Powers Enhanced

CHAPTER ONE-2

It’s a good thing that Mark and his family already know about me, or else there would have been some awkward questions. They had found out when we’d been trapped in City Hall together during the tornado. It was kind of hard to keep it a secret after they saw the pulsing yellow cylinder that had grown from the ground and given me my extra intelligence.

That’s how I have these abilities. In each case, I received a cylinder of a different color. The first one was red, which gave me strength and speed, when I had to fend off a wounded coyote. I got a green sensory one when I was trapped by myself in the dark. And the purple healing one when my adopted sister, Natalie, was crushed by a falling wall.

Each one has come when I needed it. But, like already demonstrated, the powers they emitted do not stick around all the time. Oh, and even though the Johnsons and the Stillwells were around for the yellow cylinder, no one else got special powers. No one else was wracked with pain, either. The cylinders are not a pleasant experience.

I wait a few more minutes, but my healing powers are still a no-show. I check my watch and grimace. Susan is making a special dinner tonight for Jeff before he leaves for college tomorrow, and I can’t be late. That means I need to get going.

I carefully stand up, my headache increasing as I achieve altitude. It will not be fun riding my bike home.

I find the alley I entered and realize that I won’t have to worry about biking home after all.

My bike has been trashed.

Both wheels are bent, the spokes caved in. The chain is hanging off the derailleur, and the handlebars are twisted backwards. I sigh heavily, which turns into a groan as my ribs protest.

I pick up my bike, frowning at the damage. I push it forward, and find that it at least can still roll.

Before I leave, I head into Gardens of Life to use the bathroom. I make it to there without anyone seeing me, which is a very good thing. The mirror shows a face from a horror movie.

I carefully clean off the dried blood from my nose and lip and can finally see the extent of my injuries.

My nose is definitely broken. Normally, it’s aquiline, but now, it’s just a mass of red, blue and black, swollen to twice its size. I have a black eye as well, and a split lip that’s swelling alarmingly. I look like I fell out of a tree, and my face hit every branch on the way down.

I check the time again and know I’m going to have to hurry. Unfortunately, hurrying and bruised ribs are not a good combination.

I leave the store, scaring two customers. I shrug as I enter the heat again and grab my bike. For some reason, no one had stolen it when I had left it outside. I grimace at the wobbly wheels. Go figure.

I start pushing my bike, the chain swinging with the motion. An errant loose spoke pings against the frame with each revolution of the back wheel.

My house is about a mile and a half away, and it’s going to be a long walk.

As I limp through town, pretty much everyone notices me. I see their suddenly widening eyes, and a desire to give me as much space on the sidewalk as I need.

I think everyone knows who I am by now. You can’t be in close contact with people, like I was during the cleanup after the tornado, and not notice when someone grows two inches over the course of a month. By the second month, after puberty hit, I was six inches taller, and people had begun to talk.

Luckily, Dr. Rick Bradley has done a good job in explaining what’s happening to me. He’s a doctor who specializes in childhood growth disorders, and who moved here after being told of my circumstances.

The official story is that I was seven years old when I was struck with the disease, an extremely rare form of progeria. Normally, progeria only affects the breakdown of cells, which is usually manifested as a body aging extremely quickly. So a five year old with progeria has wrinkled skin and bifocals, but he’s still the size of a five year old.

Rick now tells people that I’m physically and mentally growing older quicker, that my brain grows neurons and synapses at the same rate my body is aging. It’s a stretch, but the fact that Dr. Bradley, a noted expert in the field, is explaining it makes it easier for people to swallow. It’s much better than the truth. I mean, who would believe that the teenager growing up before their eyes has only been alive for six months?

I pass another person who quickly backs away to give me room, even though there’s plenty. Hopefully, from the state of my bike, everyone will assume I had a bike accident. It’s mortifying to think I got beat up. Yes, it was three guys against one, but if my powers had stayed on, I could have handled them.

A horn honks, and an older-model pickup slows to a stop next to me. John Larsen rolls down the passenger window. “Garrett, what happened to you?” The surprise is evident in his voice, as he’s one of the few people outside the Stillwells who knows about my powers.

I open my mouth to respond, when John interrupts. “Wait, hold on, it’s like ninety degrees out here. Do you want a lift? We can talk in the truck.”

