I dislike being in a holding cell but...

John sighed as he heard the doors to the holding cell close behind him. The ride into the city had been relatively silent as John had uncharacteristically chosen not to speak. To be honest to himself John and been very scared to go behind bars. From the description he had heard about holding cells, He had a hard time keeping his composure as well.
John looked at his surroundings in the cell and found he was quite familiar with the sight. The white walls, the steel toilet, and the comfortable looking bed.

He inspected the bed and found that it was nothing more than what seemed to be a thick white mat laid down on top of a metal slab. The mat itself was clean, thankfully, but he wasn’t going to use it to sleep since he was too scared to sleep. Though he hadn’t had a good sleep for a few days and bags could be seen under his eyes, He forced himself to sit down without laying down and to stare at the cell door.

John realized at that point that he needed to go take a piss and got up. He stumbled over to the steel toilet and noticed a few things before urinating into it. The most notable thing was that the toilet was relatively clean and sterile. Most people would have looked over this type of detail, but John appreciated it as he knew how dirty these types of toilets could get.

After he had relieved himself he sat down on the bed and leaned against the wall, His fatigue starting to get to him. To keep himself awake, he decided to think about ways to get out. He didn’t bother trying to activate his ability as he assumed that he would not be able to activate it, just like the handcuffs that he had been forced to wear on the way to the holding cell. He figured that he possibly could try to fight the officer that had brought him there, but, he wondered, what would he do after he had gotten himself free.

One thing that helped him stay awake, ironically, was his gnawing hunger which felt like it was literally was eating him from the inside. He had made sure earlier in the night to miss about 2000 calories out of his 20,000 calorie per day limit in order to eat during the trash pickup campout, but it was now coming to bite him in the ass. His stomach felt like it was on fire, John grimaced.

“Man, I hope I get food here”

@Romi

John looked up as he heard the door to his cell open. He saw the muscular looking police officer and studied him as he walked in. The man’s scars were indeed quite interesting to look at, but then John realized that the Police officer probably wouldn’t come into the cell for no reason and as a result John acknowledged the man’s presence with a nod.

"I'm guessing you wanna do the talk tonight, or is tomorrow better?"

John nodded at the man in front of him and considered the question for a second. It could have been advantageous to tell the man in front of him to talk tomorrow, but then John realized that he probably wouldn’t answer the man’s questions and statements any differently.

“Can we do the talk tonight? I know you may be late in getting home, but I’d rather to use this time to clear my mind than to worry about the talk later.”

John’s mind then wandered to his stomach.

“Oh yah, do you have any food by any chance, I haven’t eaten much today in anticipation for the event”

@Romi

John paused at the man's question. To be honest, he didn't really know. He knew what actions he took to illicit the response to the police person, but he still didn't understand what he had done as incorrect. John pondered for a second and decided whether he should tell the truth or not. He realized that the moment the decided to talk to the person in front of him he would tell the truth.

"I understand what actions that I took to become arrested, but to be quite frank I have no idea why what I did was worthy of being jailed for a while. I am not saying this out of malice, but more out of true lack of understanding"

John sighed as he elaborated

"I am gonna be honest when I say that I had meant to help the kid get out of his shell at first. I Playfully poked him because he was curled up in a corner, hoping to get him up and talking to people. Later, though, I honestly don't know what half of what I said meant."

"When I was a much younger kid, I heard a old white lady say, excuse my language here, [John repeats what he said to Gal] to a bunch of young Black kids. It looked as if it hurt them, but not enough to kill them so I thought it may have been appropriate to use there."

John sighed again

"I had good intentions. I just seemed to have realized them incorrectly"

Wait. what.

Did the person in front of him ask about his life story out of personal curiosity or professional. John then shrugged to himself. Did it matter? The person legitimately was asking a question of him, probably a product of John's explanation, but still it was valid. John told himself it would be natural for someone to react that way.

"You may want to close the door behind you, I'm not going to try and run, but what if someone does. Well I guess I started out just like any other American kid, but my powers are not natural. I guess I had to sign myself in as a Bio-engineered human, though normally you wouldn't be able to distinguish much difference between me and a mundane human just with a surface level check. I'd imagine you have had a few maladjusted Bio-engineered in here."

John shrugged and then continued with his story.

"I lead a normal life until about my 14th birthday. I spent my days, you know, reading normal books like Das kapital by Karl Marx, The art of war, or Dante's Divine comedy. It may have been a bit after as I may be mixing up my days. Actually now that I think of it I learned that string of words on the same day. I never really got an answer about what those meant, and I hadn't ever heard those words before. Anyway, When my parents came home my parents just... forgot.... about me. Like every memory, Out the shitter."

John shivered when recounting this part of the story as it had never been an easy thing to talk about.

"A person that I knew... He dragged me into a bit of a lab and made me sign a few papers. Right as I had finished I was injected with something and forced into a room not too different than this one, though that room was padded with foam pads. I spent a dreadfully long time there everyone seemed to ignore me."

"Each day I was brought a lot of food through a slit in the door that opened and closed. I wanted people to see me or to talk to. One day I woke up and I was... Weird.... I was able to pass through objects and people, but I wasn't just intangible. It was almost as if I literally didn't exist. Like the padding that I had been standing on should have been dented, but it wasn't. It was literally as if I was never there in the first place."

John shuddered

"I literally walked out into the street after that. I didn't know what to do, so I acted upon my survival instinct and my ability. I had figured out a way that gave me a chance at switching from my state of inexistance, as I like to call it, and existence. I stole when I had to, and repaid people if I could, but I never stole anything big. Usually just food from the grocery store. There is still a town in Kansas that thinks that the store is haunted"

John chuckled a bit at that part of his story

"I eventually found a person that told me that I had to follow him to this place, wherever this place is. He seemed to be waiting for me. Haven't seen him since. Gonna be honest I got here by boat, but I have no idea where I am, other than Starlight Academy. Oh yah apparently, I have a panic disorder, but that seems to be a result of my time at the lab."

John relaxed after he had finished his story.

@Romi

John reacted to Angelo's question with a vigorous shaking of his head. Almost as if he was back in his 14 year old body. Humans are subhuman? That idea was ridiculous, so ridiculous that John almost laughed at the thought. Who would have ever thought about that. Humans were indeed just human, but there was an inherent value to that. Being sentient means that a possible soul could exist. He remembered reading a study on the weight of bodies changing before and after death, and took that as almost proof of a soul and sentience.

"Who would have ever thought that. Humans are subhuman, This sounds like a huge joke to me. What twisted life would you have had to live to think that legitimately. A sentient human is a human, regardless of their skin color."

John smiled with a relatively innocent smile half expecting the officer to say that what he had said earlier was a bad joke.

"Manta Carlos? Where on the map would this place be? And what is cultural classes? I am pretty cultured myself, well I seemed to be when I lived with the people in the US."


@Romi