It's not a question you ever expect to get asked, certainly not by your mother. And yet, I'd hoped my whole life that I'd be asked the question.

"Leon, do you wish you were a girl?" My mum asked. I paused briefly, more in shock than out of a need to think about the answer.

I HATE ballet. I hate the stupid costumes, I hate balancing on the tips of my toes, leaving me in pain for hours afterwards, I hate sweating in tight lycra, I hate being stared at by everyone as I struggle to remember a complicated routine.

I'm not the unluckiest boy in the world- far from it, in fact- but every morning I wake up cursing my life.

It was time for Jared to take - quite literally - a good long look in the mirror. For the first time ever, he recognized that something was wrong. Eyeing his body, he realized his boy clothes just didn’t fit right - for one thing, they were baggy, not tight, and his shoes were dirty and ugly, and...

Eleven year old Mathew Stevens is enjoying life to the fullest. He has Parents and a Sister that adore him. His Teachers at School have nothing but praise for him and his grades are the norm for a person his age. His girlfriend, April is also his best friend.
Yes life is good. But Mathew has a secret, a secret that he has kept hidden away, for as long as he could remember. But now that secret is starting to fight back, it’s starting to fight its way to the surface, and it’s beginning to bother him.
Will he give in and let it consume him, or will he fight back and push it back into the depths of his soul, where he keeps it?
Only time will tell

Neal wanders into a business, having just been laid off from his job, looking for work. What he finds will stretch his ability to understand and cope with major life changes

I looked out across the mass of stars in the distance. I never stopped admiring space in its infinity. From our outpost at UF-2 we were as far from the planet Earth as humans had reasonably explored. There were those who had gone farther, but they were individuals or pirates. Usually they never returned, for which mankind was grateful, as we didn’t know what they had run into in the way of life forms, or what physical abnormality had done them up.

Born and raised on a farm, I was the closest thing to a son my dad was ever going to get. Mom almost died bringing me into this world. The doc had to remove from my mother a large part of what made babies after I was out of the way. Mom named me Katrina. Dad wanted that son he was never going to receive. He called me Jake.

Compared to his teammates, he was rather embarrassed on how he developed his powers. He didn't get hit with radiation or took some kind of chemical. He wasn't part of a super soldier program and he wasn't brilliant creating awesome technology. And he certainly didn't develop powers through surviving any tragic event. No, he developed powers through a small act of kindness.