Lord-Campione
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Chapter 02: Are you a mutant?
🕑 Added 2024-09-19 17:33:56 +0000 UTCA few days later.
Ethan Cain woke up in his bed, staring at the cracked ceiling of his small, suburban bedroom. His mind was still buzzing with the power he had felt the night before. The pebble had danced in the air, just like that. It wasn’t the first time he had moved something with his mind, but the feeling of power and wonder never faded.
No, it actually took over nearly all aspects of his life.
Not that he was missing out on much, being a five-year-old and all that.
Most kids his age spent their time playing games or getting into trouble, going outside and making some friends, since they were still in that blessed age without the madness of Skibidi toilet and millennial parents giving birth to iPad kids.
But Ethan had something else on his mind—his powers. He could feel it, that tingle in the back of his skull, a weightless hum that vibrated whenever he concentrated hard enough.
His telekinesis was growing, slowly, but steadily. It was like flexing a muscle, and every time he practiced, he felt it getting just a little bit stronger.
And boy did he practice a lot.
His room was small and unremarkable. A small bed tucked into the corner, a cheap desk with a clutter of coloring books and pencils scattered across its surface, a small chest filled to the brim with toys; plushies, legos, army men, marbles and everything a little boy could ever desire.
Ethan lay still, listening to the sound of the house around him, he’d rather get caught rubbing one out then levitating some toy, much less awkward to explain despite the biological impossibility of the first.
Throwing the blanket off, Ethan sat up and crossed his legs on the bed. He focused on the cup of pens on his desk, narrowing his eyes, and reached out with his mind. The familiar hum in his skull grew louder. He could feel the connection, like an invisible thread, linking him to the object. His breath hitched as he concentrated, and slowly, one of the pens wobbled, then lifted.
“Come on…” he muttered to himself, sweat beading on his forehead.
The pen floated into the air, hovering a few feet above the desk. His hand twitched, mimicking the movement. It was always like this—he didn’t need to use his hands, but it helped him focus. Slowly, he began moving it across the room, testing how far he could push before it dropped.
His brow furrowed. The pen trembled in midair, straining against his mental grip. He gritted his teeth, refusing to let it fall. It moved in short, jerky bursts, zigzagging as if suspended by invisible strings.
Suddenly, there was a knock on the door.
Ethan jumped, his concentration shattered. The pen fell to the ground with a clatter, rolling under the desk. His heart raced as he turned toward the door.
“Ethan, you up yet? You’re going to be late for school,” his mother called from the other side.
Kindergarten, also known as hell on earth if you asked him.
He exhaled sharply, wiping the sweat from his brow. “Yeah, I’m up,” he replied, trying to keep his voice steady.
“Alright, breakfast is in the kitchen. Don’t forget your lunch this time.”
As her footsteps faded down the hallway, Ethan breathed a sigh of relief. That was close—too close. His powers weren’t something anyone could know about. Not yet. He didn’t trust anyone, not even his parents.
He stood up and grabbed his backpack from the floor, slinging it over his shoulder. School had been a drag the first time around, but going back to Kindergarten of all things really put things into perspective. Alas, it was needed to keep up the illusion that he was just a normal kid, blending in with the crowd. No one would suspect a thing.
At least, not if he was careful
. . .
The playground was bustling, kids running around, screaming and laughing. Ethan sat on the far end of the field, watching them like Oppenheimer when he first realized how big of a fuck-up making an atom bomb truly was.
So many kids, so much noise, so many boogers being eaten every minute.
He was still figuring things out—how to stay under the radar, how to use his abilities without drawing attention, how not to end up in front of a psychiatrist because he just made a dirty joke.
Every day, he practiced in secret, but the more he used his powers, the stronger they became, the harder it was to control them.
He had learned quickly that his telekinesis wasn’t just about moving objects. It was about control. He could feel the weight of the things he manipulated, the subtle resistance as his mind pushed and pulled against the physical world. With enough practice, he knew he could do more than just float pencils and pens.
