Second Power
Second Power
"Hiram, what if someone finds out about our little girl? I couldn't stand it if someone tried to take our Katie from us."
Katie, now twelve, hears her mother say. She looks up, trying to find her. When she couldn't see Ruth in the immediate area, she used her x-ray vision. Her parents were outside, next to the barn. Katie could barely see them, so how on earth could she hear them?
"Maybe I'm just imagining it," she says out loud. Katie continues reading her school book.
A few minutes later, all sorts of noises invade Katie's hearing. She screeches and covers her ears. All that does though is make everything sound like it's under water, and louder.
She starts to run to her parents for help, but reconsiders. Maybe this hearing is like my x-ray vision, I have to practice. She runs out of the house to the same field her father took her to three years ago.
"I need to…" she starts to say out loud, but her voice is so loud she whimpers in pain.
Ruth walks into the living room but finds her daughter is not there. "Katie! Where are you? It's almost time for dinner."
Katie can hear every breath, heart beat, and other bodily function that her mother's body is making. It gives her an idea.
She uses her x-ray vision on her mother until she can see her heart. Katie then focuses her new 'super' hearing on the sound she knows a heart makes. With both 'powers', Katie concentrates until the only sound she can hear is in perfect time with the slow, steady pulses of her mother's heart.
Katie looks up and smiles. She races back to her house to meet her mother and share the news.
It took me thirty minutes to control my enhanced hearing. I'm not saying it was perfect, because it wasn't. Far from it; it took me a few months to stop it from coming in spasms, I guess you'd call it, but all I had to do was concentrate on one sound, and it worked better when the sound had a visual to go with.
Mom and dad almost didn't believe me at first, but all I had to do was remind them that they had a daughter from space and a few demonstrations to convince them. To 'prove' I had super hearing was to tell my dad what he said. From the barn. While whispering.
They were proud that I figured out how to use it all on my own.
It just took them a while to remember the fact that their daughter had good hearing. I heard things while it was still new that no child should hear. I will not go into details.
In the three years between x-ray vision and enhanced hearing, I was getting steadily stronger and faster.
I could now pick up almost anything around the house or farm. When mom lost something, I could just pick up the furniture. I never even broke a sweat, or lost my breath.
One time, I was on the way home from Jean's house, when a car passed me. It was 1934, so not many people had cars back then. I had only seen one or two. Anyway, I stopped walking and let it pass me. When I could barely see it, I started running. Really running. I had the good judgment to go into the corn a few feet, so that no one could see me, and within a couple of seconds, I had passed the car. It was exhilarating, running that fast.
After that, I ran around the farm and its surrounding fields everyday. I felt so free. Only one thing has ever surpassed that feeling of freedom, but that is farther into the story, and you wouldn't want me to ruin the story, now would you?