Tag: teenager

#21 – Madelyn “Maddie” Lopez

Maddie Lopez is a quiet, introverted 15-year-old girl, born the third child of four in a cluttered, noisy household. Maddie’s mother, an exceptionally strict Catholic, dominated over her children throughout their lives, a trait that only became greater when Maddie’s father died of a heart attack when she was just seven. Maddie’s sister, Isabella, took up the mantle of her mother’s right hand, baby-sitting her younger siblings and helping do the chores around the house while the eldest son, Miguel, was given free roam to go about the neighborhood and find his way. Maddie’s mother held her two daughters close, dishing out incredibly strict, and a times abusive discipline she called “love’.

Maddie and her siblings were latchkey kids, their mother worked two jobs to support the family after her father died, and Miguel and Isabella took control of the household. Miguel was rarely home, often in the streets, while Isabella quickly grew into a beautiful young woman, catching the eye of boys around the neighborhood. Maddie, however, pulled in where her other siblings reached out. She lost herself in books and comics, and wished the dramatic, luxurious life lived by people in musicals could be one she’d have. Maddie created worlds for herself where she was taller, prettier, and popular.

Most of all, and to her mother’s extreme distaste, Maddie idealized superheroes. Maddie’s mother, among other opinions, felt strongly that superheroes and their like were against nature, abominations running around the earth, absolute proof that the time of judgment was at hand, as the Anti-Christ and his acolytes were spreading their filth around the globe. More than once, Maddie endured a disciplinary beating from her mother upon being found with some magazine or poster praising heroes. The conflict between the opinion of heroes her mother had driven into her, how they were all tainted by evil, and the idealized reality created around them in gossip magazines and television left her always feeling exceptionally guilty about her interest, as if she wasn’t strong enough to resist the charms of evil.

A week before her 16th birthday, Maddie stayed home from school, sick. One day quickly turned into two, and two into three as Maddie ran a fever, racked with nausea and chills. The symptoms lasted for four days before breaking. Maddie had a day of peace, returning to school and inviting friends to her 16th birthday party when she noticed an odd discoloration of the skin on her right hand. The discoloration continued throughout the day, creeping up her arm, her skin turning a sickly grayish blue, her fever returning. Maddie made it all the way home, where she reported her affliction to her mother, who immediately banished her to her room, believing she had become possessed.

Early that evening, Maddie manifested her powers, her body changing from a gawky teen to a seven-and-a-half foot tall demonic creature with greyish-blue skin and two horns atop her head. Still distinctly human-looking (her face, while different, is still identifiably hers), Maddie’s mother nevertheless had all but a complete meltdown upon seeing her new daughter, declaring that her child had been taken by Satan, and attempted to murder Maddie, sending her confused daughter out into the streets alone.

Now, Maddie is still a 16-year-old girl in a new body, being forced to live a new life she is wholly unprepared for. She is still learning the extent of her abilities, including the capability to turn herself into smoke, an immensely accelerated healing factor, and the capability to breathe fire. Despite her powers, Maddie is still at her core a clumsy, shy 16-year-old girl, thrust out of her home, a freak, even among superheroes.