It was just a matter of time.
Ethan’s thoughts were interrupted when a shadow fell across him. He looked up, squinting against the sun to see a brown-haired, glass-wearing twig of a boy, with a curious and inquisitive gaze that looked extremely out of place in such a young child.
Then their eyes met, and any shred of respect the child could garner melted away, leaving behind the most awkward mess of a boy the man-turned-child had seen in quite a while.
“Hi,” Ethan said, keeping his tone neutral and carrying just enough ‘Fuck off’ to get the job done, there was no need to be rude after all.
The kid looked like a deer in headlights, as if the mere possibility of verbal communication with a stranger was madness.
His gaze was firmly on the ground, shuffling his feet before looking up nervously, having gathered enough courage to make a half-hearted wave.
“Eh…He-Hey,” He muttered under his breath, the whole taking a lot of time that would have been better spent leaving him alone.
“What do you want?” Ethan asked, knowing full well that common courtesy would be wasted on the kid, he was just too darn shy.
“What are you doing over here all alone?” The squirt asked in one go, as if trying to rip off a bandaid.
“Just thinking.” Ethan shrugged, “Is that it?”
“Ye-Yes, I mean, no!” The kid shook his head, “That’s not it.”
Ethan chuckled, though there was no warmth in it.
Watching painfully awkward social interactions between two toddlers is very funny, unless you were one of those toddlers.
“Why do things move when you’re angry at them?” He asked, curiosity defeating shyness.
Ethan tensed, and it took all of his underdeveloped facial muscles as well as years playing strip poker with sorority girls to avoid showing his surprise, shock and slight urge to deck a kid in the face.
‘What the fuck?’ He wanted to say, before going medieval on the little shit if he ever thought about the possibility of eventually considering that it would be feasible to think about it.
But that wouldn’t work, no matter how pleasant it sounded at the moment.
No, what did work was the tried and true method of gaslighting innocent, vulnerable souls into thinking that they are the problem.
“What do you mean?” Ethan asked, pale blue eyes open just wide enough to look put off, before laughing at the poor child, “Things don’t move when you’re upset at them, it only happens in cartoons!”
He made sure to be loud enough to embarrass the boy, play into his self-conscious nature, but not quite loud to actually attract some attention.
“But I saw it!” The kid exclaimed, settling down when he received Ethan’s patented Cut the Crap look, “I–I saw it…”
By now his face was flushed red, his bony shoulders shaking and he kept throwing glances around to see if people saw him, yet never dared even look at the brown child’s face or those scary eyes.
Exactly the way Ethan wanted.
“You must’ve imagined it,” He said with a small smile, grabbing him by the shoulder to make him walk with him, “It happens sometimes, mommy says it’s because you were really tired, but Daddy said it’s because you’re really, really bored and need an escape…whatever that means.”
A fundamental truth of the universe is that smart people will always want to show the world how smart and knowledgeable they are.
Especially when they’re not that smart.
So when the boy looked at him as he pretended to lack basic understanding…something completely normal with five-year-olds and Americans, Ethan knew he got him.
Hook, line, and sinker.
“Um, It means your brain feels stuck doing something boring and, uh, just really wants to go do something more fun or exciting instead.” The boy said, happy to throw around his intellectual baggage.
Well, for a five-year-old, it was pretty darn good.
Especially an American.
He might even know that Austria and Australia are two different things!
“Like building a rocket ship?” Ethan said the most random, five-year-old thing he could come up with.
It was super effective.
“Yes, like building a rocket ship, I actually got that Lego set for my birthday—-” And there he went, his initial shyness all but gone as he ‘regaled’ him with tales of his new toy.
Of course, Ethan would rather be fighting a honey badger than hear another word from the kid, but it beats having someone wondering why he could make shit levitate.
“By the way, my name’s Peter,” Four Eyes said, and Ethan got a bad feeling, “Peter Parker.”
‘Oh fuck me.’
