I can’t speak. I can’t think. I can’t breathe.
All I can do is stare at the crystal pendant my father gave me, shattered into pieces.
My mind is a chaotic mess of sensory nightmares as a shriek rips through my vocal cords. I can still hear the crystal smashing onto the floor, I can feel my skin burning me alive, I can taste the metallic liquid coating my tongue and it’s horrible, it’s stifling, it’s—
“Jada, stop. You’re hurting people.”
Mom’s stern tone is a straight shot through the fuzziness in my brain. Suddenly, I’m back in my own body. My throat is raw. I’m out of breath. But I’m not screaming anymore.
Instead, there’s someone else screaming.
I rip my gaze away from the pendant. My beige bed is scorched with burn marks. Pure charcoal encircling me, a blemish on the otherwise white tile.
And the Caretaker who broke my pendant is writhing in pain, third-degree burns poking through the tattered sleeves of his lab coat.
Mom’s in the doorway with two more Caretakers, a haunted expression contorting her face. “Jada, what have you done?”
I dare to glance down at my hands, where my fingertips are still lit like candle flames. A deep bite mark indents the middle of my forearm.
My eyes water from the nauseating scent of charred flesh. I want to blame the Caretaker, but he’s not the one who turns into a human nuke from a meltdown. So I just extinguish my fingers while the two able Caretakers carry him out on a stretcher.
Mom thins her lips. “That was your third strike, Jada.”
“I know.” My voice is raspy. I’m probably dehydrated.
“They want to send you to the White Room. I won’t be able to stop them this time.” She grimaces. “You can’t let your emotions control you like this.”
“I know.” I sound like a broken record. How many times have we had this conversation?
Apparently not enough, because Mom ends it the same way:
“You need to get a hold of yourself before you hurt someone else.”
A boulder-sized lump blocks my throat. I’m trying so hard and it doesn’t matter because it’s not good enough. I’ll never be good enough.
Mom guides me into the white hallway that looks more like an asylum than an elemental therapy facility. Maybe that’s not too far from the truth. Parents are instructed to bring their children here if they can’t blend into society after inheriting their family’s elemental magic.
Some pick it up easily. My old classmate Gianni never misused his earth abilities.
I haven’t seen him since he tried to steal my necklace. I accidentally melted the skin off his hand, and they shipped me away. That was five years ago.
Now two Caretakers are waiting for me with sapphire handcuffs. Nothing’s changed.
The cuffs snap around my wrists with a clink. I feel the flames in my chest simmer down until they’re smaller than a pilot light. These elemental-inhibiting restraints put out my fire before it can even start.
I peek back into my room, where my fractured pendant lies, abandoned. Memories of my father resurface. That necklace was all I had left of him.
The Caretakers start escorting me down the hallway. Panic wills the flames to grow higher. All that comes out of me is a choked sob.
“Mom!” My voice comes out shrill. “Don’t leave me.”
She stays silent as the Caretakers drag me away. Kids who are brought to the White Room don’t leave. This might be the last time I’ll ever see her.
So when her figure disappears around the corner, my heart shatters like the crystal.
I let my mind succumb to the buzzing overhead lights as I’m lugged toward my demise. For a moment, everything stops, and all I hear is a high-pitched ringing.
Then we get to a pair of ivory double doors. One Caretaker scans their palm on the reader. The other brings me inside, unlatching the cuffs from my wrists. The heat rushes back into my body, a furnace roaring to life.
Before I can call my flames, the door closes behind me.
I’m trapped in the White Room.
This is it. I can hear the crystal shattering again. Taste the blood that’s now dried over my arm. It leaves me gagging, but I don’t know how else to shut up my screaming thoughts, so I sink my teeth into—
A tap on my shoulder interrupts my spiral. I whip around to a guy with irises that flicker between normal hazel and a radiant emerald…
…And his right arm is made of metal, connected to a stump below his shoulder.
“Does it taste good?”
I look back at his face, cheeks burning. “D-does what?”
He nods to the bite mark. “Your blood.”
“Oh.” I cradle my arm. “No.”
“Then why are you eating yourself?”
“I’m not eating myself.”
“Then why are you—”
“It doesn’t matter,” I snap and instantly regret it when his smile dips. “Sorry.”
I’m expecting him to call me weird. Questions are normal; they’re typical.
But he doesn’t. His forehead creases in sympathy. “That’s my bad. I just get excited when they bring in new people.”
I blink, convinced I’m dreaming. This can’t be real.
“Do you not like questions?” he asks, then curses under his breath. “Stupid. That was another question.”
