Isabel Albright glared at the row of ornate doors stretching out before her into infinity and wished she had a flamethrower.

"No, Bel, It's simple," came Liv's voice from somewhere outside the infinite hallway. "You just gotta imagine this long hallway full of doors…"

"I've got the hallway, Liv!" Bel had to force herself to keep from shouting. "It's right here. Doors. Lots of them. Red. Fancy looking. Shiny knobs. It won't let me open any of them!"

"Maybe you're just not trying–"

"So help me sister if you tell me I'm not trying hard enough I'm going to come out of this hallway thing and stuff rocks up your nose," she growled.

This was just like that time back in math class when everyone else had figured out how to find X and she'd just had to stare at the whiteboard until Mr. Hammond had finally taken the pen from her and walked her through it.

And she still didn't know how to solve for X.

"You can't force it, sis," said the voice of Lucas. Probably because he'd had to step in before Olivia tried to do something stupid. "It's like… Okay, try this. Close your eyes–"

"My eyes are already closed!"

"Okay then close them harder so you can't see the doors!"

"How am I supposed to close my eyes when they're already closed, you dork?"

"Okay fine, then open your eyes."

She did, and glared at her little brother who was standing right in front of her, hands on his hips, glaring right back.

"Good," he said. "Now close 'em again, and this time don't think about doors."

She closed them again… And with a herculean effort managed to do what she asked.

Honestly. Don't think about doors? Why not tell me to not think about pink elephants while you're at it.

"Okay. I'm now looking at a whole lot of nothing."

"Awesome! Now just settle down and feel. The door in front of you is the one you're meant to open. It's yours. Your very own. Whatever is behind there wants you to open it. So all you gotta do is just reach out your hand and open it up, okay?"

"When did you become some kind of weird hippie guru?" she asked, cracking open an eye to glare at him. Honestly. First Liv and the coin trick, and now he was trying that mambo-jumbo on her?

"I'm sorry," he shot back, "did you want to be the only one here without cool new superpowers?"

Bel bit back a reply and squeezed her eye shut again. And she very pointedly did not allow anyone to see just how deep that particular jibe of her brother's had hit.

Because no, she didn't want to be the only one. She wanted to be exactly the same as everyone else. She wanted to have what they all had now, to share in that cool power, to be able to experience it with them and learn about it at the same time they were learning about it. She didn't want to be left out.

She didn't want to be a freak.

So she'd give it a try. Just like that weird 'distribution' property Mr Hammond kept telling her to use. She'd try.

She emptied her mind as best she could, getting the background noise down to a dull roar in the back of her head at least. She glared now at the darkness behind her eyelids. There was something out there, wasn't there? She could feel it? Kinda?

Something that was for her, huh? Hers alone? That sounded kinda cool, actually. She could get behind that.

So she took a deep breath and reached out, for whatever was hers.

"Ow!"

Her knuckles encountered rough stone. Her eyes flew open again, and this time she was in the hallway, with doors stretching out to either side of her. And right in front of her…

Was a blank stone wall, like something you'd see after a piece of a mountain had calved off after a heavy rainstorm. It was dark grey and shot through with browns and silvers and golds, heavily textured and ridged, but utterly impassible.

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And she felt nothing beyond it.

"Bel? You okay? Sounded like you squeaked there." Luc's voice filtered down from the outside, sounding concerned. "Did you find your door?"

Isabel stared at the rock wall in front of her. No, this couldn't be right. Something else must be going on here. Maybe she just hadn't believed enough. Yeah, maybe all this Mary Poppins stuff was actually real, and Lucas was right, and she just had to put her whole heart into it.

Okay.

She went through the motions again. Blinking her eyes open to clear away the hallway, closing them again, embracing the blackness, then doing the whole 'feel with your heart' thing. She concentrated, trying to put everything she wanted out of her head and instead concentrated on trying to go after what was hers. Her special connection. Hers alone. Liv had one. Luc had one. Mom and Dad had one. Even Dinah, the tag-along, had one.

She must have one too. Right?

