when you tell me you love me, i have the power to know you really meant it it all connects to give me signs. your smile, your voice, your heart beating faster. it’s good to know what you’re actually feeling. then i dont have to keep guessing. this is a relationship’s dream right?

but when the love starts fizzling out, i don’t need the signs to tell me you don’t feel the same. your smile is forced, your voice is annoyed, your heart is at a normal pace. this power already tells me what i dread to know. that you don’t love me anymore. you can repeat the words “i love you” like a spell to try to enchant me again. it won’t work. i know how you really feel about me. you’ve lost all love for me. i think to myself, “isn’t it better to know instead of acting like everything is normal?” it is to an extent. i don’t face fake love anymore. but i hate the fact that my love for you is still true. i wish you could’ve stayed in love. i wish you loved me. i wish you would tell me this power is lying to me. but you can’t. it’s best i don’t see you anymore to escape your true hatred toward me for leaving. my power tells me what i need to know, just not at the right time. i wasn’t ready to let go of you, but my power was.

There we were... there is something different about this one. I am not able to tell how they are feeling. You are different from the others, unreadable. I never would've thought there was someone i couldn't read. That's what i am going to call you, Unique.

I see that i cannot read you and that is not the usual. Now this is interesting, it seems like a challenge. I am always up for a challenge.

I want to know you like no one else does. I wanna know the little things about you. Like, what have you been through? What do you think about that on the daily? What are your views and opinions on certain things? I want to know what makes you, you. What it is that makes you unique...

Everyone has a superpower.

No, not necessarily flight. Or laser vision. Just an ability gained over time. Not everyone even realizes that they have a power, but it’s a skill that is picked up though one’s experiences in life. When I was young, my parents would fight. Through this I learned what anger, desperation, and fear looked like. When I was five years old, there was a dog that lived in my neighborhood. It didn’t belong to anyone, but people would feed it, bring it in during a storm, or set out a bowl of water for it during the summer. One day it was found in the street, lying still. I looked around at the faces around me and learned what sadness, grief, and -in some cases-indifference looked like. When I was twelve I moved to a new school. At this point I knew what people were feeling based on their body language. One of my previous teachers had told me that I was very empathetic. I told myself that this was my superpower. Like mind reading, but a roundabout way of doing so. I knew when people were feeling happy, afraid, tired, annoyed. And I was proud of my superpower. I was ostracized almost immediately upon arriving at this new school. I was the weird new kid. I smelled like ash and was covered in strange yellow and purple spots. No one offered to sit with me at lunch. Written upon their faces I could clearly see confusion, disgust, and weariness. I tried not to let it bother me to much, they would come around. Wouldn’t they? The last bell had just rang, and I was about to go home when I heard someone behind me say, “Joan?” I turned to see my home room teacher. I looked at her expectantly, but I wasn’t sure if I should speak or not. Her face was kind, but her brow was creased. I tried to decided what she was feeling. Concern? Pity? Yes to both, but there was something more. “Yes, Ma’am?” I asked cautiously. “I are you alright? Would you like to talk about anything? I noticed that you seemed nervous towards the other students.” No, I corrected in my head, I was observing them. Instead I said, “I think that they were more nervous towards me than the other way around.” Again that emotion that I couldn’t place flashed across her face, “I noticed that you have a lot of bruises. Is everything alright?” I wasn’t expecting this in the slightest. “Yeah, I-um-I’m just really clumsy. I fall down, a lot.” Anger? That didn’t fit. “Okay, I just wanted to let you know that if you need to talk about anything, I’m here.”

I didn’t take her up on her offer for a long time, but eventually, I realized what emotion she was feeling. I had never seen it before, but I was surprised at how it changed my life. She showed me compassion.

He wished he could just find some peace.He had been blessed, or more accurately, cursed with the ability to sense emotions, but being an Empath was no fun. The continuous upheavals in the feelings of people surrounding him, were immensely exhausting. He was sick of feeling so much. The most common emotion he came across was anger, and it was potent enough to warrant shoving a whole damn bottle of Tylenol down his throat. People are just two faced bastards he thought. Thinking one thing doing something different altogether. Even affection was overrated, why were people so hell-bent on pursuing something that didn’t even feel remotely good. He craved quiet and serene places. He would do anything to rest his troubled mind, to breathe peacefully. He suddenly felt something, a warm, liquid, glowing ember beginning to take form inside of him. He felt his throat closing up, his eyes tearing, his heart thumping wildly. It felt good to be alive, like he was floating on a fuzzy cloud. It was molten and pure unadulterated joy. He was excited yet felt scared at the same time. He laughed. What was happening to him? The rustle of nearby bushes brought his attention to a small, pixie -like girl trying to coax a kitten out from underneath them. “Come out, I won’t hurt you.” She sang as she picked it up and turned toward him. She gave him a shy smile and continued to stroke the bewildered cat, looking at it with so much adoration it actually hurt him to experience it. She waved, and went on her way. He stood there transfixed, so, this is what love felt like, he thought.

I had gotten used to it by now. The coloured ring that outlined every person I saw.

The most common ones are obvious. If someone was happy, a pale blue glow would surround them. If they were angry, a red flare engulfed their body. Pink meant love, and an emerald green meant jealousy. I thought I had seen every emotion a human being could feel.

I was wrong...

It was a regular Tuesday. I woke up, got ready, and went to work. I said hello to Juliette, the receptionist, and sat down at my desk, ready to start the day.

That’s when he came in.

Hank, the man who sat at the desk next to mine, came in, his shoulders up around his neck and his head down.

Hank was quiet and a bit awkward, but he was a good man and a hard worker. No one really knew much about him. He kept to himself.

For as long as he’d been working there, I had only ever seen one colour radiating off him. A deep blue. Sadness.