A faint laugh escapes me. He perks up, his emerald eyes morphing to a forest green. His prosthesis flexes its fingers, more lifelike than a human hand.
“You’re using your earth magic to control it,” I breathe out.
His face brightens. “Yeah! Pretty cool, huh? It’s almost like I never lost my arm in the first place.”
“Not just cool. That’s amazing.”
Now it’s his turn to get flustered. “Thanks. I’m Luke, by the way. What’s…”
He bites his tongue, and my heart skips a beat. He’s purposely cutting off his question.
Something in the air shifts. A pressure that’s been weighing down my chest eases off.
I exhale through my mouth, letting the flames rise. A single touch could engulf Luke, and yet he’s entranced by my charged fingertips. A baby flare emerges in my palm.
“I’m Jada. This is the most I can do without burning down the facility.” I bite my lip. “I can’t control my emotions.”
“None of us can at first. Doesn’t make you any less amazing.” Luke offers his right hand. “Want to meet the others?”
I study Luke’s gesture. Mom always told me to listen to my gut; she never understood that my gut has no sense of direction. It doesn’t know left from right or right from wrong.
Despite all of that, I know I can trust Luke.
I intertwine my fingers through his prosthesis, and it’s…not cold at all. A familiar yet impossible warmth radiates from the metal. Is this the power of his earth magic?
Maybe he’s just that comforting.
Luke leads me further into the poorly-named White Room: past a colorful communal area inhabited by a mahogany couch, purple beanbags, a navy plastic table with neatly stacked crossword puzzles and organized pencils.
“It’s so…clean.” I was expecting the problem children room to be anything but clean.
Luke chuckles. “Thanks to Tab’s hyperfixation. Check back in two weeks and it’ll be a mess.”
Bedroom doors line the walls, three claimed by whiteboards: Luke, Tab, Chase.
Luke nods to an empty room. “With you, we make four. You’re part of the family now.”
Butterflies dance around the flames in my chest. He already considers us family?
The further Luke pulls me, the more at home I feel. The White Room’s kitchen is well-stocked with both safe and sensory-stimulating foods. A sticky note that says “DON’T FORGET TO DRINK WATER” is stuck to the microwave.
We finally arrive at a massive gym with a treadmill and rower and everything in between. It’d be perfect if it weren’t for those buzzing lights.
Right away, I spot a girl with vibrant blue eyes and bulky, over-the-ear headphones. That’s definitely Tab. She mouths the words to a song as she throws jabs at a punching bag.
Then her irises illuminate an otherworldly gray. The stale, conditioned air blows toward her, and her next punch almost knocks the sand bag off its suspended chain.
Woah. An air elemental who fights?
On the other side of the room is Chase, a guy with intense brown eyes I couldn’t be bribed to stare into. He’s running an incline on the treadmill, a water bottle in each cup holder: one half-empty, one full.
A pained grunt steals my attention. Tab is on the floor, cradling her head. The punching bag slows to a steady swing.
Chase grabs his full water bottle and rushes over, leaving the treadmill on. His irises shine ocean blue as he draws out the liquid by his fingertips. “You’re gonna give yourself a concussion at this rate.”
Tab relaxes at the water absorbing into her skin. She flashes Chase a goofy smile. “I’ve really gotta stop falling for you.”
He groans loudly, a direct one-eighty of my obnoxious snort. I slap a hand over my mouth, but it’s too late. All eyes are on me now.
Tab sits up, eyes wide. My body freezes, a deer in headlights.
“Finally, someone has a sense of humor around here.” She nudges Chase. “You could learn a thing or two from her.”
“Yeah, no thanks,” he mumbles, then nods to me. “So what are you in for?”
Luke wrinkles his nose. “You make it sound like a prison.”
“Am I wrong?”
“No, but you’re freaking her out,” Tab says, pointing at me. “She’s already stimming.”
I glance down. My hands fiddle with my shirt collar, right where my crystal used to sit. I shove them back to my sides.
Tab picks herself up and approaches me with a practiced, friendly smile I know all too well. “Sorry for the weird introduction. I’m Tab.”
“I’m Jada.” I gesture to Chase. “And you—”
“Chase,” he says bluntly.
“—left your treadmill running.”
He spins around. “Seriously?”
Tab and Luke watch as Chase heads for the treadmill, only to take a sip from his half-empty water bottle. He walks back over to us, completely unaware.
“Treadmill,” Luke says.
Another spin. “Again?”
While Chase actually turns off the machine, Tab studies me like a specimen under a microscope. I move to fiddle with my shirt—then drop my hands again.
Tab’s smile fades. “These lights are so freaking loud.”
My breath hitches. “You actually hear them, too?”
