"Where's your father?" Hugo asked, feeling the heavy silence of the house.
Serena was in the kitchen, making juice in two glasses. She answered without turning around:
"He's working."
She returned to the living room with both glasses in hand and extended one to the boy.
"Here, this is for you."
"I don't want that, it has too much sugar," Hugo complained.
Serena's expression changed instantly. Her tone of voice rose, becoming sharp and authoritative:
"Take it and drink it now!"
Hugo looked at her and felt a chill. Serena's eyes were strange, fixed on him. Intimidated, he took the glass and downed the juice at once.
"There! Are you happy now?" he asked, irritated.
Her features softened into an artificial sweetness.
"Yes," she replied with a melodic voice.
Serena went back to the kitchen to wash her glass. A few minutes passed until Hugo tried to get up from the sofa, but his legs failed.
"Serena... I don't feel well. My legs are numb... my mouth too. I can't feel my body!" His voice came out slurred, loaded with panic.
"It will be okay, Hugo," she replied calmly while drying her hands. "You won't feel pain anymore. I'm going to take you to a special place."
"I think I better go home..." Hugo tried to crawl across the floor, but his movements were slow and uncoordinated. Exactly at the exit door, his consciousness faded, and he passed out.
The Basement of Horrors
Eight hours later, Hugo woke up. He was lying on a metal table, tightly bound. The setting was the house's basement, where Serena's father kept a clandestine clinic for organ trafficking.
"Where am I?" he murmured, his vision still blurry.
"Finally! You slept a lot," Serena said, entering his field of vision.
Hugo realized he was completely naked and vulnerable. Terror hit him with full force.
"No... No! Please! HELP! HELP!" Desperate screams ripped through the basement while tears flooded his eyes.
"You can scream all you want," Serena said, approaching with a tray of surgical instruments. "Did you forget? We have no neighbors."
"What are you going to do to me?" he sobbed, shaking violently.
"I only want one thing from you: your heart," she replied. Her eyes shone with pure pleasure, fed by the victim's fear and pain.
Serena picked up a scalpel and, with terrifying calm, began to make the first cut.
"IT HURTS SO MUCH! HELP!" Hugo screamed until he lost his breath.
At that moment, Serena's father arrived home, surprised by police officers who were following him.
"Calm down! I don't have drugs!" the father shouted, trying to prevent them from entering.
But the officers heard the screams coming from the basement and ran down the stairs. The father, in desperation, ran ahead. When the police broke down the basement door, they saw the grotesque scene: Serena was leaning over Hugo, opening him with the scalpel.
One of the officers, in shock, drew his weapon. Serena's father, in a final act of protection, jumped in front of his daughter. Eight bullets hit him squarely, and one of the bullets passed through and hit Serena as well.
"Don't move, girl!" the officer shouted. His weapon was shaking. In a city where crime was almost nonexistent, seeing that was unbearable.
Serena fell to the floor next to her father's body. She didn't scream. She didn't cry. She had no reaction. While Hugo continued to scream on the table, the officer, overtaken by nerves, fired again at Serena.
Serena's Thoughts:
"I'm dying... Should I scream? Should I say I don't want to die? That's what people do, isn't it? But I can't... I can't feel what they feel. I'm strange. I know you can't accept me like this, with my flaws and my different way. But what's wrong with being different? There's nothing wrong with that..."
At the moment her heart was about to stop, her father's body, fallen beside her, transformed into an Osmo. The spirit merged with Serena, stitching her wounds and regenerating her tissues in seconds.
There, in that bloody basement, Serena William was born: The Emotion Controller.