Microstory 111: Serenity Theodo

This is an experimental Bellevue Profile microstory. The introduction can be found in Microstory 101. More to follow.

When an honorary member of Bellevue first laid eyes on a list of anomalies that was compiled by someone who was once able to sense and track people, he found out that one of his former patients was on it. Serenity Theodo was five years old when she was diagnosed with an extremely rare form of leukemia that had, until then, not been seen in a child. The doctor gave her one month to live. Her parents agreed to treat the symptoms with drugs, not to prolong her life, but to make her as comfortable as possible. Still, she remained bedridden in the hospital throughout the barrage of treatment, and was unable to enjoy her life during those times. To the surprise of the medical community, the cancer never went away completely, but the symptoms lessened over the years. For some of the pain, Serenity simply learned to deal with it better than most people. When she was a teenager, she discovered that she had the ability to phase through objects. Her parents were horrified, especially after her recovery. They belonged to a religious order that treated what others might call a miracle as a curse, so they were already frightened and suspicious of their daughter for having survived a deadly disease. It is, however, the Amadesin way to playact at all times; to hide hate for others behind a mask of overexaggerated compassion. They pretended to be learning about her ability by testing her limits. Instead, they were searching for her weakness. They found it. For an unknown reason, anomalies have difficulty using their abilities around the metallic element of bellmei. Jaklyn Simonds cannot teleport from a room lined with bellmei, Jayson Casy cannot disintegrate bellmei, and Bernard Maly would not be able to climb up a wall made of bellmei. Once Serenity’s parents discovered this trick, they built a cage under the garage in their basement made entirely of bellmei, and even claimed to their neighbors that she had succumbed to her disease. After more than a year of being trapped, Serenity was able to communicate long enough to the neighbor boy so that they could make a plan to break her out. He smuggled tools into her cell and provided a distraction by crashing his car into her house. She managed to pull enough bellmei down to phase through the wall and escape. She remained in the safety of a facility designed to protect Amadesin defectors for years before her family caught up with her. Fortunately, the Bellevue member she once knew as her doctor was keeping tabs on them, and was able to intercept before her parents had the chance to take her back to hell.