Adrenaline is a lying drug.
It makes you believe you’re a god, that you can crash through windows and toss trucks around, and then it vanishes all at once, leaving you alone with the bill.
And that night, the bill was steep.
Slumped on the damp gravel of the roof, I felt the burn spread.
My right shoulder was nothing but a mass of crushed flesh.
With every breath, my ribs reminded me that classical physics didn’t give a damn about my golden cape.
Every single millimeter of muscle in my arm screamed at me to give up, to pass out right there on the cold concrete.
But I couldn’t.
I was in Northbridge.
And if I stayed put, the only thing waiting for me when I woke up would be an S.R.B. stretcher or a body bag.
I dragged myself over to the fire escape.
Going down was pure hell.
One hand gripped the rusted rungs, the other dangling dead, swinging to the rhythm of my limping steps.
Once on the ground, the real Stations of the Cross began.
I hugged the walls, slipping from one shadow to the next through the dark alleyways of the residential district.
With every distant wail of a siren, my heart skipped a beat.
I pressed myself against the greasy brickwork, holding my breath, terrified that a surveillance drone might spot this white silhouette blinking in the night.
“Congratulations, Owen,” I grumbled internally, my lip bleeding.
“Twelve hours ago, you were worrying about a physics test. Now, you’re a fugitive criminal wanted by the government. Is this that famous linear evolution?”
Every step brought me closer to my street, but anxiety squeezed my chest.
I felt like I had stolen someone else’s life.
A life too heavy for my sixty-kilo shoulders.
Two blocks from home, hidden behind the carcass of an abandoned van, I decided I had to get this crap off.
The suit had retracted on its own, leaving only a thick, white, rigid collar wrapped tightly around my neck.
I slipped my left fingers—the functional ones—inside and pulled with all my might.
Nothing.
It didn’t budge a millimeter.
It was like trying to rip off my own skin.
“Let go of me… please…” I whispered, my voice breaking.
The symbiote didn’t answer with words, but with a visceral reflex.
In response to my panic, the material liquefied.
The white and gold fabric lost its rigidity, turning into a slimy, freezing substance that began to crawl.
A wave of horrific shivers washed over me—the sensation of cold ink seeping into my pores.
I felt as if thousands of microscopic insects were digging tunnels beneath my epidermis, traveling up my arms, my torso, returning “home.”
I choked back a heave.
When the sensation finally stopped, the suit had completely vanished beneath my skin.
The only thing left in my left hand was a solid, oval, white membrane: the mask, inert, like an empty shell.
It was at that exact moment that my stomach contracted with the violence of a punch.
A monumental cramp doubled me over.
An animal, primitive, painful hunger twisted my guts to the point of nausea.
The parasite had just drained my reserves to keep my organs alive, and my body was demanding its due.
Right now.
Reaching the second floor of my house was the worst ordeal of my miserable existence.
The wooden trellis climbing up the exterior wall creaked dangerously under my weight.
Hanging by my arms, my half-dislocated right shoulder screaming in agony with every pull, I climbed the last few inches of brick.
My bloody fingers gripped the ledge of my window, which I had left cracked open out of habit.
I tumbled inside and crashed heavily onto my bedroom carpet.
The impact knocked the wind out of me.
I lay there motionless, staring at the dark ceiling.
I was covered in filth, industrial sweat, and my T-shirt was stained with streaks of blood.
My own blood, from the scratches I had inflicted on myself while trying to tear the mask off earlier.
Click.
The creak of my bedroom door felt like a gunshot.
The harsh light from the hallway flooded through the crack, instantly blinding me.
I turned my head, my heart in my throat.
Lily was standing there.
My ten-year-old little sister, wearing an oversized pajama set, a glass of water in her hand.
She was rubbing her eyes, still foggy from sleep.
Her frail silhouette froze dead as she discovered the dark, contorted mass sprawling on the floor in the middle of the room.
Panic lent me the energy of pure survival.
In a desperate move, I rolled onto my left side, hiding my mangled arm and the bloodstains in the darkness of the bedside angle.
I frantically shoved the white mask under my pillow with my left hand.
“Owen?” Lily whispered, her small voice echoing in the silence.
“What are you doing on the floor? Why are you dressed?”
I drew the only weapon available to me.
The façade.
The protective sarcasm that had served as my shield for years.
“I was… I was studying the resistance of the carpet, Lily. A high-level scientific experiment for school. You should be asleep. Science can wait, but your growth spurt can’t.”
She narrowed her eyes, not buying it at all, taking a step further into the room.
“You look weird. And you’re all dirty.”
“That’s because I tried to capture a supervillain pigeon in the courtyard for my Biology project,” I invented, my voice shaking but forcing an ironic smile in the dark.
“It had highly advanced combat techniques. I lost.”
Lily stared at me for what felt like a century before letting out a small, amused sigh.
“You’re an idiot, Owen.”
“That’s what they say to misunderstood geniuses. Come on, go back to bed before the pigeon comes back.”
She smiled, took a sip from her glass of water, and turned around, gently closing the door behind her.
The moment the latch clicked, my face relaxed.
The mask slipped away.
I let myself sink onto the mattress, without even bothering to take off my muddy sneakers.
My mind shut down all at once, plunging into a dark, heavy, dreamless sleep.
The next morning, at 6:30 AM, the alarm rang like a death sentence.
Every single millimeter of my body protested.
I dragged myself to the small shared bathroom, leaning against the walls to keep from falling.
When I flipped on the harsh neon light above the sink and looked up into the mirror, I nearly jumped back.
It was hideous.
A massive black, purple, and yellow bruise stretched from my neck all the way down to my right hip.
My shoulder was swollen, deformed.
But the most terrifying part was the movement beneath my skin.
The accelerated healing driven by the parasite was at work, but the process was anything but magical.
It was ugly.
I could hear my muscle tissues tightening with muffled, sucking sounds, and my bones emitted slight, dry clicks under my flesh as they were forcibly realigned.
A dull agony that made me clench my teeth until they bled.
Driven by the black hole of calories clawing at my insides, I flew down the stairs, almost guided by the instinct of a starving animal.
The kitchen was empty.
My mom had already left for her shift at the hospital.
Good.
I yanked open the fridge door.
Without even grabbing a plate or utensils, I started shoving everything I could get my hands on down my throat.
Last night’s cold stew, grabbed by the handful.
Slices of sandwich bread smeared with jam directly using my fingers.
Chunks of cheese, milk chugged straight from the bottle.
I devoured it all with a wild frenzy, a voracity that terrified me, as if my own body no longer belonged to me.
As I chewed on yet another mouthful of bread, my gaze was drawn to the small television sitting on the countertop, turned on mute to a 24-hour news channel.
A massive red banner was flashing at the bottom of the screen.
The anchor, her face grim and her eyes wide, stared at the camera while a blurry, shaky amateur video looped behind her.
It showed a white and gold silhouette cutting through the Northbridge night after obliterating a pile of rubble.
“Miracle or hoax?” announced the journalist’s voice, suddenly jumping in volume.
“National hero Hope, declared dead yesterday morning, was allegedly spotted last night in the industrial suburbs of New Cost. S.R.B. authorities are on maximum alert over what could be the greatest manipulation of our time…”
I froze, a piece of crust caught in my throat.
My eyes locked onto the screen, wide open.
In a spasm of pure panic, I choked and sprayed my cereal all over the kitchen table.