Writing Prompt Challenge -- Prompt 4

Welcome to this week's Writing Prompt challenge!

Today’s prompt is: You are a teenager with the ability to measure how "Dangerous" people are on a scale from 1 to 10 just by looking at them. A normal child would be a 1, while a trained man with an assault rifle might be a 7. Today, you notice the unassuming new kid at school measures a 10.

I've had this gift for awhile now.

I can't exactly pinpoint where it started, mostly because I didn't really believe it fully until a few years ago. It's not a literal numeric scale, but I like to refer to it as such for sake of implicity.

Basically, I can tell how much of a threat people are.

It's the same instinctual feeling we all have, that feeling of protecting your loved ones, except a few differences. First of all, its not just people who threaten my family, it's everyone. Second of all, it's always right.

I've tried looking at myself in the mirror to determine which one I was a number of times, but each time I got some result from 1-10, never straight. My mother is a 2 when around me or the family, but a 5 when around strangers. I took that this followed her sharp wit and unfortunate beginnings, as she could be quite a tough and intimidating woman when she needed to be.

My boyfriend, Pierce, is a straight 3. Don't see how, though – he honestly wouldn't even hurt a butterfly if he had to. I guess that it was something he kept in the back of his brain just in case the need arose, just like my mother. The rest of my friends are around 2-4, and the most “dangerous” man I've ever met is my principal who had a 6, likely due to his ex-army experience.

He was the most dangerous man. Until Wednesday.

The second the kid walked out of his parent's sedan I was already getting bad vibes. On the outside, he looked pretty damn normal: glasses, waved back blond hair, and a red polo. He practically didn't have any muscle. But as he got closer to the school, and to me, I began feeling worse and worse until the number finally came to me.

“Ten.”

“What?” My boyfriend asked it from my side. Besides my mother, he was the only one who knew about – and believed – my ability.

“That kid over there. He's a ten.” I pointed to the person in question.

“How? He doesn't look threatening at all.”

“I don't know, but I want to find out.”

And so I did, or at least tried to. He was a grade above me, so besides passing each other in the hall once, in which I saw nothing, I didn't really get to see what was up. I decided to wait until it was after school to get Pierce to spy with me.

We hid behind a bush, getting quite a lot of suspicious looks, but fortunately the man himself didn't notice.

It seemed still that he was entirely normal, and I was about to call it out until Pierce whispered to me in a shocked voice.

“Look, his hand!”

It wasn't much – not much for those paying attention to notice – but it was obvious. The kid's hand was on fire.

Instead of reacting to it in the way of, well, having your hand being on fire, he instead simply patted it down with his other hand until it was gone. It was at the moment that it clicked.

“He has a power, too.”

“Of what? Setting his hand on fire?”

“It explains the ten, doesn't it?”

That night I got to thinking how many more of us their could be out there. It's clear his power is much stronger than mine, so perhaps there is a whole group of people whose powers range from large to small. Maybe like me, the person doesn't believe they have the power. Or maybe, they simply haven't figured out what it is yet.


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