>>41565012>Brooke didn't really react, outside of a short deep breath, followed by an exhale>she glanced down at her hat, tapping her fingers over it...
Look... Ah don't remembah a whole lot from what happen.
There's-... bits and pieces, but Ah don't know what Ah may have said or done while Ah mah body was bein' used by some ghost, or whatevah...
But it-...it brought back some memories Ah'd long thought Ah'd moved on from...
>she trailed off, fidgeting a bit in her seatAh've heard a lot of stories from some of th' othahs here, about how their powers came t' be.
Ah know you received your powers from somewhere, but... Ah'm talkin' about "true metas", Ah suppose. Mutants, lahke mahself.
Seems lahke most of 'em have similar stories. T'wasn't 'til they were around ten years old or so that they first realized it. And their powers usually start out quite small, only growin' stronger with age.
It can be quite shockin' t' some, lahke if ya accidentally set fire t' yer bed covers, or end up awkwardly hovering towards the ceiling of yer house...
>another pause, Brooke growing visibly more uncomfortable the closer she got to her point...
Ah was... six. An early bloomah, you could say. That's when mah mutant power first showed up.
But... unlahke most, it seems, it wasn't-...it wasn't just a weakah version of what Ah can do now.
...
Ah activated it in mah sleep, Ah reckon. That's always been th' assumption, anyway.
Ah still remembah, Ah had a tummy ache th' nahght before, an' mah mothah sang t' me 'til Ah finally fell asleep...
...it was 6:23 in the mornin'... that's when Ah first used mah mutant power...
Ah remembah being woken up by-... th' sound of mah heart. It felt so loud, lahke it was right inside mah skull or somethin'...
Ah tried t' ignore it, but everythin' just felt so
quiet, expect mah heart, and what Ah's latter learn, was th' sound of mah own blood rushin' up an' down mah veins.
>she slowly turned her head, looking properly at AlbertWhen Ah got outta bed, everythin' was already frozen. Ah sleepily made mah way to th' kitchen t' tell mah mom about these weird noises in mah ears... and she was just standin' there, frozen.
Ah called, an' Ah called; Ah shook her, kicked her, even tried stabbin' her with a fork, Ah'm ashamed t' admit... but nothin' Ah did got her t' move...
Nothin' did. Time was stopped, an' Ah had no way of knowin' why. No way of-...of undoing it.
>Brooke shrunk slightly in her seat, crossing her arms in a self-hug, her fingers brushing along her forearms like she was lightly scratching herself...
Ah still don't know how
long exactly Ah was stuck there... there's no real way of tellin', is there...
Ah just know Ah cried. A lot. Ah broke many things, hopin' that'd get people's attention. Ah prayed, Ah cursed, Ah begged, an'-...
An' all th' while, that noise was always there. Mah heartbeat. Mah blood.
>she frowned, her light rubbing having now turned into her nails scratching against the fabric of her clothes...it was drivin' me crazy. Ah did things, t' mahself, that-...that Ah prefer t' just forget... just t' try an' get it all t' stop...
...
>another sighAh collapsed by mah mother's side.
An' next thing Ah knew, Ah was wakin' up in a hospital.
Mah power nevah quite lasted nearly as long since then. Only a handful of seconds at a tahme.
>a shrugMental block, maybe. Ah don't know, an' frankly, Ah don't much care t' dwell on it enough t' fahnd out.
So, there ya go. That's mah story.
