Stephen's ceiling fan wore a slow halo of dust. He watched it not-move. He watched the square of window turn from night to the Gray before morning. He didn't blink much.
When the house started making its breakfast noises—pan on stovetop, Mark's locker-door backpack, a news anchor's voice like smooth gravel—Stephen slid out from under the covers and put both feet on the floor one toe at a time.
His hands looked like every other day. Ten-year-old hands. New pencil callus. A fading Lego bite on the thumb. He flexed them. The skin made the smallest whisper.
'Gentle hands,' he reminded them. 'Gentle everything.'
_ _ ♛ _ _
The kitchen had two smells—pancakes and coffee—and one noise that didn't belong: the way Nolan's attention hit the room. He sat at the table with his news eyes on, the ones that read everything like a map. Debbie flipped a pancake and hummed off-key at the radio. Mark ranted at the island about a pop quiz like it was a betrayal of the social contract.
Stephen's stomach didn't send any mail. He touched the back door to make sure the knob still turned like a normal knob, then slipped outside.
Morning soaked the grass. His socks got brave and then cold. The fence threw a long shadow that looked like piano keys. The sky was sheet-blue and kind.
He stood in the centre of the yard and looked up until his eyes watered.
"Okay," he told the air. "Not flying. Just… checking gravity."
He bent his knees and jumped.
The yard allowed him exactly what yards allow: up two feet, down two feet, a second of lightness, and then socks in dew again. A small bounce, like the earth patting his head.
He tried again with wanting in his legs. The bounce was the same; only his breathing changed.
Stephen exhaled, a shaky laugh hitching a ride.
"Good. Normal. Science agrees."
But the sun… the sun was a different science. He turned his face to it and felt the warmth go deeper than warmth should. It didn't just sit on his skin; it threaded in. His chest loosened in a single long untying.
'This is real,' he thought, not sure which this he meant.
He closed his eyes and listened to the yard so he wouldn't think words like Clark Kent out loud inside his head. Sprinkler hiss two houses over. A fly doing circles badly. The soft thermal creak from the fence post. The world catalogued itself for him like it liked being known.
He opened his eyes, found a fist-sized rock in the garden bed, and rolled it in his palm. Grit against skin. Weight honest.
"Test one," he whispered.
He squeezed like he was trying not to squeeze, like he was just holding, and then added the smallest more. The rock gave with a tired sound and sagged into his fingers the way wet clay does when it knows who's stronger in the conversation. A hairline crack found the path of least resistance and became two pieces.
He didn't drop them. He placed them back in the dirt as if they were sleeping things.
"Test two," he said to the fence. He set his feet at the far edge of the yard and ran toward the other side with a promise in his legs that he would stop before the boards. Air punched his face. The world did a tiny smear. Three strides from the fence he told everything to be careful, and all of him obeyed at once. He stopped so cleanly the backs of his knees felt proud.
His lungs did not complain. His heart beat like a drum line that had found tempo.
He held his breath because it was the next question. He counted Mississippi's in his head and then stopped counting because the numbers got bored. When he finally let the breath out, it came like a long ribbon unfurling from a gift he hadn't opened yet.
He stood very still.
'Not just… Viltrumite. The sun is doing something. The sun is… mine?'
'If this is real—if this is actually happening—then what crack did God smoke to give me this?!'
The thought arrived wearing a cape he didn't want to look at. He shook his head until the cape went out of frame.
"Rule Eleven," he muttered, "still true. Don't chase it at school."
A shadow fell over the grass. It had a man's shape and the quiet of someone who could choose loud and didn't. Nolan leaned a shoulder against the doorframe, one hand on the jamb like he'd always been part of houses.
"You skipped pancakes," Nolan said. Neutral. Observing.
"Not hungry," Stephen said. True, but also camouflage.
"Sun feels good this early," Nolan added, gaze flicking once to the sky, once back to Stephen. "Don't stay out too long without shoes."
Stephen looked at his socks, suddenly, stupidly guilty for a crime he couldn't name.
"I won't."
Nolan's mouth softened. "I used to do the same—checking how high I could jump." The corner of his eye creased. "Spoiler: not very."
Stephen smiled because the world expected it. Nolan went back inside. The door clicked. The yard exhaled.
Stephen put his palms on the fence and felt the warmth of sunlight stored there. He hid his face in his forearms for a heartbeat and said into the wood, so the wood could keep the secret,
"What am I?"
The wood—being wood—kept it.
_ _ ♛ _ _
School tried to be loud around him. It did a good job. The bell had opinions. So did the hallway. So did the kid who'd brought a fidget spinner back from 2017 like it was a fossil. Stephen's head kept filing and unfilling itself with information until he wrote in the margin of his math worksheet: Rule Fifteen: Don't test things you can't untest.
At lunch, he sat at the end of the table again. Priya slid her tray down so the sides clacked like dominos.
"Wyvern. Show me the peel wizardry again."
