With a sharp intake of breath, Lee Jun awakens with a start. His eyes dart about his room as he sits up, pulling a blanket off his body.
'Did I sleep with a blanket' he thought, 'didn't I pass out immediately when I got home?' he remembered staggering home, in a daze, as well as catching the doorman smoking by a corner of the building.
'It was a Raison brand cigarette' he remembered.
'it was in a light blue packaging of the packet sticking out of the tip of the doorman's breast pocket.'
Jun shook his head, trying to ignore unnecessary thoughts. Yet, when he tried to recall his way home again, he clearly remembered staggering up to the elevator where a tenant from floor 3 was making out with a-.
Lee Jun's eyes widened.
'A call girl?' he stopped for a moment, 'Before I worked with Mr. Kim, I saw her on the' he barely had to focus as the memories came to him effortlessly, 'last year, she was propositioning some chubby guy wearing thick jeans and a hoodie.'
The more he tried to think, to remember, Lee Jun found himself remembering everything he thought about with absolute perfect clarity. He knew he worked hard before and had good recall, but now, he paused and tried to remember an ancient memory.
His mind was suddenly back in a small kitchen where his tiny hands scribbled something on paper with crayons. His mother walked up to him and set a glass of juice beside him. He turned to her and smiled, while she bent and pecked him on the cheek before tousling his hair.
'Mother.' He said softly to himself.
He had done it… but how? He always had vague memories of his childhood, but now he could picture things with absolute clarity, which shouldn't have been possible.
'Wouldn't the neurons have been overridden or replaced or destroyed or something?'
He pushed himself to the edge of the bed, then stared at his blanket covering him. He hadn't covered himself before going to sleep, so how? He wondered.
He wanted to try to solve the problem but then his stomach growled loudly.
'Oh no, not again.' As he got up, he could feel the hunger was not as intense as what he went through last time, what did surprise him though was how dry his mouth felt. He considered drinking from the tap in the bathroom, but immediately reconsidered to use the fridge water. He still had some bottled water and that would be best until he got something to eat.
Slowly, Lee Jun made his way to the fridge. He stopped when he reached for his phone but didn't find it in his pocket, so he went back to his bedside dresser where he found it.
'Jeez, I ended up not going back to work. Hope Mr. Kim isn't too pissed.'
Jun froze midstride as he unlocked his phone. It wasn't the many missed calls, nor the time being very late in the night, it was the date. He had missed two whole days! He wanted to sit, so he moved to the living room, but his thirst redirected him back to the kitchen.
Absent mindedly, he scrolled through messages from Mr. Kim. They started out upset, then moved to angry before worry and finally a threat. Return to work tomorrow or consider yourself fired.
Jun sighed. He had woken up on time at least. Still looking at his phone, Jun opened his fridge.
Next, he saw messages from Rin. He smiled. He could feel her worry for him through her messages and it brought a warmth to his heart. He was puzzled when she warned him not to leave his door open as it was unsafe, then he remembered being so out of it that indeed he hadn't locked his apartment door.
As he scrolled through the messages, he looked up to get some water and felt his jaw go slack. There were multiple food containers filled with food, preserved and well arranged. There were more bottles of water as well as soft drinks and a single six-pack of beer.
'What is this?'
He looked at his phone and relaxed. The last few messages from Rin mentioned she had come looking for him and found his door unlocked. She had found him sleeping and was unable to wake him up. She tried emergency services, but they were apparently too busy recently and since he hadn't shown signs of discomfort or illness, she was advised to monitor and wait. She also covered him with the blanket apparently.
There weren't other messages from other people. Lee Jun had no social life whatsoever. His boss and his girlfriend. Those were two very important people in his life right now.
He grabbed a bottle of water and drank half of it instantly. Feeling better, he then dished food for himself. Rice and curry, with some fried fish. One microwaving later, Lee Jun sat in front of the TV with some water and a can of beer.
He just wanted to relax a bit before worrying about the crazy things his body was doing. He switched it to the news.
The spoon with food hung in the air as Jun stared at the craziest thing yet. His eyes darted across the TV taking note of things like Top Story, Incident. He changed to another news channel, setting the spoon down. It was the same.
Lee Jun watched a civilian recorded video of a thing that looked to huge and muscled to be a man bellow insults towards a home, more likely to the people inside. This man spat out words like, parasite and thieves before PICKING UP A PARKED VEHICLE AND THROWING IT AT THE FRONT DOOR.
Jun changed channel to the movie stations before going back to the repeating news story.
Jun learned in that moment that the first recorded incident of this new phenomenon was of a frustrated family man bulldozing his family home with his bare fists. The police had intervened, only to prove this discount strongest one there is was actually bullet resistant, with bullets unable to completely penetrate his red and purple colored skin. Eventually, consistent firepower was able to eventually drive him off.
