Birthday. Specifically mine. I really hate it. For some reason, a simple miscalculation in the universe, a super Chou’s Ability going haywire, I have turned 17.

‘Why is this such a problem?’ you may ask, ‘Why must all of reality have made some mistake so that you have lived to be 17?’

The problem is simple. In this world, on March 23, 2025, 8:02 PM PST, Humanity gained superpowers. Salary Men on the way home from work, Students studying or on their phones, Moms telling them to get off of their phones and to go to bed, Babies still developing in some of those mothers wombs, every single human being on the planet got superpowers. All seemingly, except for me.

Born exactly on March 23, 2025, 8:03 PM PST. I did not receive super powers.

Why? Because I was Dead.

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Of course, I remember none of this, and it was all told to me by my mother when I was a wee baby at just about 4 years old. The process of my birth was to be a normal one. I was a regular sized baby in the scans and I wasn’t strangling myself with my own umbilical cord either. Not even 2 months earlier I was kicking in her womb. However, during the process of my birth something very odd happened. Humanity gained powers beyond all understanding thus far. However to do so, would mean that the bodies of the human race, had to undergo a change. And that change was instigated by MASSIVE pain. If you thought childbirth was bad, wait until you felt this. She described it to me as Her whole body rending itself to pieces, then a great soothing reformation. However, there was one problem. I was still attached to her by the umbilical cord. And for some reason, I recieved the same amount of pain that she did. For other babies, this wouldn’t be a problem, those that had their umbilical cords cut already. It was later revealed that the stages of pain felt by the reformation would scale with the size of the body, as in 2025 it had become a common practice for pregnancies and babies to be monitored with a pain sensor to more accurately judge the babies needs, and the pain ratings for moms to brag about later. However, since I was still attached to her, My pain readings showed that I felt the same if not more pain than she did that day. And that I didn’t live through it.

I was still.

However, of course. My mom wouldn’t take that now would she. Apparently, my mom had just so happened to gain the power of Great Healing.

She described her feelings to me as, relief from the pain, a single look of joy towards me, then the ultimate fear. I probably looked like shit too, considering. My eyes were open bloodshot, mouth bleeding choking on my own blood from a damaged voice box, ears bleeding from the screams of not only me but the rest of the room. I looked pretty dead, and my Mom went full panic mode. Somehow in some way, she had subconsciously used her ability, and achieved a great stunt that even gods may have been proud of. She brought me back to life.

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My eyes and mouth went back to normal, ears no longer bleeding, vitals back where they should have been. I had cried for the second time that day, born again, alive.

Later, one of the doctors had said something along the lines of “Dr. Weiss, I can’t believe it but, you have just performed the impossible!” Dr. Akari Suzume Weiss of course being my mother, was head director at the hospital, and they had a code for whenever some amazing stunt like saving someone who all hope seemed lost for in the surgery room. “You have just performed the impossible!” It was at that point that she knew, she needed to protect me from some sort of danger. She told everyone in the room that this event was to be kept a secret, and was to be changed so the events looked like a normal birth but at a different time slot, as to circumvent anyone finding out. Approx 5.5 babies are born a second around the globe in 2025, and she wasn't about to take the risk of her child being the only to survive and be standing out as a survivor of death. She changed my birth certificate to be March 23, 9:03 PM PST, Los Angeles CA.

1 year later, war would break out across the globe, and half of North America was destroyed. Including LA, which has now been rebuilt as Los Angeles del Milagro. We call it the city of Adam. Named for a brave hero who defended the city, and was able to keep it alive throughout the war. My mom would also participate in this war, as a medic, and she was known as the Miracle Doctor with her powers of healing. Though she was unable to bring back the dead again, she was able to keep many a person alive. The War would end on March 21, 2027, bringing the world together as one human race, countries all came together, with their own hero's emerging from within. The Global Association of Ability was formed as a way to safe keep the world from any war on this scale with these new abilities from happening again. Because of the war, the world entered a technology boom, and extensive research on the event now known as The Awakening, and the Abilities that humanity now had was conducted.

2 years after that, On March 23, 2029, My mother learned that I didn’t have any abilities. And she would tell me this story when I went to bed later that night.

Now it's again March 23, the year is 2042. And I am now 17.