Stuck in the Wall: "Social Death"

Morning sunlight filtered through the basement's small window, casting a slanted patch of light across the cement floor, which was covered in Lin Mo's practice marks. He stared at the wall, his fingers trembling slightly with nerves—this was the third day since he had gained Shadowcat's ability, and his first attempt at "long-distance wall phasing."

His first two practice sessions had gone smoothly: he passed through the pile of beer cans in Ted's basement—cleaning up three empty bottles while he was at it—slipped through the safe at the repair shop where Carlos hid his private stash, which contained only five crumpled dollars, and even used a screwdriver to turn screws in the next room while phased, a new way to test his precision.

But today's target was the apartment building's load-bearing wall. More than half a meter thick and threaded with rebar, it was the greatest challenge he had encountered so far. His wristband displayed [This wall contains metal structures. Phasing difficulty increased by 30%], but Lin Mo still wanted to try. He needed to know where his limits were. Especially under S.H.I.E.L.D.'s surveillance, the deeper he kept his abilities hidden, the safer he would be.

"Deep breaths..." Lin Mo traced a cross at the wall, as though psyching himself up. He activated his phasing ability, and his body instantly glimmered with a translucent light, like a tissue soaked in water. Following his previous experience, he first pushed his palm through the wall and felt the resistance of the rebar—it was harder than he had imagined, like passing through a red-hot iron wire, with a faint stinging pain.

"Now!" Lin Mo gritted his teeth and charged forward.

The smooth passage he had expected never came. His shoulders and chest went through the brick wall without trouble, but his waist was firmly caught on a horizontal steel bar, as if gripped by iron pincers. Lin Mo looked down, and his heart nearly stopped—his upper body was in the hallway while his lower body remained in the basement, with his torso embedded in the wall. Rough bricks pressed against his left side, cold cement against his right, and the rebar dug right into his ribs, making him bare his teeth in pain.

"Fuck!" Lin Mo tried to pull himself back, only to discover that he could not exert any strength while phased. The more he struggled, the tighter the rebar trapped him. Brick and stone scraped against his skin like sandpaper against flesh. He could hear Ted humming in the hallway, drawing closer and closer, and quickly held his breath.

Ted's footsteps stopped above him, followed by a click—the sound of a mailbox opening. "That kid Lin Mo was tinkering around until midnight again," Ted said in the hoarse voice of a hangover. "His wall-phasing sounds like he's demolishing the building. Next time, I'm charging him a noise fee."

Lin Mo's face instantly turned liver-red. Ted had known all along that he had been practicing? Then every time he phased through the wall at night to "visit" Ted's comic collection, Ted must have heard it all?

The footsteps gradually faded away. Lin Mo let out a breath, only to panic even more. He tried to adjust his position and squeeze past the rebar, but moved too hastily, causing a sudden fluctuation in his phased state. His right hand became solid again and slammed into the brick with a bang, nearly making him cry out in pain.

"Is anyone there?!" Lin Mo called in a low voice, his throat tight with anxiety. There was no one in the basement. Carlos would not open the shop until noon; Ted had gone to work; Peter was at school... At this moment, the only person in the entire building who might be home was old Martha. But how could he possibly yell, "I'm stuck in a wall"?

Time passed second by second, and the sunlight on the floor shifted half an inch. The rebar dug painfully into Lin Mo's ribs, making it harder and harder to breathe. Sweat ran down his forehead and soaked the back of his shirt. He suddenly remembered the wristband's warning: [Maintain emotional stability while phasing. Anxiety may cause ability fluctuations.] He hurriedly closed his eyes and repeated in his mind, I am air. I am air...

He imagined himself turning into a gust of wind and slipping through the cracks between the bricks; imagined the rebar softening like waterweed, bending however he wished; imagined the wall abruptly becoming transparent glass, letting him see every stair in the hallway...

Just then, an odd loosening sensation came from his waist, like jammed gears suddenly slipping back into place. Before Lin Mo could react, the ground vanished beneath his feet—the phased state broke completely. He lost his balance and fell out of the wall, crashing heavily onto the hallway's cement floor hard enough to make the stair railing shake.