“That’s why I’ve got these.” She taps on her headphones. “I’m surprised they sent you here. Usually they don’t catch the quiet ones.”
The word catch churns my stomach. We really are prisoners, aren’t we?
“When I have meltdowns, my flames get bigger, and…” I stare at my shoes, full of shame. “My emotions hurt a lot of people.”
A deadly silence follows. My thoughts get louder to make up for it.
Not good enough. Not good enough. Not—
“We’ve hurt people, too,” Chase says. I snap my head up, and his eyes are nowhere near as intimidating as before. “That’s why we’re here. Because we’re different.”
“Then why do you act so content? Are you really okay with never being reformed?”
Luke scratches his head. “Sure, it’d be great to fit in. But I’d rather be me than be someone everyone wants me to be.”
“Fitting in sucks, anyway,” Chase adds, wrapping an arm around Tab. “I like people who accept me for who I am.”
Accept me for who I am? That sounds like an impossible dream.
As if reading my mind, Luke rests a reassuring hand on my shoulder. “Whoever told you that your flames are bad has never bothered to step into your shoes. Being different doesn’t make you dysfunctional or anything. It makes you you. Who do you want to be?”
My forehead creases. “I’ve never really thought about it.”
“I want to be stronger,” Tab says. “My wind magic can fight bad guys. I’m wasting my potential if I neglect that side of me.”
Chase nods. “I can save lives with my natural healing abilities and fast reaction time. I want to be reliable.”
“Maybe after you remember to turn the treadmill off—”
He interrupts Tab with an elbow to the ribs. I stifle a laugh.
Luke’s hazel irises sparkle with sage flecks. “The earth lets me sense people’s vibrations. I want to be likeable. To you guys, to my parents…” His confidence wavers. “To me.”
His vulnerability catches me off-guard. What should I say?
I tentatively lace my fingers through Luke’s prosthesis. “I’m still working on liking myself, too. It feels a little easier around you.”
Luke meets my gaze. For the first time ever, I don’t want to break eye contact.
“So what do you think?” Chase asks me.
The answer’s been right in front of me this whole time. “I want to be free. Someone who can express themself without the fear of hurting others.” I shift uncomfortably. “No idea how to do that, though. Fire is destruction.”
“Sure. But it’s so much more than that.” Tab rotates my free palm rightside up. “Fire’s also creation. It keeps us warm. It guides us through the dark—”
“It can cook food,” Luke adds, getting a snort from me.
Tab nods eagerly. “Fire is whatever you want it to be. You just have to believe.”
Her words strike a chord with me. My mind’s thrown back to my old house, right before my father got shipped away forever.
“Believe in your flames, Jada.”
That was the last thing he said to me. I cried myself to sleep, frustrated that I didn’t know what he meant.
It’s taken me my whole life, but I think I finally understand.
I close my eyes, picturing the core flame in my chest. It’s small and timid, smothered by insecurities. You’re hurting people. It’s all your fault. You’re not good enough.
I do hurt people.
It is my fault.
But I am good enough. Maybe not for Mom, or the Caretakers, or anyone else in this godforsaken world, but I am for me.
The flame swells, getting bigger and bigger and bigger—
My eyes shoot open with a gasp. The usual small flare has spread along my entire body, outlining me in a fiery silhouette.
And yet Tab’s still holding my hand, not in pain. She runs her fingers along the fire. The harmless blaze crawls up her arm until she’s submerged in the same orange flare as me.
An irrepressible elation explodes from my chest. The fire burns brighter.
Luke allows the flames to shower him in warmth. Tab spreads the blaze to Chase, and his lips curl into a grin. He grabs onto Luke and completes the circle.
Tears catch onto my lashes. I don’t bother hiding them.
I don’t need to anymore. I’m finally free.
Notes From the Judge
I immediately fell in love with the world that Katie created here. The piece drew me in from the first page, and I think this story fits the theme so well, is hopeful, and I love how the author used genre to bring out this theme. When I asked for “Strength in Disabilities,” I wasn’t sure what I’d get, but I’m so incredibly thankful for this piece. The characterization is strong, I love the sense of voice, and the description held my interest from the beginning. I also think the message is so strong!
Katie Collan (she/her) is a Jewish neurodivergent author who brings characters to life both textually and visually. She received a B.F.A. in film from New York Institute of Technology and wrote a short film that won the Best of Film award in the 2022 NYIT Film Festival. Off-screen, her short fiction has appeared in FLARE Magazine, Micromance Magazine, and Audience Askew.
Bluesky: @kancollan.bsky.social
Twitter: @KCollan
Website: https://katiecollan.carrd.co/