My whole existence was a secret, a secret that if let out, I'd be confined, my belongings burned, and my housed wrecked all the way down to the atom. My lips were shovels, ones that flung little bits of shallow truths to bury my secrets, everything I said was true about me, yes, but it never was my definition, my page in the dictionary that completed me. I made the things that'd usually people would consider just on the cover my contents. I liked sports, I was good at them, so I made myself into one of those soccer guys on the magazines, cool, athletic, and it was the subject of my conversations all the time. I tried to stick with sports so no one would try to delve deeper into me. I was okay in school, I'd usually get C's, but whenever I got a B, I'd hold it like a trophy and tell my friends that I'd bribed the teacher for it to make my friends laugh, so they'd think I'm a funny guy, and make them think they knew me. So they liked at least the layer of skin that hugged my dark secrets inside. If they even glanced at my darkness, the locked box I kept inside my faking heart, they'd hate me.

The world would hate me.

In history, there was a huge event that happened, kind of like the Black plague, except worse. It was a disease that would take over your very structure, your DNA, and degrade it back into the natural elements of the earth.  Some turned to dust, getting swept into broom pans in the hospital closets, some would burst into flame, leaving their beds charred and would dissipate like smoke in the air, some would become liquid and slide off their death bed like clear ooze, and some would just disappear, as if into thin air. It was called the 'elemental plague'. It had a 100% kill rate, and the people were terrified of it. They shut themselves away, conserving even their breath as if the very air carried the disease in its cool palms, but it still ended up killing over 70% of the population of the world. 25% of the population survived by some miracle, being impervious to the terrible disease. The other 5%, became the 'freaks'

By some weird phenomenon, when pregnant women were hit by the plague, and their babies survived, the humans found that the babies had actually absorbed the abilities of the virus down to their DNA. They had harnessed the disease's capabilities, and were unharmed by the element of which they controlled. Earth freaks could survive thunderous impacts as if they were but a slight nudge, and could dig through the earth and shoot rocks at people. Water freaks could survive like fish in the ocean, sliding with ease through the water without a single breath, and were able to manipulate the water inside and outside their bodies. Wind freaks could glide through the wind like flying squirrels, as if one with the air, and could shoot gusts of winds by their own will. Fire users would swim through lava unharmed and shoot flames from their fingertips. I don't get all the science on how it works and how humans could have the durability and strength to handle it, but, somehow, it works. So basically, these babies had amazing powers and could be like those superheroes in the comics, right?

Not exactly.

Actually, since people were still pretty scared of the plague, they thought that these babies could somehow pass the disease onto them still, even though at the degree it had transformed in their bodies, there was no way it could hurt them. The doctors told the 'normals' that, but they weren't convinced. The normals then tried to kill them off, or shut them away from the world in a small cage like how meat farmers used to cage their overly fat chickens to sell them to the market. If you'd like a clearer image of that, imagine a full fledge adult stuck in a cage built for a medium sized dog. Claustrophobic much?

Now, you must be wondering, why the heck am I explaining all this history crap when I was talking about some humungo secret I kept from all my friends? Well? I hope you guys can connect the dots.

That's right; I'm one of the 'freaks'. A fire freak actually. I'm able to do those fire tricks like those guys from 'The Last Airbender' show. Though we don't get any hero treatment for being freaks, we just get rejection and pain as payment. We could actually help them with their dumb problems that us humans always seem to face while we stumble like toddlers through history, but unfortunately, just like history before it, even people of the present can make stupid decisions, and that one was to kill us off.

However, that, I'm afraid, isn't even the worst of it. Even when we were hiding and doing very little harm to them, some normals then started to form anti-freak groups to kill us off. They basically give whoever joins them a machine gun to shoot whoever they think is one of us. So basically, it's the witch hunts all over again. Nice history repeat there guys, thanks.

So what of us freaks to do? Well, we made our own groups, or some of went solo. I'm a solo guy really, just trying to keep my secret from the world, and I've never given anyone any reason to doubt me. Meaning, I try not to meet people, so I haven't met many normals, but that means I haven't met others of my kind either.

It's kind of sad we can't even show our true identity to others of our kind. However, sometimes, there are lucky occurrences where it does happen, where they just accidently stumble upon each other. But it's usually just lucky people who get those kinds of events.

Though, can't say I'm an unlucky person.