He peeled the orange in two spirals this time, then set the curls on his napkin like quotation marks. He ate three segments and listened to his body not complain.
"Not hungry?" Priya asked.
"Sun breakfast," Stephen said before he remembered to be normal, then added, "I mean… I ate earlier. Pancakes."
"Tragic," she said. "You could have traded them for my broccoli and lost twice."
He smiled. He tried to anchor to the small stupid comfort of cafeteria milk cartons and trays that made everything taste like plastic. It worked until the group chat on someone's phone lit up with a clip of Omni-Man blotting a storm over the coast. The screen's glow found Stephen's eyes like a magnet.
[CityCam Live]: [Omni-Man stabilizes microburst over Pier 40]
The video had no sound on that tiny screen, but Stephen heard wind anyway. He heard gulls he'd never met.
Priya followed his look and lowered the phone. "Hey. You okay?"
"Yeah," Stephen said, practicing Rule Twelve, the one about smiling and shrugging. "Just… weather."
"Same," Priya said solemnly. "I too am deeply concerned about atmospheric instability."
He laughed. It felt like tripping and landing on your feet.
_ _ ♛ _ _
The bathroom during recess had a mirror that forgot to be kind. Fluorescent light makes no promises. Stephen gripped the sink's edge and looked himself in the face like he was someone he was practicing for.
He checked his hands in reflection. The knuckles. The crescent of dirt under one nail from the garden bed rock. A new line from pressing too hard with a pencil, then catching himself and softening.
If he was a question mark, then he was at least a neat one. He could be neat. He could be quiet. He could be small enough to fit in every place he still wanted to fit.
"Rule Sixteen," he whispered to his own reflection. "Write everything down. Don't say it out loud."
He dried his hands more than they needed and went back to class.
_ _ ♛ _ _
Home had the kind of quiet that's a blanket, not a door shutting. Debbie chopped peppers in even little cubes that clicked and released their sharp, clean smell. Mark was face-down over his homework like the paper had wronged him personally.
"How was today, Not Hungry?" Debbie asked without looking like she knew the whole script.
"Orange dragon," Stephen said. "Two spirals. Priya approved."
"Excellent," Debbie said, sliding peppers into a pan like they were all heading to the same warm party.
Mark lifted his head. "You're weirdly calm for a guy who popped a ball yesterday."
"I'm practicing gentle hands," Stephen said.
Mark held up his own. "Teach me. Do I hold the pencil like a baby bird?"
"Like a potato that owes you money but you still love it," Stephen said, and Mark barked out a laugh that earned him a look from Nolan walking past with the mail.
"Potato fiscal responsibility," Mark said. "Got it."
Stephen's smile made its own heat that didn't come from the sun.
_ _ ♛ _ _
Night laid its ear against the roof and listened to the house breathe. Stephen sat at his desk with an egg again because eggs were honest teachers. He lifted it. Lowered it. Rolled it. Wrote down how his fingers felt when not breaking something: a map he could follow tomorrow when the world tried to be too much.
He opened the red notebook and took stock.
1–14 sat there in his ten-year-old handwriting, as if a kid had invented a religion that only required patience and jokes.
He added:
Rule Fifteen: Don't test things you can't untest.
Rule Sixteen: Journal everything. (Facts > fear.)
Rule Seventeen: Keep the question mark private.
Rule Eighteen: Practice in shade when you can.(Less sun = fewer surprises.)
Rule Nineteen: Eat when everyone eats.(Even if you don't need it.)
Rule Twenty: If panic → sun or water → breathe.(Four in / four hold / four out.)
He stared at the last one until his shoulders came down off his ears.
His phone buzzed. [Spicy Nuggets]: Bro Mr. Callahan as a dragon goes HARD; [Priya]: send the drawing or you hate art. He snapped a picture of the wyvern fan and sent it. The chat exploded in [🔥🔥🔥].
He set the phone face down and let his eyes close. The sun was gone but the memory of it lingered, quiet and warm as a hand on his hair.
He wasn't sure what he was.
He was sure of this: he could be gentle. He could be careful. He could be a kid when he could.
The rest could come later.
He slept.
_ _ ♛ _ _
Rules (so far) — Stephen's Red Notebook
1. Act normal.
2. Ask questions like you don't know anything.
3. Don't try to fly.
4. No showing off.
5. If you mess up, stop.
6. Listen on purpose.
7. Small helps count.
8. Be a kid when you can.
9. Treat everything like it's made of glass.
10. If startled, freeze—don't grab.
11. Sun helps. Don't chase it at school.
12. Smile and shrug. (If people look too long.)
13. Headphones when the world is too loud.
14. Eggs = practice.
15. Don't test things you can't untest.
16. Journal everything. (Facts > fear.)
17. Keep the question mark private.
18. Practice in shade when you can.
19. Eat when everyone eats.
20. If panic → sun or water → breathe. (4–4–4)
End of Chapter 13