David Smith sat in the farthest seat of his third-period literature class, his back pressed to the wall as if clinging to the only solid thing in his world. His eyes stared through the teacher, not at him. Around him, time moved, pens scratched paper, and students whispered half-hearted answers. But David wasn't here—not completely.
He blinked.
And in an instant, he was seeing the classroom through thirty different perspectives.
From above, like a ceiling camera.
From the girl to his right, who was secretly checking her phone.
From the teacher's mind—tired, going through the motions, thoughts drifting to his unpaid bills.
From a fly buzzing near the window, its world a series of jagged, chaotic images.
From his own perspective, split into three layers—past, present, and a dozen likely futures.
David clutched the edge of his desk, knuckles white.
Breathe, he told himself. Just breathe.
His brain surged with information, a storm of stimuli slamming into his consciousness like waves on a sinking ship. He exhaled slowly, forcing himself to let go. Like closing tabs on a computer, he shut down the perspectives, one by one, until he was back to just being… David.
The bell rang. The room erupted with chairs scraping and backpacks zipping. David stayed seated.
A sharp pulse behind his eyes reminded him: the longer he used his ability, the deeper it dug into his mind.
---
After School, David walked home alone, a hoodie draped over his head, his breath fogging in the late-afternoon chill. The streets blurred past him—cars, people, flashing signs—but he couldn't ignore them. He saw everyone.
An old man across the street. David knew his hip was fractured, even though he walked with forced pride.
A teenage girl waiting for the bus. Her perspective echoed in his skull—tension, shame, a desperate desire to be invisible.
David knew her secret before she even noticed his presence.
He hated it.
Being inside everyone. Knowing what they feared. What they thought. Who they truly were. It was worse than hearing voices—it was becoming voices.
You're not meant to carry all this, a part of him whispered.
He ignored it.
---
David's apartment was small, tucked on the fourth floor of a run-down brick building in the city's east end. His room was a mess of philosophy books, ripped notebooks, and crumpled drawings of human faces—all sketched from dozens of angles.
He threw his backpack on the bed and opened a locked drawer.
Inside: a black face mask stitched with pale white thread. Simple. Blank. Unreadable.
He picked it up, turned it over in his hands. Then he heard it.
A scream.
High. Real. From somewhere nearby. He closed his eyes.
And just like that, he was there.
He saw a woman being dragged into a side alley two blocks away. Her fear saturated every detail—eyes wide, breath stolen, purse ripped from her hand.
David's perspective jumped again.
Now, he saw it from the attacker's eyes: a man with cracked fingers, sweat on his brow, and the erratic thoughts of someone with nothing left to lose.
David's heart pounded. He slipped the mask over his face and jumped out the window, landing hard in a fire escape. The metal screeched under his weight, but he didn't stop.
The city twisted around him as he ran.
He moved by instinct—but it wasn't instinct. He saw every route from every possible point of view: birds flying overhead, security cameras, drunk passersby who might later serve as witnesses.
In his mind, every path glowed with probability.
---
The attacker cornered the woman at the end of a narrow, trash-littered alley. He raised the knife with a trembling hand, his desperation spilling into David's vision like static.
David stepped forward, mask in place, voice low.
"Drop it."
The man turned, startled. "Who the hell—"
David saw it: the twitch in his fingers, the moment his fear turned to rage.
He accessed a dozen outcomes.
Nine of them ended with blood.
The tenth… required pain.
The man lunged. David ducked, pivoted to the left, slammed his elbow into the man's wrist. The knife fell.
But he wasn't done.
David became the attacker for half a second—saw the next move forming in his mind—then preemptively struck, kneeing him in the ribs and slamming him against the wall.
The man groaned and dropped to the ground.
The woman, still crying, looked up at David's masked face.
"Who are you?" she whispered.
David didn't answer. He turned and vanished down the alley's other end, the shadows swallowing him.
---
Later That Night, David sat on his bed, mask beside him, a cold rag pressed to his forehead. His nose bled again. His temples throbbed.
He opened his notebook and wrote just one sentence:
I saved someone… and I lost another piece of myself.
He couldn't remember the name of his fifth-grade teacher anymore. It was just… gone.
And worse, he didn't care.