The next morning, the first thing that hit me wasn’t the bleak Northbridge light filtering through my blinds, but the total absence of pain.
I sat on the edge of my bed and rotated my right shoulder.
Perfect.
My dislocated wrist?
Rock solid.
My bruises had vanished beneath my skin as if they’d never existed.
It was a medical miracle, but a miracle that made me sick to my stomach.
A recovery that fast implied an outside source, which meant the symbiote had happily been slithering around my metabolism while I slept.
A freezing shiver snaked up my spine.
I turned my head toward my desk.
The white mask still ruled over the space, motionless.
It waits until I’m unconscious to do stuff with my body, I realized with dread.
“Freaking creep,” I muttered toward the mask.
I got nothing but the silence of my room in reply.
Well, on the bright side, I had just saved myself months of physical therapy and thousands of dollars in medical bills.
It was deeply disturbing and invasive, but I was still going to enjoy the healing.
On my way to school, I dragged my feet.
My mind was running on overdrive, trying to come up with yet another half-baked scheme to destroy or hide this curse I was currently hauling in my backpack.
Burying it in wet concrete?
Mailing it to Antarctica under a fake return address?
MEEE-OWWW.
A shrill, borderline dramatic meow shattered the relative calm of the residential street.
I looked up.
High up in a majestic, century-old oak tree, a good thirty feet off the ground, a fat ginger cat was clinging to a thin branch, crying for dear life.
Instantly, my backpack began to vibrate against my shoulder blades.
No. The organic matter inside was acting up, sensing the feline’s “distress.” The heroic parasite was ready to burst out and solve the problem.
Panic seized me.
No way in hell was I letting this suit swallow me whole in the middle of the street, smash the pavement, and pulverize this tree just for a damn cat!
If the S.R.B. caught me during an animal rescue operation, I’d become a national laughingstock right before being dissected.
“Not happening,” I whispered, tightening my backpack straps.
I walked up to the tree, spat in my hands, and began the climb.
It was miserable.
I had neither the strength of an athlete nor the agility of a monkey.
The rough oak bark scraped my palms and knuckles.
I tore the knee of my favorite jeans on a sharp wooden knot.
I was huffing like an ox, sweat stinging my eyes, pathetically clawing at branches to hoist my one hundred and thirty pounds of pure cowardice toward the heavens.
After five minutes of a fierce battle against gravity, I finally reached the stranded feline’s branch, completely out of breath.
“It’s okay, buddy…” I panted, extending a shaking, bloody hand toward him.
“Come here. Uncle Owen’s here to save you…”
The ginger cat stopped meowing.
He slowly turned his head toward me.
His yellow eyes locked onto mine with a contempt so intense, so pure, that I instantly felt judged by the entire universe.
He let out a condescending little “meow” that sounded suspiciously like a snicker.
Then, with perfect agility, he turned around and climbed down the tree all by himself.
He gracefully bounded from branch to branch, defying physics, before landing silently on the asphalt and sauntering away, tail held high.
I was left alone.
Up high.
Planted there like an idiot, hands bleeding, clinging to my oak tree.
“The bastard,” I breathed into the wind.
Dejected, my ego in tatters, I began the descent.
But destiny, which had clearly decided to turn my life into a dark comedy, wasn’t done with me.
Halfway down, my right foot slipped.
The untied lace of my sneaker caught viciously in the fork of a broken branch.
I lost my balance with a sharp jolt.
My body flipped backward.
The shoelace held for half a second before snapping.
Gravity reclaimed its rights.
The world inverted.
I entered a freefall, head-first, diving straight toward the ruthless hardness of the asphalt, twenty feet below.
The air hissed in my ears.
The backpack tried to react, but the ground was rushing up far too fast.
It wouldn’t have time to cover me.
Death, or at best lifelong paralysis, was welcoming me with open arms.
I was about to die defeated by a cat and a shoelace.
VOOUCH.
A monumental displacement of air stole my breath, kicking up the street’s dust and dead leaves in a mini-tornado.
The impact never came.
I hadn’t hit the ground.
I was suspended in mid-air, stopped dead in my fatal plunge, caught by firm arms beneath my armpits.
A sweet scent of ozone and warm metal floated in the air.
My heart in my throat, I slowly opened my eyes.
And I discovered my savior.
NOVA.
I wasn’t a big fan of Supers in general, but you’d have to be blind or acting in bad faith not to recognize the country’s absolute icon.
Ever since Hope’s death, she was the face of the nation, the number one, the pride of the Regulation Bureau.
A world-class Super—the absolute elite.
And she was right there, holding me a foot and a half above the pavement.
She floated gracefully, defying the laws of physics thanks to her anti-gravity powers.
Her armor—a masterpiece of technology and design with scarlet-red and gleaming white accents—shone intensely under the late-morning sun.
Her long, immaculate silver hair drifted around her face as if she were underwater, completely indifferent to the wind.
I was totally spellbound.
Her aura exuded a calm, reassuring power, and a beauty that was almost unreal.
It was the first time I had seen a real hero in action, and the difference between her and the slimy monster sleeping in my bag was staggering.
She swiveled me around and gently set me down on both feet on the sidewalk.
Her eyes—a piercing electric blue—locked onto mine.
She flashed a soft, benevolent smile, one of flawless professionalism.
“Be more careful out there, okay?” she slipped to me in a hyper-protective tone, just like a caring older sister.
I opened my mouth, but my brain had melted.
I only managed to produce a small, inarticulate gurgle.
Before I could even stammer a decent “thank you,” the air around her warped.
With a slight sonic boom that rattled the windows of the nearby houses, she shot up into the azure sky, leaving nothing behind but a streak of red and white light.
I stood frozen on the sidewalk, head tilted toward the clouds.
My heart was hammering wildly against my ribs.
I had forgotten my torn jeans, the ungrateful cat, and even the white parasite on my back.
I was completely awestruck by this encounter with the top of the food chain.
Wow, I thought, swallowing hard.
Now that was something.