I think you can potentially turn this into something interesting. Could there have been a conspirary at work which caused his parents' death? Maybe a competitor? I guess you need to do some thinking about the exact set-up here. If his parents died years ago, have those pills been hidden in the old office all this time? Is there any note or anything from his dad which explains what they are? As for the fantasy element, well... I think super powers can seem a bit silly, but then of course it's up to you. I'd opt for something more sinister here. If you were to keep in within the realms of medicine (even pseudo medicine or 'medicine gone wrong', i.e. bad side effects), that might make it 'darker', as you say. I'd explore the conspiracy angle and introduce an element of danger this way. Good luck
I, too, like the dark twist. Perhaps they tap into another dimension with said pills, but doing so opens up a portal that causes more harm than good? Of course, I always love conspiracies, so I like that idea too.
One possibility is that the pills 'unlock' the human mind, that they allow the user to access more of their brain's full capacity. When no longer taking the pills you feel slow, sluggish and even less intelligent. You can then enter the realm of physic powers or just the ability to control ones own bodily functions.
How about their appearance start changing for the "better" in the beginning, then it turns horrible? And I don't mean something like super good looks. If you want some fantasy aspect, I'd say they start growing I don't know, wings, gills, fangs - but in the beginning it should be "cool". Like how someone can scare off a bully with his new-found fangs and finally stand up for himself, another who couldn't swim now can breathe under water. Ultimately I guess they'll turn into the actual creatures and lose their ability to think and act as human beings. They get dumber, slower with things. (but maybe faster in other things like reflexes and spotting details etc - but no longer able to reason intellectually etc). They get scared (eg. the kid who could breathe under water find that his legs are stuck together and he can no longer get out of bed, but he doesn't scream because he's scared others will find out he's a monster or something, or put him in a lab and do tests on him. He can use a mobile to call his other friends who're in this with him. He starts to find it difficult to breathe, because fish can't live out of water. Another kid could grow wings but now he finds a strange membrane growing between his arms, and webs on his fingers, and ultimately he loses his hands - after all, birds don't have hands.) This sort of body horror was brilliantly done in Black Swan. Give it a watch if you haven't already. They start trying to hide their new body parts, perhaps. They start trying to stop it. But they keep going back to the drugs because those new body parts begin to ache - I suppose like the withdrawal symptoms of a cocaine addict - and they simply MUST take it just to stop the pain. This in turns makes something else grow on them. I mean, it sounds a little "childish" at the beginning but this could make a nice little horror if you do it right. Reminds me of Goosebumps and perhaps Goosebumps isn't the best thing ever and meant for teenagers, but it sold billions so, y'know...
I agree to stray away from the whole super hero theme, if you're looking for a "darker" idea... Maybe the pills unlock deep dark fantasies (i.e. murder, rape, things of that nature) that they didn't know they had before and with them being unlocked they also develop the needs and nerve fulfill them... Just a thought
^Eww, that'd totally creep me out. I wouldn't want to read it either. Like releasing the monsters inside of the teens? yikes....
Do you ever get sick of having to repeat this over and over again, for all the variations that seem to pop up in here? I think Cogito posted somewhere else, too, about coming in here and panhandling for others to do the work for you re: plots and structure. If you want to write a story, you will write it. If the plot doesn't work, you will make it work. If you hit a wall in your writing, then yeah, ask people for advice. But DO NOT ask someone to more or less tell you what to write and in what order to write it. Because, as was stated, it is then THEIR story, and you're just the body that does the writing.