"Ow!" Lin Mo clutched his waist and grimaced. Just as he tried to get up, he saw a pair of floral cloth shoes stop in front of him. Looking up, he found old Martha holding a grocery basket and glaring at him, a cigarette dangling from the corner of her mouth, its ash nearly falling onto his face.

"Sleepwalking?" The old woman's voice scraped across his ears like a file, but she reached down and pulled him to his feet. "Crawling out of a wall? What are you, an eel or a ghost?"

Lin Mo's face immediately flushed scarlet, spreading from his ears down to his neck. He wished he could crawl straight back into the wall. His mouth hung open, but he could not form a complete sentence for a long time. "Mrs. Martha... I... um..."

"Enough nonsense." Martha rolled her eyes, but pulled a sandwich from her grocery basket and stuffed it into his hand. "Freshly made. Ham and egg. Look at how skinny you are—you'd blow over in the wind, yet you're trying to phase through walls like everyone else?"

Lin Mo froze. The sandwich in his hand still held warmth, its buttery scent mixed with the old woman's cigarette smoke in a strangely comforting way. "You... you saw it all?"

"Obviously. I was cleaning windows on the third floor and watched you stick to the wall like a slab of rice cake." Martha pointed her cigarette at the faint marks on the wall, left behind when he struggled earlier. "If you hadn't been grimacing like you were in agony, I'd have called the police already. Breaking and entering while playing with superpowers would get you half a year behind bars."

Lin Mo's heart sank. She knew everything! He quickly lowered his head and apologized. "I'm sorry, Mrs. Martha. I didn't mean to. It's just... I haven't mastered my ability yet."

"Ability?" Martha raised an eyebrow, suddenly leaning closer and lowering her voice. "Like when you saved Snowball last time? The kind that lets you pass through things?"

Lin Mo hesitated, then nodded. There seemed to be no point hiding it from this old woman—she had even dared to curse out S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. The last time Phil Coulson came to investigate the meteor crater, she had driven him off with a broom, telling him, "Quit hanging around outside my place. You'll scare my cat."

"At least you're honest." Martha snorted and turned toward the stairs. "Come with me. I've got something to show you."

Lin Mo hurried after her, taking a bite of the sandwich in his hand. Its savory flavor spread through his mouth. Watching Martha's back, he suddenly felt that this old woman might be far more extraordinary than he had imagined. Why was she not surprised at all? Had she seen mutants before?

Martha's room smelled even more strongly of smoke than usual. She dragged an old chest out from beneath the bed, its surface covered in dust and secured by an old-fashioned brass lock. Lin Mo was about to help, but the old woman waved him off. She pulled a thin wire from her hair and picked the lock in just a few quick motions—her hands moved with the practiced ease of a seasoned thief.

"Look at this." Martha took a yellowed photograph from the chest. It showed a young man in military uniform holding a little girl, with an X-Men base in the background—one Lin Mo had seen in the comics. "My son. Ben Parker's comrade-in-arms. He used to be in X-Force. He could talk to animals."

Lin Mo's eyes widened like saucers. Ben Parker? Peter's uncle? He had actually been connected to the X-Men? No wonder Martha was so calm about superpowers!

"He died in an explosion at Moira's laboratory." Martha's voice trembled slightly as she brushed dust from the photograph. "Before he died, he told me that if I ever met a kid who could pass through walls, I should tell him this: abilities aren't toys. They're meant to plug bullet holes."

Something struck Lin Mo's heart, and the sandwich nearly slipped from his hand. At last, he understood how many unknown stories were hidden within this shabby apartment building—Spider-Man's web-shooter beneath Ted's bed, Peter's obsession with spiders, Martha's understanding of mutants... They were all fighting against this mad world in their own ways.

"I understand, Mrs. Martha." Lin Mo put the photograph back into the chest, his fingers gently brushing over the man's face. "I won't use my ability recklessly."

"Good." Martha locked the chest and handed him a bottle of milk. "Get back and practice. If you get stuck in a wall again, I'll have Snowball claw you."

Back in the basement, Lin Mo looked at the faint marks on the wall and suddenly smiled. That humiliating "social death" moment had been awkward, but it had taught him two things: abilities had to be respected, and he could not force things; the people in this building were more trustworthy than he had imagined.

He began practicing again, this time choosing a thin wall—the partition between Ted's basement and his own, only twenty centimeters thick. He drew a line on the floor to mark the start and end points of his phase, then took three deep breaths, activated his ability, and walked forward step by step.

