The girl learned at a young age that she too holds power.

It came from her hands.

Her wise grandparents, the ones who raised her with wisdom born of tragedy, understood the need to protect her from the world. Especially considering that before her, it was believed only men (and those rare anyway) possessed abilities.

But as you might expect, man’s abilities only worked to destroy. Those terrible few razed what lay before them, flattened entire cities to black earth. Those were dark days.

The government assigned special teams with special training and weapons to take care of The Nuisance and killing most of its members. Those who survived went into hiding. All in the world was generally good and prosperous, for a number of years, anyway.

The girl’s ability was special in that it nurtured. Her powers came from a place of compassion and innocence.

One sunny morning, when the girl’s grandmother finished tilling her garden, she asked the girl to help her sow some seeds—watermelons, tomatoes and cucumbers. So the girl and the old woman sat under the shade of a great juniper and set to work, thumbing their seeds down into the soil, the girl on one side and her grandmother on the other.

Within hours, the seeds the girl planted had sprouted, and what’s more, grew to completion, full and fat as though they’d sat through an entire wet and sun-drenched season. The grandmother rejoiced. The grandfather was quite astonished, and asked the girl to do it again because old men never trust what they see. They require extra proof.

This time, the girl palmed the seeds for a full minute, then threw them up into the air, where they exploded into full-sized melons, then fell back to the earth and splattered fatly against the ground.

“My word,” the grandmother said. She hugged the girl and the girl blushed.“You, little one, are everything the world needs right now.”

Her grandfather kneeled down on one knee and grasped the girl’s shoulders with a strength the girl did not know the old man possessed.“Never again,” he whispered with his husk voice. “You must promise me to never do that again. This secret must remain with us, and us alone. Do you understand me?”

The girl nodded. Not because she understood, but because she knew that’s what he wanted to see.

The grandmother held her tongue. After the grandfather wandered back into the house, the grandmother told the girl to wash up for supper. But that night, the old woman prodded her husband.“We can’t hide her from the world, not forever. She’s special, whether you like that or not. Someday she’ll grow up, you must accept that.”

“I will when that day comes. For now, though, she can’t protect herself. There are men out there who would do her harm to control her for their sick means. Once they find out about her … I can’t protect her like I should, not anymore,” the old man said, looking down in shame at his hands. They’d lost any real strength long ago.

“We’ll do our best,” the grandmother said and rubbing his back. “We’ll do what we can.”

Soon, news about the girl got out. Every drug cartel, mob boss and street gang heard about her, and one group tracked her down. But there were others also searching for her— environmentalists who dreamed of a world free of deserts, with enough trees and plants to sustain everyone.

After class one day, as the girl waited for her grandparents to pick her up from middle school, the cartel kidnapped, bound, blindfolded and smuggled her down to its heavily guarded farmland.

They filled her hands with seeds and duct-taped them closed, until tiny scions drifted from between her palms. Then they’d cut off the tape and harvest the matured plants.

The girl’s hands were bloodied and she felt sick for many days but the girl fought back. She was no little thing. Her ability matured. When she asked the plants in her hands to choke her captors, they sprung out from between her fingers and angrily constricted their throats.

Meanwhile, the environmentalists gathered and attacked the cartel’s compound. When they found the little girl, free from her bondage, they helicoptered her to the rainforest.

“You must regrow what we’ve lost,” they told her.

“Where are my grandparents?”

“You will see them once you’re finished.”

And so the little girl began to cultivate fast swaths of forest and the living things returned, grateful. But soon grew tired.

“You can’t be tired, little one,” they prodded her. “You must continue.”

She was exhausted, but what could be done? They guarded her as fiercely as the cartel had, and she began to question their motives. She realized how a larger cage could be disguised as freedom.

The evil men were not yet done. Within a year, all the world’s human inhabitants had warred with each other because of the girl, and more devastation lay at her feet. She felt responsible.

One day, she decided enough was enough. Men, she concluded, did not deserve the Earth.

So she strangled all of the infrastructure with large redwoods and baobabs. She feasted on the living until all that was left was a green and lonely earth. The time came for her to turn as well. One night, she swallowed a handful of melon seeds, and placed her palms against her stomach.