Endgame (Book 3)

Chapter 2

I arrived at the house about an hour later, absorbed in my own thoughts. So much so that I didn't notice Mom waiting for me in the living room until I bumped into her on my way up the stairs.

"What happened?" she asked me calmly. "I heard crashes coming from your room, and I saw the broken window. Are you alright?"

"I'm fine, Mom," I said. I tried to angle myself away from her so that she couldn't see my bleeding back. The last thing I wanted right now was for her to panic- like she normally did, if anything I knew about her was correct. "Where's Sage?"

"Out looking for you," she said.

I nodded my head slowly, then trudged up the stairs.

I turned around after reaching the top step. "Mom, what was I like before I woke up?"

"I don't know what you mean," she said.

"Was I...different?"

Her eyes focused on her upper right. She was thinking about it. "Now that I think about it, yes. Yes, you were," she said, more certain. "But that's probably because you have no memories of your life beforehand. You may not be the same person you were before, but you are still my son."

"Yeah," I said, unconvinced.

  "Get some rest, honey. You look exhausted. You can tell us what happened in the morning."

"Alright."

I walked down the hall to my room and entered it, shutting the door behind me. Then, I sank to the floor, resting my head on my knees.

Did I really steal the real Jay's body? Was I a parasite or something? Was Zero telling the truth? What if the reason why I had no memories of the time before the pod was because I didn't exist before I was in the pod?

Even though it was warm in my room, I shuddered. If I actually stole a person's own flesh, that was a special kind of sick.

My only hope was that Zero was lying, just trying to get inside my head. But either way, that didn't explain why he looked like me.

Time would reveal all the answers. It always did.

*****

Before I knew it, sunlight was filtering in through my window and lighting up my face light a lighthouse. I dashed over to it and closed the curtains.

But then, they fluttered back open again as a blur sped past the frame.

My whole house rattled. The last remaining broken shards of glass fell out of the windowsill, and I thrust my curtains back open to look at what had flown by.

Zero? Back so soon? I thought.

No, this couldn't be him. The figure that was fading into the distance wasn't leaving an energy trail. Who could it be, then?

I decided to find out.

Without another thought, I zoomed out of my room, downstairs, and was out the door.

Along the street, I watched in amazement at the scene around me. People were doing crazy things everywhere- floating, spitting acid from their mouths, disappearing and reappearing somewhere else. They all had abilities!