That day, even though I should remember it clearly, was cloudy with a chance of rain. I was four.
School was just over, and as the final bell rang, the students erupted in childish cheers. They ran to their parents, hugging them tightly. The joy of having parents... is a real good pleasure, I guess.
Mine didn't care enough to come to the school, he just told me the way to home. He worked as a scientist at the GDA, the Global Defense Agency. A big name.
He was always in his room, writing down some silly equations. He barely remained a silhouette in my mind. I never saw him too often. Every time I came home, the food's prepared, but no human was in sight.
I used to look at the dining table, a slightly old one with its edges chipped off a bit. On a certain day, on top of it was a... I don't remember it. But I could remember myself being happy about it. I hopped on the chair and grabbed the plate before I began dining in. I swung my legs, slowly eating the food.
I think there was music playing somewhere. Not loud, just a soft hum coming from a radio we never really touched. Some old stations are still clinging onto life, coughing out tunes from decades ago. It made the empty house feel... not alive, but not dead either.
I finished my meal and put the plate in the sink before I began running to my room, but on the way, I stopped dead in my tracks. I looked at the wall, a photo of my mother.
She was smiling in that photo. You know the type — frozen in time, stuck in a happiness that didn't survive reality. Her arms wrapped around me, my face half-buried in her shoulder, giggling at something neither of us remembered anymore.
The frame was cracked at the corner. Had been for years. I used to think it cracked itself. Like, even the house couldn't handle pretending everything was okay.
I stared at her for a while. Too long, probably. I didn't know if I missed him or just missed the idea of her. Kinda like missing a warm jacket you lost — you don't remember the jacket itself, just the feeling of not being cold.
Photos are nice, you know, to freeze a point in time and be able to relive that happiness when you see it again, but I don't remember that happiness, like a blank memory card, something that got deleted.
I turned to the stairs and began running toward them when suddenly- wham! I fell. I slipped. I don't know how I did, but I did. I tried to get back up, then I fell again and again. A relentless cycle followed for a solid ten minutes.
But then suddenly, I didn't slip this time. I stood up, shaky, kinda embarrassed, even though there was nobody around to see my clumsy circus act.
I stood. I expected to fall again, bracing for impact. But this time, my feet held steady.
The world around me felt... too still. My ears buzzed, my heartbeat slowed.
Something clicked in my brain. Not like a realization. Like a switch.
I looked down at my hands. My fingers twitched, like they were registering a new setting.
I lifted my foot carefully. Set it down.
The floor didn't resist.
I lifted my other foot. Set it down.
Still nothing.
Then, just to test something, I flicked my wrist toward a nearby chair.
I focused. Friction.
I didn't know why that word popped into my head, but the second it did, I felt something shift.
I kicked the chair. It shot across the room, skidding like it was on ice, smashing against the far wall with a loud CRACK.
My breath caught in my throat. I took a step forward—too fast. Way too fast.
I had to grab the wall before I lost control, my fingers gripping the chipped wallpaper like a lifeline.
What. The. Hell.
The whisper came back.
Not from the room this time. From me.
A voice inside my head. But not my voice. Not my father's.
Just... a presence.
It said one thing.
"The Laws are yours to break," I swear I heard drums beating in my heart.
I stood there, legs wobbly, brain melting out of my ears, hands vibrating like they were about to glitch through reality itself.
And for a second — no cap — I felt invincible. Like if gravity wanted beef, it could get these hands.
I fell to my knees, the warm feeling of blood circulating throughout my body. It was hot, very hot, almost too hot. I could feel myself steaming, the sweat sticking to my skin like glue in a microwave.
I gasped for air.
Not because I couldn't breathe, no, it was worse.
It felt like the air couldn't keep up with me.
I sank to the floor, my palm pressed against the ground, desperate for air. Suddenly, my breathing resumed, and I gasped in a lungful of oxygen. I wheezed, taking slow, deliberate breaths.
I carefully stood up, putting my hand over my heart. I looked at my father's room, no sound coming out of it. He didn't hear anything, huh? Or maybe he did, and chose to ignore it.
I could feel it in the air; something changed.
I stumbled to my feet, slower this time. No circus act. No banana-peel pratfalls. Just...me, trembling like a half-broken wind-up toy.
The house was colder now. Or maybe I was just noticing it for the first time. I sniffled, wiping my nose with my sleeve because, well, nobody ever told me not to.
I wanted to cry. Not big, loud cries. Just that small, tight feeling you get when you don't understand the world anymore, and it doesn't care to explain itself.
