Brandon stood in the shed, before the ship that brought him to Earth, his hand still touching the cold metal. The red glow in his eyes faded, but his mind erupted with images-memories that didn't belong to the life he knew. These weren't Brightburn's nightmares but fragments of another existence, so vivid they burned in his bones.
He was Adam Carter. An ordinary guy who loved Marvel movies and X-Men comics. He had parents who always set an extra plate at Thanksgiving "just in case." He graduated with an engineering degree, landed a good job at a tech firm. Adam's life was full of warmth-he had a girlfriend, Emily, whom he planned to marry. He saw her smile, smelled her perfume, heard her laugh at his bad jokes.
Then came that night. They were walking back from a date through a dark alley. Three men in ski masks emerged from the shadows, their guns glinting under the streetlight.
"Give us the money, or you're dead!" one barked.
Adam felt Emily trembling beside him, her sobs tearing at his heart. He reached for his wallet, ready to hand over everything, but before he could, a shot rang out. A bullet pierced his chest, and another hit Emily. They fell together, blood pooling on the pavement. The attackers stepped closer, finishing them with cold precision. It wasn't a random robbery-it was an execution. They wanted Adam dead.
The memories cut off like a snapped film reel. Brandon stood frozen, his breath shallow. He looked at his hands, as if they belonged to someone else. He hated those memories. He wanted to forget all of it. He forgot them and they came back to him.
"Adam Carter," he whispered, the name tasting like ash.
Something in him broke. In an instant, he shot into the sky, slicing through the air with impossible speed. The Earth blurred beneath him until he reached the South Pole. He hovered above a vast glacier, his silhouette casting a shadow on the white expanse. His eyes blazed blood-red, and a laser beam erupted from them, carving through the ice like a knife through butter. A deep, smoking hole formed in seconds.
Brandon descended into the abyss, his movements mechanical, as if drawn by something. At the bottom, amid the ice, he saw it-a ship. Not of this Earth, larger and more sinister than the one that brought him as a child. Its black, metallic surface pulsed with faint light, as if sensing his presence.