Before I could even appreciate the boobies, my vision started to twist. What I saw next looked straight out of Attack on Titan—muscles, tendons, everything, stretched across the figure of a woman—it was a whole new level of naked.
I realised that my x-ray vision had just kicked in for the first time!
And thank God Jonathan, with his fat potbelly and all, had started sleeping in another bed… otherwise the first thing I would be staring at wouldn't have been Martha.
The muscular system looked creepy as hell, red and raw, almost like I was staring at a Titan in real life. But before I could even process it, the view changed again.
I raised my head and suddenly—bam. A skull. A full-on skeleton face with hollow eye sockets was staring down at me. For a split second, I nearly shat myself before remembering: duh, that's just how x-ray works. It was glowing this weird fluorescent bluish-white, all ghostly and unnatural, like something out of a horror game.
All of this happened in just a few seconds. Then—snap—my vision shifted back to normal, and Martha's gentle face was right there again. Relief lasted about two seconds before I felt this searing heat building up behind my eyes. Oh no. I knew exactly what the fuck was about to happen.
Brightburn.
The cursed thought slammed into my mind like a freight train.
I squeezed my eyes shut as hard as I could, panicking at the idea of turning into a walking death-ray and frying my own mom in her sleep. That shit would not have been funny at all. I clenched tighter, trying to calm down, until finally the heat faded. But I was too damn scared to open them again.
So I did the only thing I could: I bolted. Rolled off the bed, landed on the floor like a pro, and slipped out of the house with my eyes still clenched shut. Luckily, my strength hadn't jumped up too drastically, so I didn't smash through the floorboards or anything. Somehow, I knew exactly where everything was around me, like I had unlocked observation haki or some shit.
Once I was far enough into the farm and sure no one was around, I finally opened my eyes. Relief washed over me—no laser beams, no accidental Brightburn sequel. At least now I knew how Cyclops must have felt, living in fear of his own eyeballs.
I sat down in the dirt and started meditating, trying once again to feel that "solar energy" coursing through me. Nothing. Not a damn spark.
But when I focused on my eyes, something weird happened—I realized I could see through my own eyelids. Perfectly. It wasn't exactly x-ray vision; more like some kind of "see-through-everything" cheat code.
The world was still in full color, perfectly sharp. When I looked down harder, I saw the raw cords of muscle across my own body. Pushed again—and there were my bones, glowing faintly beneath the skin.
And just then, I remembered those damn voices that had woken me up in the first place. Like someone flipped a switch, they came roaring back, louder than before. It was hell. Insects buzzing, horses neighing, people breathing, talking, whispering… every sound smashed into my skull all at once, like my head was about to split open.
I forced myself to take deep breaths, clinging to the only trick I had thought of beforehand: focus on my heartbeat.
Thump… thump…
Long, slow, steady. It was like an anchor in the middle of chaos, pulling me down into something calm. And then for the first time, I felt it—warmth under my skin, the sun's rays soaking into me, filling me with this strange energy. With every beat of my heart, that strange power was growing stronger.
And of course, my brain had to screw with me. I suddenly imagined Black Widow whispering "the sun's getting real low" to me instead of Hulk. I burst out laughing and lost focus immediately. Fuck, this meditation thing was harder than I thought.
I wasn't ready to test the eye-lasers yet. Way too risky. But at least the sound thing started to make sense now—it was like my brain had some kind of auto-filter. If I thought about the noise, it slammed back on full blast. Then I had to center myself with breathing and heartbeat to shut it down again. Took about ten, fifteen seconds tops. Still, I needed way more practice if I wanted to actually aim my hearing at something without frying my brain.
Later, I wandered close to the main road and tried pushing my vision. Holy shit—I could see the damn town. Not sure how far away it was exactly, but it was far. My eyes were like sniper scopes now.
When I got back, Mom was already awake, fussing over me, asking where I had been and telling me to hurry up or I would be late for school. I told her flat out: "I can see and hear so much more now. Can I take a week off?"
She froze for a second, then her face softened. She called me "special" and said my abilities were a gift—thinking I didn't know my true alien origin.
She phoned the school and told them I would be taking a medical leave. But when she told me to sleep in bed, I insisted on staying outside. She knew how much I loved the sun, so she let me, before heading off to talk with Dad.
I tried to eavesdrop with my super-hearing, but nope. Instantly got drowned in an ocean of voices, footsteps, random noise—I still had no control yet.
So that was it. I had one week. Seven days to train myself enough so the kids at school wouldn't consider me a freak. I had already decided I was gonna have a badass school and social life, no matter what. But right now? Meditation came first.
If only I had a cave for seclusion. And no, I would totally not call it a Batcave.