1,000 years into the future, humanity has evolved to develop one of four powers: Super strength, flight, telepathy and invulnerability.
However, that has driven the world’s population to separate into four warring factions based on their given power.
This is the story of a man who was developed all 4 powers by the age of 18.
When the mutations began, doctors didn’t really know what they were dealing with. People would come to them with claims of strange abilities straight out of comic books. However, most doctors responded to their patient’s wild claims with either a referral to a psychiatrist, a prescription for Xanax or both.
Then the footage began appearing on YouTube.
Thousands mutated within the first days. The chaos that followed was unlike anything that had been seen before in human history.
The survivors eventually settled in four different camps, with everyone living with their own ‘kind’. (there were fewer murders that way).
Super-strength: And when they say super here they really mean it. One of the first videos that surfaced proving humanity had taken the next step in our evolution, showed a man ripping the Empire State Building off its foundation to use as a weapon against those who had no powers during the initial skirmishes. The super-soldier had been enthralled by a malevolent telepath who had tasked him to destroy the world’s foremost city.
Telepathy: Now this one was truly terrifying. You never knew how strong the telepath was. It varied throughout the population. Some telepaths could barely pick up on people’s emotions, while others could control vast armies of superpowered people, directing them to conquer the world.
Flight: One of the most useless powers believe it or not. People have always wanted to fly, but no one realized just how fucking tiring it is! OK, imagine running a marathon. Then multiply that by 100. That’s the amount of effort it took most people to stay afloat. Flight was better used as a controlled falling sort of situation for most. Then again, there were others that found flight as easy, well, as easy as taking a swim.
Invulnerability: By far the most useful power, but the one that terrified me the most. What did invulnerability really mean? People think it’s cool when the bullets bounce off their chest, but they never stay as calm after a telepath has forced them to lock themselves into a steel coffin to spend the rest of their days in. See, being invulnerable doesn’t mean you can stand toe-to-toe with some of these other superpowered folk. In fact, the power seemed to have fooled a lot of those who had it with an undeserved sense of immortality.
The war between the factions began shortly after scientists realized they couldn’t put the genie back into the bottle. Whatever changed the human genome was permanent, forcing civilization to quickly adjust to its new reality of constantly feuding tribes of super-powered mutants.
You know, I realize, when I say it that way, it sounds pretty bad-ass. It’s not, but I can see why you’d think so.
Anyway, I was born during the third generation of the mutation. And for a time, my parents thought I might escape the curse.
You see, everyone begins developing powers around 16-years-old. For me, my sweet sixteen was filled with disappointment. I was a ‘late-bloomer’, someone that wasn’t likely to develop any powers, forced to become an outcast, and useless to society at large.
But when I turned 18, everything changed.
I wasn’t prepared for it. The day my powers awakened, I’d given up hope long ago that I would feel any tug of magic in my veins.
It started with whispers. I was hearing voices, but I couldn’t place where they were coming from. For a time, I truly thought I was going insane. But it was only during a meal when I passed my father the potatoes without realizing he hadn’t said a word that my family recognized what had happened. I had joined the family and matured into a telepath.
It was strange having powers at first, after being without them and seeing my classmates progress so quickly. I compared it to being in a coma, and needing to make up for two years worth of work.
More than anything else, I was happy to have finally developed my powers. My father and mother were telepaths – some of the strongest in our tribe. As such, they were well-placed, and had been ashamed that their first-born had been born without any abilities. Now that I had powers, I would be allowed to join then in society.
But, then things got weird. Err.. Weirder.
I discovered, quite by accident, that I now had the ability to rip the sink off the bathroom wall with my bare hands. No need to look into what I was doing, or why the sink was destroyed. All I can say is, as a teenager, you can occasionally lose control.
The point is, I was developing another power.
I didn’t know what to do. My powers were raw, and unfiltered, I wouldn’t stand a change against my family who had developed the discipline to hunt through a person’s brain to find their secrets. I know. My mother and father had been doing it to me my whole life.
But what’s forced me to leave my family and put me on the road is the fact, no one has ever developed more than one power.
Ever.
I knew that if anyone found out about my extra power, that the fire control team working for the government would pick me up lickity split. They’d take me back to the labs, dissect me, maybe even try and replicate my DNA to try to do the same thing for others what I had done to myself naturally.
I had to save humanity from itself by disappearing and staying out of their war. I would have to pretend I was powerless. Unable to read anyone’s thoughts, or pick up a building, or withstand a flamethrower (I tried that once. I don’t reccommend it even if you are invulnerable).
I looked back at the house I had grown up in and felt the tug of the memory of my family pulling at my heart. I swallowed it back. I would have to forget them if I was going to survive.
I turned away from my parent’s house and looked up at the full moon above. I felt another tug, this time, from what felt like the moon’s gravity.
I wondered if it was possible. I closed my eyes and exhaled slowly. As I did, I felt my toes rise off the ground.
I opened my eyes and looked down at my house, now several hundred feet below me. I needed to leave, but I also needed one last look at home.
It was likely the last time I ever saw it.
