Fate

Despite that thought, Ryan moved his eyes.

He found that moving his eyes took less effort than moving anything else.

If he wanted to act freely, he first had to get through his time in swaddling clothes.

Until then, he was just a helpless child.

The seasons turned, and time slipped by.

At first, Ryan paid it little mind. Later, he grew increasingly tired of the view outside his window.

He had seen enough.

The woods beyond the house thawed in spring, turned lush green in summer and yellow in autumn. In winter, only bare trunks remained.

Today, he sat by the window again. He looked outside, then down at his hands.

They were small and still had little strength.

But this body was already four years old.

Some superpowers were formidable from birth. Others became unstoppable through training.

It seemed he had inherited a gift, but he would still need to develop it through training.

Ryan already had a plan for developing his powers.

He was thinking it over when a familiar voice reached his ears.

"Ryan, don't sit on the windowsill. You'll fall."

"I haven't fallen, have I, Becca?"

"How long do you plan to keep that up before you do?"

"I'm not going to fall. Is that any way for a mother to talk?"

"I only said it because I'm worried. Besides, Ryan, no matter how long you stare out there, all you'll find at the end is a high wall."

"Can't I climb over it?"

"You might spend your whole life here."

The speaker was a woman named Becca. She must have been quite young when she gave birth to Ryan, and she was still rather pretty.

She was Ryan's birth mother, though not the transmigrator's.

Ryan had always called her Becca, but he remembered how hard she worked to raise him alone.

He just had an awkward way of showing it. He wasn't the type to say thank you or tell her he loved her outright.

In his previous life, his parents had always nagged him to get married. He had mostly responded by asking after their health on the phone and sending them some money.

Becca called from inside the house, interrupting his thoughts.

"Come eat, Ryan."

The woman calling her child to the table seemed no different from an ordinary housewife. Only Ryan knew otherwise.

She was like him.

After living alone in this isolated place for years, she had probably grown a little strange.

But who was completely normal?

No one, probably. Ryan didn't mind. He followed Becca to the table.

"Bacon and bread again."

He frowned at the meal. To be fair, it wasn't bad. He just wasn't used to it.

"Don't be picky."

Ignoring her son's reluctance, Becca pushed his plate in front of him.

She pushed the cutlery over with it.

"There's tomato too, isn't there?"

"That's the part I like least. I left it out on purpose."

"What do you want to eat, then?"

"I'll eat whatever you make."

Ryan sat down. His cutlery clinked against the plate as he began to eat.

He was still too young. Once he grew up, he would make some food he liked and let Becca try his cooking too.

While mother and son ate,

they made a little small talk.

Becca spoke first, putting a slice of pork tenderloin into her mouth.

"Did you finish the homework I gave you?"

"Yeah. In exchange, I'm going to play beyond the little woods tomorrow."

"By yourself?"

"It's more fun on my own."

"Ryan, you're only four. Are you already going through a rebellious phase where you can't stand your mother? If you invite me, I could come play with you."

"You can stay here."

"..."

Becca choked on her words. She set down her plate and gave Ryan a thoroughly displeased look.

Then came the muttering under her breath.

"I'm not saying independence is bad. It's just that children your age are usually close to their mothers, aren't they?"

"I'm the precocious type."

Ryan smiled. He often joked around with Becca, and their days were easygoing. He thought of her as his adoptive mother and hoped to repay her someday.

At the table, Ryan picked up the salad dressing and squeezed some onto his plate.

White dressing covered the tomato.

"By the way, who's my father?"

"You don't have one. Your mother reproduced asexually."

"Becca, do you think I'm stupid?"

"Your father is dead."

"I see."

Ryan looked wordlessly at Becca's dark expression, then put the tomato in his mouth and chewed.

The taste was hard to make sense of.

But something else bothered him more. Becca's answer told him all he needed to know

about just how well she and his father had gotten along.

"I hope A-Train runs that man over."

Whenever Becca mentioned that man, she muttered something like that.

Ryan never quite understood what she meant.

Still, he didn't care about that mess. Only one thing mattered to him.

His superpowers.

People gained everything through their abilities.

He planned to start training his powers tomorrow. Buoyed by anticipation, he even finished the tomato.

After the meal, Becca took the dishes away to wash them.

Ryan went back to his room to play with toys a child his age would like.

It was a necessary disguise.

Though it felt a little silly.

In his room, Ryan looked at the toy train running along its tracks. He had no idea where his mother had bought it.

After letting it run for a while, he swept the tracks aside.

The train tipped over. Ryan's face remained blank.

"This is the end of the line for the passengers."

He played a little longer, but it really wasn't interesting. Before long, he grew sleepy.

He and Becca said good night to each other, and he went to sleep alone.

The night passed without incident.

When the chirping birds outside woke Ryan, he checked the clock on the wall.

The morning sun had only just spread across the ground.

Ryan rubbed his eyes, got up and washed.

In the kitchen, Becca had packed him sandwiches for lunch.

She had put them in a basket so he could eat them at noon when he got tired of playing outside.

Breakfast was sandwiches too, of course.

Ryan politely thanked her for the food, picked up the basket and went out.

Becca told him to be careful, and he answered her.

Outside, the air carried the scent of earth.

Ryan turned to look at the little house behind him. His home never changed either.

Nothing here felt new anymore.

He knew what he was like: when life was peaceful, he craved excitement; when things got exciting, he missed the peace.

But his life now needed to change.

Becca liked staying here, looking after him without anyone disturbing them. But a life without contact with other people

seemed unhealthy to Ryan. She could leave this place and talk to someone besides him.

With a sigh, Ryan walked over the dirt and onto the path.

Trees slipped past him.

Everywhere he looked, the greenery was lush. When he raised his head, he saw a sky of unpolluted blue.

Birds called in the woods.

That was how it worked. Where there were trees, birds made their homes.

People, too, settled and raised families where they could survive.

Ryan walked deeper into the woods. As he went farther in, he gradually lost track of the way back.

Only when he grew tired did he stop beside a large tree and set down the sandwiches.

He looked around but found no sign that his mother had followed him, nor any surveillance cameras.

Maybe it was safe.

Then it was time to train his superpowers.

Ryan had waited for this for so long. He had been planning it since his days as a baby, when all he did was eat and sleep,

waiting

for the day his powers would finally begin to show.

"My story begins here. I won't be trapped here. I won't be trapped inside these walls."

He would think about what came after once he got out. Right now, Ryan felt like a frog at the bottom of a well, gazing up at the sky.

It longed for the world outside, but it also knew that if it jumped out and left a place without predators,

it would probably die out there. After all, the bird tempting it out of the well might only have its eye on a juicy frog dinner.

That would be a trap, plain and simple. Ryan wasn't worried about that now.

He had complete faith in the powers he would develop. Once they were strong enough, they could protect him from anyone who meant him harm.

Because this body carried the blood of a top-tier superhuman.

The blood of that man.