I had never seen a blue so dark before, until I saw Hank. I had never seen such misery. It was heartbreaking. If I asked him about it, he would just say he was fine. But I knew the truth.

This day, however, was different. When I looked at him, I didn’t see his usual deep shade of blue, but instead, something much darker.

Black.

It was everywhere, completely surrounding him until I could hardly make out his hunched form beneath the pitch black cloud.

For the first time in my life, I didn’t just see his pain. I felt it.

Like a knife to my heart, I felt it.

It was agony and numbness all at once.

I had never felt so empty yet so overwhelmed.

Tears were threatening to fall from my eyes, so I looked away. I looked over at people on the other side of the room. They were laughing, glowing a beautiful shade of purple. Playful.

I felt my heart rate return to normal. I smiled. I was starting to feel better. I didn’t dare look back over at Hank. Instead, I put my head down and got to work. I didn’t look up from my desk again until the work day was over, and I was sure that Hank had gone home. I drove in complete silence. I didn’t say a word as I parked my car. I couldn’t even bring myself to properly greet my wife when I went inside. Her aura shifted from a light blue to an intense orange. Concern. She asked me what was wrong. I told her I had a tough day at work, that I was just tired. I went to bed, but I barely slept. All I could think about was Hank. About the shadows that consumed him.

Hank didn’t show up to work the next day.

They found him dead in his car.

Free at last. At peace.

I had been getting ready to head to the mall with Alex again as we do every saturday. Except today felt different, when I passed my brother in the hallway it's like I could feel what he was feeling. Just by walking next to him I could feel his overwhelming sense of pride radiating off of him. I turn to talk to him and before he could walk into him bedroom i say something but then turn back towards the stairs to head downstairs to get food before I leave. It was supposed to be another regular weekend at the mall with Alex, until he got into the car. All this time i could feel others emotions like they had been radiating off of them but then when i was telling Alex about it on the car ride to the mall he just stopped moving, breathing. It was a cold feeling I could feel from him. He was still sleeping but his eyes changed. I've never felt any emotion like this, ever.

“Alex are you ok?”

I asked him and it was like realization hit him. He blinked and then he told me something that was, wel creepy,

“What are you lexi?”

I looked at him with confusion as i realized it wasn't alex that had been speaking but something else inside of him. I pull into the mall parking garage and then get out and start to walk away from him without answering. He yells it at me again.

“WHAT ARE YOU LEXI?”

He storms over as I start to sink down to the ground trying to comprehend what was going on and he grabs my wrist yanking it up and me along with it. And he pushes me against the wall in the garage and looks me dead in the eye. He goes to reach for something in his pocket, looking away for just a moment. And i could feel that same emotion in him, all I could do was describe it, cold like death but filled with hatred. When he goes to reach into his pocket I reach into mine and grab my pocket knife and stab him, right in the chest. I didn't realize what I did until it was too late. I was standing there over his dead body, not very sure of what I just did. I had the knife in my hand, and his blood had been dripping down to the point of the blade. I couldn't move. I just stood there staring at his body. Inso much shock that I didn't realise someone else had pulled up and into the garage. When i finally realized there was someone else in there with me it was too late, she was screaming for everyone to hear.( I have this in google docs and I am going to make it a true short story for class, help on fixing it up would be most appreciated)

Dear Diary, Something happened yesterday. I don’t know where to start. I met this boy. Well, I didn’t really meet him first. It’s surreal but I guess I...saved him. I was driving on the bridge at about eleven last night, in the middle of one of the heaviest snowfalls I had ever seen. It had been a long day at work. It’s especially hard to function throughout your day when every time you look at someone’s face, you can understand everything their going through, but you can’t do anything about it. Because I’m terrible at talking to people. Like I’ve said before, anybody else in the world would’ve been better fit to have this emotion reading “gift” I have.

I just wanted to go home, hide in my blankets, and watch Netflix.

Anyway, I was driving down the road when something caught my eye. Only, it was a someone. A person, a child, was standing on the edge of the bridge staring down below at the icy waters.

Panic and adrenaline spiked through my veins. All I could think was don’t jump, kid. Don’t jump. Please. Oh no.

I veered my car over and slammed the brakes. I opened my door and the icy air met my face, shocking it.

Don’t jump.

I ran out of my car. “STOP!” I yelled. The child turned in the direction of my voice. I couldn’t see their face through all the snow.

I ran out to them. “I’m here now, don’t jump” I said. “I love you, I’m here to help you.” I wrapped my arms around their waist and lowered them back down to the concrete. The child didn’t resist, though I could feel his or her body wracking with hiccups and shaking with fear.

I thought, how the heck does a kid this young decide to do this? Now I realize, this kind of thing doesn’t have a limit on how old you have to be.

I turned the child around to face me.

It was a boy, with his nose bright red and tears frozen to his face. He sniffed and cried out.

This was the moment.

I would’ve tried consoling him, to read his emotion and situation so I could at least try to talk to him...but his emotion... it was different. I had never encountered what he was feeling, and for once, I couldn’t understand it.

Grey.

I didn’t understand.

The child’s emotions were numb and the only thing I got from his face...was grey.

Instead of trying to understand, and to use words to help, I pulled him into a hug.

And we stayed there, embracing, holding on to each other, as the snow fell from the night sky.

I would’ve stayed there all night with him.

this is something I don’t recognise I know right? coming from me that sounds like lies I mean I don’t mean to pry but maybe just a few more tries

same results must belong to a cult I was born to read emotions as for this one displayed before me I do not recognise I mean I don’t mean to pry but maybe just a couple tries

who is this? what is this? this expression not aggression now stop blocking me out let me understand can you see? I do not recognise

This is new But why you? Words cannot describe a feeling so ... let me register this one but wait allow me to understand the depth of this

I do not recognise..