Changes

I did not stop at the one store, I went through every clothing and shoe store on the boardwalk before I felt satisfied that I had met my own requirements of living my new life to the fullest. I feel liberated like a giant weight has left my shoulders and I can finally be myself again. It is almost funny that I had to become someone else to be myself, but such is life.

After thoroughly enjoying my time at the Boardwalk, I decide to return home, being very careful not to lose myself in my thoughts again. It is difficult and I notice multiple times that I am trying to walk in the wrong direction on seemingly random occasions. I once almost moved into an ally that I could see was a deadlock, but for a moment I felt certain that this was the way I was supposed to go. It seems like a challenged sense of direction is one of the drawbacks of my new form, the constant urge to clean or cook are the other major drawbacks I have noticed so far. They probably are not the only ones, but I am honestly not all that concerned with the drawbacks, it is not like I have an alternative at the moment. My real or better, old self could be best described as suicidal and I would rather clean and feed the whole city multiple times before I go back to open this can of worms.

During the walk home I decided to stop calling myself the stranger, new Taylor or anything like that. While trying to think about a new designation, for my name was and always will be Taylor, I could not shack the urge to call myself Snow. Snow, like the "skin as white as snow" part of the verse, I like to think of as my new signature call. It just feels natural, like a part of the transformation, just like the verse "hair as black as ebony, lips as red as the rose, skin as white as snow, eyes like a warm hearth". It's part of Snow like the black hair or the red eyes, there is no reason for it, it just is and I am content with that. There is no reason for me to fret about something so simple when I can simply enjoy the beautiful world and the joy it brings to me.

On my way home I again notice the stares of all people who see me, but contrary to my time at the Boardwalk, it is not annoying, some even join me in my humming. It feels normal now and I barely pay attention to it anymore, which is probably another one of Snow's drawbacks.

Thinking of yourself in third person is probably a sign of madness, or maybe Hybris. I remember reading in our history textbook from middle school that Caesar used to talk about himself in the third person. Trough comparing myself with a warmongering megalomaniac is probably a bad sign as well.

And I almost walked the wrong way again, seriously its almost like there is something constantly drawing me in the wrong direction. If I didn't know this area as well as I do, I would be hopelessly lost. I should try to get a map of the whole city as soon as possible, or I will find myself on the wrong side of Downtown rather sooner than later. I will never laugh about these kids who can't read a simple hiking map ever again.

The first thing I do when I get home is looking for Mum's old computer. It does not matter how bad it feels to hold something that was so obviously hers, there are a few things I need to research and there is no way I can go to the library with my old library card looking like this and asking to use a computer. Not every human being is as apathetic and oblivious to their surroundings as my Dad is these days. Sooner or later people that have seen me before will notice that I have changed and I can only think of a few ways to circumvent that problem. The easiest way would be to claim that my new appearance is natural or at least the result of plastic surgery, but even in America 13-year-olds who had plastic surgery are uncommon, even more so when they come from a poor working-class single-parent household. There is no way anyone would ever believe that Dad would consent and or be able to pay for that.

I can't go on a yearlong trip to another country to muddle people's memory of my old appearance and claim the rest to be changes caused by my natural growth process either. The only viable I can think of is to limit my exposure to people who know me as much as possible and the easiest way to do that would be to change school. I have a scholarship offer from Arcadia after all and no one else in my elementary school was chosen to go there. It is a hard-fought honor for anyone to get a scholarship to Arcadia and most would have boasted about it. The only reason nobody knew about me being offered a scholarship is, that I did not plan to tell Emma that I would give it up to go to Winslow, but this new me does not push herself down to keep the betraying mean girl who once was my best friend from being jealous. I would show her how much better I am if it would not compromise the whole plan. No, Emma would be one of the first people to notice the changes, and she would use it against me.

Another thing I have to research is how and why I have changed, I know there are parahumans out there, but I thought they had powers over technology or some kind of element manipulation. Or turned into monsters, go on a slaughter or create their own dinosaur kingdom. Parahumans and their powers are weird and scary, so I have never really spent much time thinking about the reason for their existence. Besides, it was just way cooler to imagine myself being Armsmaster or Alexandria, some of my favorite Capes and doing heroic deeds while bantering with villains. Playing Cape, Pirate or Princes is just what kids do. I never needed to understand the how and why, except now I really do. I can't do this unprepared and the only safe way to get information is to try to stay undetected while surfing anonymously.

It is surprisingly easy to use the private browser function, trough I am nor sure how anonymously it is in the time of Techsavie-Capes and opening a new account on PHO is done in a few minutes. But this is where it gets harder, the threads about Cape powers and where they come from are vague and full of conspiracy theories. I personally like the one about giant lizards trying to take over the world and the world fighting back by granting chosen humans the power to fight, it gives me the feeling of a sense of purpose and a heroic justification.

But there is no information on scientific research about capes, at least I can't find any. To search on other sites or for more specific terms could be risky and PHO is one of the only publicly available sources of cape-information I know of which is regularly used by Capes and Normals to confer with each other about Capes and Cape-politics. My need to stay as low key as possible is really getting to me, there is just not enough factual information. Most threads are about crimes, heroic acts or just simple fan-pages.

The only thing I am sure about now is that there are a lot of dangerous and murderous capes in Brockton Bay, more than there should be. Lung, Hookwolk, Oni Lee just to name a few, are some of the most dangerous capes in the States, they all have killed before and they are still around and free to do whatever they want because the Protectorate can't handle them. The police inside BB is just as ineffective it seems. I knew it was bad, but reading dozens of threads about different crimes committed just during the last few days gives you a whole new perspective. The survival statistics of new Capes are just as bad, there are even a few unconfirmed rumors of Wards dying outside of Endbringer fights. It has just never occurred to me to look up how many capes die each year due to unnatural causes. Hell, there is not a single known case of a Cape dying from a natural cause. Cape death rates are higher than soldiers during the two world wars and it is even worse for independent capes. Half of the threads about independent capes end with a news article about their mutilated corpses being found in some ditch or them being disabled for life.

The only other option seems to be to rely on a group of Capes for survival, except when you are strong enough to make everyone fear you. But I am no Lung or Nilbog, I don't even want to be, the simple thought of turning other people into whatever Nilbogs' Creatures are or killing my way to the top of a gang makes me queasy. Not like I could ever do it anyway, my powers seem to revolve around food and cleaning. Which is the lamest powerset I could find on PHO and there are some pretty lame Capes out there. I mean, a person who can make soap from nothing or a guy claiming to be a mage without even the most basic Fireball spell, they are pathetic but at least more versatile and dangerous than me.

So what I need is a plan.