The question threatened to break her concentration, so she shoved it away and reached out again, this time almost desperately, for whatever this System thing had that was hers.

"Ow!"

Her eyes snapped open and she found herself staring at the rock wall again. Immobile, unfeeling, uncaring. She felt nothing behind it. The others had claimed they all felt something behind their doors, from 'information' from Olivia to 'something really cool' from Lucas. They all had had something.

And she had nothing. Not even a whiff.

She stared at the rock wall feeling frustration and something darker welling up inside her.

No. No she would not be kept away. She would connect. Just like the others. Just like she was supposed to.

A memory slashed through her mind, raw and weeping. Melissa Tomlinson, and her cronies, laughing by the lockers.

"Hey Missy. What do you get when you add cream to coffee?"

"An Albright!"

Ugly laughter, following her down the halls. Crimson cheeks. Burning shame. Don't say anything, it just makes it worse.

Freak.

She tried again, running through the same motions almost desperately. Fast. Open eyes. Close. Give me something. Reach out.

Knuckles against a stone wall.

Again. Open. Close. Something. Grab.

Scrape.

Again.

And again.

And again.

And–

"BEL!"

Her eyes blinked open, wide, staring, right into Dad's equally wide eyes. His face was inches from hers. His hands were gripping her shoulders. Was he shaking her? Yes. He was shaking her.

"Stop, mija," he said, his voice a quiet rumble in her ears. "You're bleeding."

Bleeding? She was bleeding? How–

She looked down at her hands as if in a daze. Her knuckles were scraped raw, and blood was oozing out from the abrasions.

"I… I thought it wasn't a real place." She said it numbly, staring at her hands as if she'd never seen them before.

"I thought so too," Olivia said, eyes wide. "Oh jeez, Bel, what did you–"

"There wasn't a door for me," the whisper was ragged and rough, tearing itself from her throat without her conscious choice. "There was just this empty rock wall… Why wasn't there a door for me?"

No one said anything as she looked from face to face, seeking answers. Finally, Lucas came up to her. She turned to him, almost desperately, but he just stopped in front of her and held out a hand.

"Hey," he said, glancing around at the rest of the family. "Who's got a coin left. Anyone?"

"I've got a couple," Dinah said, coming forward. She pulled one from wherever they came from and handed it to Luc. He nodded, and it vanished into his own dimensional wallet or whatever.

"Here," he said, looking back at her again. "Gimme your hand."

Numbly, she let him take her scraped and bleeding hands. He closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath.

[Healing Balm]

Gentle golden light warmed her hands, and she watched the scrapes fade away as if they'd never been.

"Thanks," she whispered.

"No problem," Luc said with a wan smile. "Just… Don't make a habit, okay? I can't keep wasting coins on your dumb injuries."

"I'm so gonna smack you, runt."

"Try it, godzilla." Luc stuck out his tongue, then dodged away from her half-hearted swipe. She could have chased him down and made him eat dirt, but… her heart just wasn't in it right now.

"It's okay," said Dad, somehow reading her thoughts–or maybe her poker face just sucked right now. "Take your time. You don't need to force it."

"It wasn't there, Dad," she said, feeling the pit yawn open under her again. "Not 'I can't connect to it', there was nothing."

"Well," Mom said, having appeared soundlessly next to them in that creepy soldier way she had about her sometimes without even knowing it. "We all received things based on who we are and what is important to us. Maybe you just have not discovered that… Calling, I suppose. Perhaps, when you do, the connection will be there for you."

The pit hesitated, and then receded. Yeah. Yeah that made sense. Maybe Mom was right about that. Yeah. Yeah she could work with that.

And even if it wasn't true, it was a pretty okay lie. She could cling to that for a little while. She just had to figure out her… Her why. And then she could come back to this stupid hall of doors and find her stupid power, just like the rest of her stupid family and their stupid–

She stopped. She blinked a couple times. Rubbed her eyes. Blinked again.

No, it was still there.

"Uh, real fast," she raised a finger to point at the thing hovering just on the outskirts of the village, right where clearing met jungle.

"Does anyone else see a big black hovering ball thing over there?"

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