Stella was born in Woodstock, New York, population 6,000. The town is located 40 miles from the festival of woodstock, and is known for its free-thinking, artsy community. Her father left when she was 2, never a prominent figure in stella's life. Her mother was her key role model when growing up; the warm, effusive woman gave Stella something to aspire to be. Nicole Hightower always had a knack with machines, and was one of the first to own a computer in Woodstock. People often brought their malfunctioning hardware over to the hightower household, and nicole could always fix it. Her aptitude with machines grew more and more as stella got older, but no one ever commented on it.
Growing up, Stella was the epitome of a flower child. She rarely wore shoes, wore daisy chain crowns, swum in the creek across the street from their house, and, for a memorable summer, refused to wash a pair of jeans she'd covered with doodles of flowers and peace signs, claiming they had magical properties. She never did quite grow out of the childlike wonder, and when news spread that there were people with powers all over the world, she wasn't as surprised as many people.
When Stella hit her late teens, she began to get vicious migraines whenever she was in school. The headaches would only cease when she was away from crowds of people, and start up again as soon as she rejoined any group of people that consisted of more than 10 people. Accompanying the headaches were whisperings in the back of her mind, like music turned down at a very low volume.
Stella and her mother went to multiple doctors over the next year, all of which prescribed all sorts of remedies for her headaches, which had a very low success rate. and, gradually, the voices in the back of her mind began to grow steadily louder. Her first display of telepathy was when she was sitting in yet another doctor's waiting room with her mother.
She heard her mother worrying, and without her mother needing to speak, she patted her hand and told her, "it's going to be okay". Her mother simply figured she was being intuitive, and knew nothing of what was to come. Her ability began to surface more frequently. She found she could hear the thoughts of her fellow students; hear a teacher prepare to announce a pop quiz before they spoke.
Panicked, Stella went home one night and Googled "telepathy". most of the results were about roleplaying games, but some revealed useful information. Apparently, not only did she possess the power to read minds, but she could also plant thoughts in others' heads, and even construct hallucinations and plant them in the mind. She began practicing both of these immediately, mostly on her mother and the students at school.
As she practiced and honed her abilities, she realized that spending the rest of her life in Woodstock was not what was in the cards for her. Stella wrote her mother a note, and used all her lifesavings to buy a train ticket. It was time to go where more Evolved were gathering and begin her life for real: next stop, New York City.
