb and after-school special like that, but when I was little I just felt this drive to be like everyone else. Maybe a part of me knew that I was different. Maybe I shouldn't think that way.

Before homecoming, my best friend Zach got me a book by a guy named Dr. Chandra Suresh. A lot of the science was kind of beyond me (I'm more of a literature and languages kind of girl, not that it matters), but there's this chapter on what he calls spontaneous regeneration. Some other people call it a healing factor, or, more vaguely, a genetic mutation. I call it the reason I'm not like everybody else. What it means is I can take a bullet to the chest and cough it up three seconds later, or regrow my left ring-finger. It's gross. It's also saved my life more times than I can count, and I don't hate it anymore. I'm not afraid of being different now.

At the same time, I'm sixteen years old. I have to take my SATs soon, and next year there's prom, and I don't know if my dad and I will ever be the same after everything that's happened this year. I ruined a boy's football career, although I guess you could argue he had it coming. I met my biological family, and then two of them...well, they're gone now. It's been so crazy, and I can only talk to a few people, none of them completely honestly.

What I'm trying to say is this: I can't tell you who I am, not exactly, because I don't know, and I shouldn't have to, not yet. I do know that just having powers doesn't make you special, and they don't define who you are. I'm not a superhero, and I'm not a piece of the prophecy anymore.

Really. I'm just a cheerleader.

(( Spoilers for the season finale of Heroes within, as a warning. ))