The more Lee Jun changed channels, the more he saw the birth of an entirely new era of human existence.
He jumped to his phone, following a #Magicster.
He watched clips and interviews of a man who seemed to be cosplaying as a superhero, except, he would routinely levitate a few inches off the ground while giving interviews and in a certain interview, lifted a small car off the ground, carrying it over his head as he rose several meters into the air.
Lee Jun felt a varied mix of emotions in that moment. He slapped himself once to ensure he wasn't dreaming. But, this was his new reality. The world's new reality.
Social media, which he never really used before was now awash with clips of individuals who preferred to show off their strange new abilities. Jun gathered through the many videos that all of them had awakened these abilities following an identical set of circumstances.
First, blacking out after a specific audio-visual hallucination, though in some cases, people slept through the event. Second, awakening with an overwhelming headache that debilitated them considerably. Some lasted a day, some barely lasted hours until the headache rose to unimaginable levels, overwhelming their consciousness until a sudden release of light and heat from their bodies saw them reawaken with new strange abilities. Interviews were everywhere so Jun quickly managed to get a general idea of what was happening. There were hundreds, thousands of people displaying new powers.
He came across a post that mentioned several government officials were scrambling to draft laws to address these unfolding events.
Immediately too there were conspiracy theories about these abilities, ranging from a sign of the end of days to an effort by aliens to either; change the world; uplift humanity; use humanity as a weapon or prepare them for the upcoming alien arrival. These conspiracy sites were getting data traffic like never before.
Jun had been scrolling for hours now. He ate slowly, but he had finished his food and was grateful he wasn't possessed of the overwhelming hunger like before.
His curiosity peaked, he set his phone aside.
He had experienced what was being called the Umbra Event.
He had the terrifying headache. It was gone now, but he had it. True, his story so far was unlike anything he had seen online, but. He hoped.
Who wouldn't want superpowers? Just from scrolling alone, he had seen people who could fly, were super strong, super durable, people shot beams of fire, water, ice, earth, wind, transform into strange and varied forms. Lee Jun hoped he was one too.
He couldn't feel his headache anymore, but there seemed to be something else. The pressure when he focused on that part of his brain was still there. It was milder now. It didn't hurt.
Jun closed his eyes. He took a few deep breaths to steady himself. Next, he focused on the part of his brain where the mysterious pressure came from.
It didn't take long for him to feel something. It was like he was discovering an arm that had long been part of him, just only hidden, but now revealed to his mind. A cooling sensation washed over him from head to toe.
Lee Jun twitched this new muscle like sensation. Through it, he could feel his senses extend in a certain direction ahead of him. No, it wasn't his normal senses. It was something new that worked like the others, but was distinctly different. It moved ahead of him in a cone shaped field through which he could perceive anything this field came in contact with.
Still focused, he imagined stretching this field out ahead of him. It felt like it would when one reached out to grab something, instead he could feel every aspect of this sensation. His eyes were closed, yet he knew when the field reached the coffee table.
He knew when it passed over his plate, the remote control. He could even feel the hardness of the table itself. He felt the field press against the table then move through it.
Throughout all this, Lee Jun had slowly outstretched his hand, as it seemed to help him guide this field as he moved it about. When it got to about 2 meters away from him, he found it suddenly taxing to keep it going. He strained his mind to push it to 3 meters but his head began to throb so he quickly relaxed and pulled back the field to a 1 meter distance where there was no strain in maintaining this field.
Slowly, Lee Jun rose to his feet, keeping the field active. He rotated it, moving it around and over different objects in his living room.
'Could I?'
He hoped, so he tested. He let the field envelop his phone. He shook his head and had it envelop the plate he had just used to eat.
As the field enveloped it, Jun could again feel the plate, almost as though he was both looking at it and touching it in a very somewhat uncomfortable union of both senses. It would take some getting used to.
Next, he tried to pick it up. Almost as if in defiance of him, the field simply continued swirling around the plate.
Lee Jun had his hand stretched towards the plate as he grunted and groaned trying to cause the plate to float towards him. Simple gestures did nothing. Simply willing the object did nothing.
With a deep breath, Jun went back into his mind. To that source of the field. He tried to channel his will to pick it up. Nothing.
Upset, he clenched his jaw, unexpectedly, he thought of squeezing, compressing or tightening things together. Suddenly the field reacted. It suddenly hardened around the plate.
Jun could feel a difference in the sensation of the field upon the plate. He maintained this hardness upon the plate at the same time he pulled up the field.
The plate rose into the air. Slowly spinning in place.
"Yes!" he excitedly clenched his fist in victory. The field reacted immediately and pressed upon the plate, cracking it. A few broken parts fell away while the bulk of the cracked plate continued to float, Jun felt the source of the field tighten and relax. It didn't ache, only a dull feeling. He could do more things before it would be stressed out.
"I need to exercise this power." He told himself excitedly. "I need practice."