I nod gratefully, and John hops out. He helps me hoist my mangled bike into the bed of his truck. Normally, I could do it on my own, but my chest is not liking me right now. It’s hard to do heavy lifting if your ribs are on strike.

Soon enough, we’re ensconced in John’s truck cabin. It hurts to sit, but it also hurt to walk. At least I can avoid the curious stares. And I’ll now make it home in time for dinner. I tell John where I’m headed, and he nods.

The A/C is blasting ice cold air, but I don’t need the relief. It feels the same inside the truck as it did for me outside. I turn off my vents so John can have the extra air.

“So, what happened?” John asks again as he takes off.

“Oh, just made a mistake," I respond, deliberately keeping the explanation vague. I don't want to tell him about the fight; I can solve my own problems.

"Wow, pretty big mistake," he says, eyeing my face again. "You lose a fight with a cement wall?"

“Ha ha, yeah...” I trail off, wincing as I touch my nose. It’s as sore and swollen as before. I bet if I pushed on it, I could see the cartilage move.

“How are you doing?” I ask, hoping to change the topic. “I haven’t seen you this summer.”

I had first met John during the search and rescue portion of the tornado. But I had met his daughter, Celeste, when I was a baby, about six months before. That was back when no one else knew that I could understand everything that was going on. The Stillwells just thought I was an orphaned child who grew two months every night. Luckily, they had kept that a secret from everyone else.

John and Celeste share a lot of features: black hair, green eyes, with athletic prowess. No offense to John, but Celeste makes it all work perfectly.

She hadn’t been around during the tornado, having gone with some friends to an amusement park in Des Moines, but I thought I would see more of her during the summer.

“Yeah, we’ve been out of town all summer. I have family in Kansas City, and Celeste went to a soccer camp there. Of course, we couldn’t really leave until all the tornado victims had been buried, but we made it in time for the start of her camp.”

His mentioning the burial of the six people who died isn’t weird coming from him. John is the town mortician, and he was pretty busy for a couple of weeks.

Like I said before, he’s also one of the few people who knows about me. He saw me when I was the size of a twelve-year-old lift a three hundred pound beam off his friend, Eric. Eric had been buried in some rubble when the building he was in collapsed. I might have been able to pass off the heavy lifting as adrenaline, but then John saw the purple cylinder. Once the cat was out of the bag, I had healed him and Eric.

But Celeste doesn’t know about me. I made John and Eric both promise. The truth is, that even though I find her highly attractive, she’s a seventeen year old girl. That age group is not known for their ability to keep a secret.

That’s when I feel it. My face warms from my healing energy, and the itching begins. I pull down the sun visor and flip open the mirror. I want to watch what happens.

The energy sends flashes to my brain, telling me my injuries. I have one cracked rib, and yes, my nose is broken. But then it gets to work.

The energy spreads throughout my body, so I feel my ribs mending at the same time my face is being healed. I stare at my nose as the cartilage is straightened, and the energy shows me the cartilage being connected back together. Next up, the swelling starts to go down in both my nose and my lip. The bruising in my black eye and nose begins to disappear, just fading out until it’s all gone. My headache vanishes at the same time.

As soon as all my injuries are gone, the warmth and itching stops. I turn my face this way and that in the mirror, even though I know that no blemishes remain. Good. I would have hated for the Stillwells to see me all beat up.

“That... was amazing to watch,” says John, while throwing quick glances between me and the road. “I can’t believe how quickly that heals you.”

“Yeah,” I respond. “And I have no idea what it is, or how it does it. I just know when this healing power is on, I can mend bones, reconnect tissue, create skin, and dissolve blood. It’s pretty miraculous.”

We slow to a stop, and I realize that I’m at my house. I got healed just in time.

John helps me get my bike out of the truck. “It was nice talking to you again. Have a great night,” he says, and then waves goodbye as he drives off.

I have to smile. Even though I just got beat up, it’s great knowing that other people out there know my secret, but still like me. Even respect me. John and Eric both have thanked me over and over again for what I did for them.

It helps drown out the rest of my uncertainties: What am I doing here? Why do I have these powers? What causes the cylinders?

I shake my head as I lean my bike against the garage and head inside. Maybe one of these days I’ll know.