The photo of my mom on the wall blurred a little, maybe from my tears. Maybe from the way the hallway seemed to...shake. A little. The pain was horrible.
I rubbed my eyes with a tiny fist, taking slow steps.
But before I could catch a break, I suddenly flew up to the ceiling.
I hit the ceiling with a thunk that would've made a cartoon proud. For a second, I just...stuck there. Like a piece of chewed-up gum someone threw too hard.
Then my arms flailed — wild, desperate — and I peeled off like a sticker in slow motion.
Down I went. Fast.
I braced for the crash, squeezing my eyes shut so hard the inside of my eyelids turned purple.
Instead of smashing into the floor, though... I kinda floated. Hovered. My toes dangled a few inches above the ground, wiggling like I was trying to find invisible stairs.
My heart was going nuts. Banging around in my chest like it wanted out.
I sniffled again, blinking at my hands, my feet, the space around me.
"This is not normal," I whispered out loud. I knew that much. Even four-year-old me, whose greatest scientific achievement until now was eating glue, knew this wasn't right.
The air hummed. Like an old fridge about to die.
I reached out for the wall — the same chipped wallpaper I grabbed before — and my tiny fingers grazed it... But didn't grab it.
I whimpered. Yeah, full-on baby noises. I was four. Cut me some slack.
I kicked my legs, trying to swim back to the ground like some idiot goldfish.
And finally, finally — I dropped.
I landed hard on my butt with a thump, my head wobbling from the bounce.
"Owie..." I whimpered, hugging my knees.
It was getting harder to breathe again. Not like before, though. Not panic this time.
It felt relieving, as if a weight had been pressing on me this whole time, and now — poof — it just vanished. Like a balloon untied, all the tightness spilling out.
I sat there, small and stupid and shaking, while the house groaned quietly around me.
One thing was for sure in my mind: I had powers. I didn't quite grasp it at the beginning, but I would soon come to.
It wasn't like I could suddenly waltz into the world and be the hero I'd seen on TV. Hell, I didn't even know what the hell I was doing. I was four years old. I had a dad who was too busy scribbling equations to care about me, and no mom to talk to. The only things I had were these… powers, or whatever they were.
I had no clue how to control them, let alone understand them. I was exhausted just by using my powers two times. I could barely stand again.
I didn't know what to do.
The moment I'd walked away from the door, from the room, I thought I'd be done. I thought it would end there. But the feeling of something still lingered in the air, crawling over my skin like it was part of me now.
I didn't even care about the stupid photo of my mom anymore, or the pile of equations Dad was obsessed with. Hell, I didn't even care about the whole 'my dad works for the GDA' thing. That didn't matter right now.
What mattered was that whatever this was—it wasn't normal. It wasn't even close. I could feel it seeping through the cracks of the house, through the wallpaper, through the holes in my own mind.
I wanted to punch something. Anything. But I didn't. I didn't know why, I just—didn't.
Instead, I found myself walking back toward the kitchen, my mind hazy, floating. I felt like I was on a different plane, disconnected from everything, yet every little noise, every creak in the house made me flinch.
I reached for the fridge handle, not even sure why. I wasn't hungry. But I opened it anyway. And I stood there for a second, just staring inside. The light flickered.
I pulled out a bottle of juice, nothing special, some random brand. I didn't care what it was. The orange liquid sloshed around in the bottle as I tipped it toward my mouth.
The taste was wrong.
It wasn't the juice. It was my mouth. It felt... out of place. My tongue felt thick, my teeth too sharp. I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, almost like I could scrub it away, but it didn't work. Whatever had changed inside me hadn't left.
I slammed the fridge shut and looked out the window, eyes focusing on the rain starting to fall. The world outside felt even more distant than the house, like I was looking at a painting instead of reality.
I didn't know how to explain what was happening. There was no word for it. No sentence that would make sense to anyone.
But then again, who would listen?
I took a few more steps toward the door. The whole place felt like it was fading into the background. I wasn't here anymore. I wasn't in this house, not fully. My fingers twitched, like there was electricity running through them, like I could touch something and break it.
I took a step outside.
Rain hit me hard. The wet, cold slapped against my face like a warning. Like the world was screaming at me to get back inside, to stop whatever this was.
But I didn't stop.
I let the rain hit my face, let it soak through my clothes, my hair, my thoughts. I didn't care.
I stood there for a second, just staring at the street, the way the rain distorted the world around me.
I didn't know what I was supposed to be doing.
I didn't know if this was something I was supposed to keep hidden or if the world was just going to swallow me up with it.
I crouched, putting my hands over my head as I looked at the ground, a pool filled with water. This was a burden too heavy for my brain.