The moment he phased through, he could clearly "see" the poster Ted had put up on the wall—it was a premiere poster for Iron Man 1, showing Tony Stark in his Mark I armor, grinning boldly. Lin Mo could not resist poking Iron Man on the poster with a finger. While phased, his fingertip passed through the paper and left a faint mark.

"I did it!" Lin Mo jumped in Ted's basement, only to forget that the place was piled high with comic books. His foot slipped, and he landed flat on his back, crushing Ted's treasured stack of Spider-Man: Year One comics.

"My books!" Ted roared from the next room, accompanied by the vibrations of him stomping through the wall. "Lin Mo, you bastard! Pay for my comics!"

Lin Mo hurriedly activated his phasing ability and slipped back into his own basement, his heart pounding wildly. Looking at the crack in the floor, caused by Ted's stomp, he suddenly felt that this kind of chaotic superpowered daily life was not so bad after all.

On his way to the repair shop that afternoon, Lin Mo deliberately detoured through the community park, where several children were playing hide-and-seek. A little girl in red was stuck inside a tree hollow and crying, while the adults nearby ran around in panic. Lin Mo hesitated for a moment, then quietly activated his phasing ability, passed his arm through the trunk, and pulled the girl out.

"Wow! Mister knows magic!" The little girl stopped crying and laughed, clutching his hand tightly.

Lin Mo smiled and ruffled her hair. Just as he was about to leave, he spotted Phil Coulson standing by a bench in the distance. Coulson raised his coffee cup toward him, a faint smile at the corner of his mouth.

Lin Mo's heart sank, but this time he did not panic. He nodded to Phil Coulson and turned away—some things did not need to be hidden, like using his ability to help others.

At the repair shop, Carlos was staring worriedly at a pile of parts. "This piece of junk has a jammed tape head. I can't take it apart." He tossed an old cassette player to Lin Mo. "Try your wall-passing hand."

Lin Mo blinked, then smiled. Carlos did not say it out loud, but he had clearly accepted Lin Mo's ability. Lin Mo activated his phasing power, passed his fingers through the player's casing, and precisely nudged the jammed tape head. "Done."

Carlos took the player back and pressed the play button. Hoarse rock music poured out—it was Queen's We Will Rock You. "Not bad," he said, offering rare praise. "Pizza tonight. Extra cheese."

Warmth filled Lin Mo's heart. He looked out the window, where the setting sun had dyed the streets of Queens gold. Peter ran past with his schoolbag, the glass jar in his hand glittering—the spider inside was still spinning silk, weaving an increasingly large web.

He knew many challenges still lay ahead: S.H.I.E.L.D.'s surveillance, Carlos's mysterious clients, Peter's coming "spider bite," and the Cosmic Cube Fragment hidden in the meteor crater... But as long as he could keep living like this—occasionally suffering "social death" while phasing through walls, fixing things at the repair shop, helping children out in the neighborhood—there was nothing to fear.

That night, while practicing wall phasing, Lin Mo nearly got stuck in a wall again—this time because he heard Aunt May calling him to dinner and rushed too much. But he did not panic. Instead, he slowly adjusted his breathing and felt the texture of the bricks, just as Martha had said: Treat yourself like the wind.

When he emerged from the wall, he found Peter pointing a camera at him. The flash went click. "Brother Lin, you look so cool phasing through walls! Can I put this photo in my Superhero Observation Journal?"

Lin Mo smiled, snatched the camera away, and deleted the picture. Then he pulled Peter to his side, activated his phasing ability, and took him through the kitchen wall with him, landing beside the dining table. Aunt May was carrying out roast chicken and nearly dropped the platter in shock.

"You two..." Aunt May stared at them, then smiled. "Wash your hands and eat. The chicken's getting cold."

At the dinner table, Peter chattered nonstop about school while Aunt May piled food onto Lin Mo's plate. Moonlight drifted gently in through the window and fell across everyone's faces. Lin Mo took a bite of roast chicken and suddenly felt that perhaps this was the true meaning of having abilities—not to fight against something, but to protect these ordinary moments.

As for those humiliating times he got stuck in walls? He could treat them as little bonuses that came with superpowers.