Sam leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and laced his fingers together. He took a slow breath. "I need you to trust me for the next five minutes. What I'm going to tell you will sound insane. It is insane. But it's all true. After I'm done, you can decide what you want to do."
The gravity in his voice silenced her. She simply nodded, her heart hammering against her ribs.
"I told you I had an ability. A power to… enhance things. That was an understatement." He held up his hand, and a faint, shimmering light began to dance between his fingers, coalescing into a perfect, miniature galaxy that spun lazily above his palm. Kyle's breath caught in her throat. "It lets me multiply the properties of any object. A hundred times. A thousand. More."
The galaxy dissolved. "I started small. I multiplied some ginseng from the garden. It… changed. It became something else. Something that rewrote my biology." He met her gaze, and for the first time, she saw a flicker of the awe he must have felt. "Kyle, I ate it. And it gave me something called 'Perfect Holy Body.' Super strength, speed, healing. I was stronger than Captain America. Faster than a jet."
He paused, letting that sink in. Kyle could only stare, her mind reeling, trying to fit the image of a hero onto the man in front of her.
"But that was just the beginning," he continued, his voice dropping even lower. "In New York, I got my hands on something else. A serum. I multiplied it. One hundred times. Then… I came back here and I used the one thing I was too scared to use before." He gestured vaguely in the direction of his house. "The first thing I ever multiplied. The one that started it all."
He fell silent for a long moment, his eyes looking through her, into a memory only he could see.
"And?" Kyle prompted, her voice a whisper.
He looked back at her, and his expression was utterly unreadable. "And I'm not that person anymore. The one who was stronger than Captain America? That was a kitten compared to what I am now."
He stood up. "Telling you won't be enough. You have to see. But seeing it… it will change how you see everything. Forever. Do you still want to know?"
A thousand warnings screamed in Kyle's head. This was madness. But looking into his eyes, she saw no deception, no madness—only a profound and lonely certainty. She nodded, her mouth dry.
"Okay," Sam said softly. "Don't be afraid. I won't let anything happen to you."
He offered her his hand.
Hesitantly, she took it. His skin was warm, and a current of energy, calm and vast as an ocean, thrummed just beneath the surface.
Then, the world broke.
It wasn't a blur. It was a shatter. The walls of her living room folded inward like paper, colors smearing into streaks of light and void. There was no sound, no wind, no sense of motion. It was a single, nauseating lurch of reality itself.
And then it was over.
Kyle gasped, stumbling. Sam's hand was the only thing holding her upright. The air was thin and cold. The silence was absolute, a heavy blanket smothering all sound.
She looked down.
Beneath her feet was a grey, dusty surface, pockmarked with countless craters. Curving away from her was a stark, breathtaking horizon against the utter blackness of space. And hanging in that blackness, vast and beautiful and fragile, was a marble of blue and white.
Earth.
She was standing on the Moon.
Her legs gave out. Sam eased her down gently onto the lunar regolith. She couldn't scream. She could barely breathe. She just stared, her mind completely, utterly short-circuited by the impossible reality of it.
Sam knelt in front of her, blocking her view of the Earth, his face filled with a concern that seemed absurdly human given their location.
"Breathe, Kyle," his voice said, clear as day in the vacuum. "Just breathe."
She dragged a ragged, thin gasp into her lungs. She pointed a trembling finger at the planet behind him, then at him, her eyes wide with pure, unadulterated terror and awe.
"I know," he said, his voice impossibly gentle. "I know. This is what I am now. This is what I've been trying to tell you. I didn't just start a company, Kyle. I outgrew the planet."
He let her sit there for what felt like an eternity, just letting the reality of it sink in. The infinite black sky. The brilliant, silent Earth. The dust on her jeans.
Finally, she found her voice, a hoarse, broken thing. "How…?"
"The ginseng. The final step. My speed isn't speed anymore. It's… willing myself somewhere. Space is just a suggestion to me now." He looked back at Earth, a faint sadness in his eyes. "I could be there, or in the heart of a star, or in another galaxy, just as easily. This is a short walk."
Kyle followed his gaze, looking at the world she lived on her entire life. It looked so small. So fragile. And the man beside her had just carried her here like it was a trip to the grocery store.
All the questions about companies and serums and guns vanished, burned away by the cosmic vista. The only question that remained was the biggest one of all.
She turned to him, her eyes finally clearing, the shock giving way to a dazed, staggering comprehension.
"Sam…" she whispered. "What are you going to do?"
Sam didn't answer right away. His eyes stayed locked on Earth, as if he was searching for words somewhere in the swirls of ocean and cloud. For the first time since this began, he looked less like a god and more like a man—hesitant, uncertain.
"I don't know," he admitted quietly. "Part of me wants to stay hidden. To keep multiplying things until nothing in the universe could touch me. Another part…" He exhaled, slow and heavy. "Another part wants to use this. To build something. To make sure no one on that planet ever feels powerless again."
Kyle swallowed, her throat dry in the thin air. "But… Sam, people are going to notice. If you can do this—" She gestured helplessly to the black infinity above them. "There's no way you can keep it a secret forever."
His lips curved into a faint, humorless smile. "Secrets don't last. Not at this level. The question isn't whether they'll find out. It's what I'll be when they do. A protector? A monster? Or just… something they'll never understand."
Kyle stared at him, her mind reeling. He doesn't even know what he is anymore.
He reached out and took her hand again, his touch grounding her against the alien emptiness around them. "But that's why I needed to show you. If anyone's going to remind me I'm still human… it's you."
Kyle blinked at him, her chest tight. Her fear didn't vanish, but something else crept in to join it—an ache, sharp and complicated.
Sam stood, looking down at her, his figure framed by the endless curve of Earthlight. He looked impossibly far away and heartbreakingly close all at once, like an immortal who had stumbled into the body of the boy she used to know.
"Kyle," he said at last, his voice low but steady. "I don't know where this path ends. But whatever happens next… I don't want to walk it alone."