There was a something off in the room. Elm lay peacefully in his bed at Bishops General Hospital, his breathing calm and orderly. It would be obvious to any outside observer that he was asleep, and he was. The problem in the room, would be that there was indeed an observer. A keen set of yellowish green eyes tracked the up and down motion of Elms rhythmic breathing. The figure moved from the open doorway closer to the bed, letting the door start on its acceleration towards its closed resting place. With a glance back at the door to get the timing right, the figure lunged toward the bed, reaching it as soon as the door slammed shut.

  Bang-

  "What's your superpower!?"

  "-BWAHHHGHGHHhh!" Elms Upper body shot straight up almost colliding with the figure leaning over him as it leaned back, away from the expected reaction. Elm Glanced around in a flurried mix of fear and confusion, before his eyes came to rest on the small brown man in a lab coat in front of him.

  "What?" then what the man said as he was quite rudely woken up finally hit a working part of his brain, "WHAT?!"

  "Ahh, So you do have a power!" The man stood straight back, crossing his arms as a smug smile sprouted on his lips.

  "Wha-, no... I DON'T!" Not great with social situations at the best of times, Elm mind spun with all the consequences if he was immediately exposed as a Gifted with no chance to build a secrete identity. "I umm, wait! Why would I have a super power?" For now, he decided to try denial.

  "Ah! That's the question you see!" The, what Elm presumed was a doctor, leaned in, " How many people do you think develop a superpower? One in a thousand? One in a million? One in a billion?"

  "Umm one in-"

  "Doesn't matter! It doesn't work like that! People don't just get powers laying on the road you know! They need a trigger! A catalyst! How many people need to die for one person to gain powers! Now that's the real question!"

  "Wait? Dying Wha-"

  "Do you know how many people died at the bank 2 days ago?"

  "Uhh, noo are you-"

  "34 people died! Now by my calculation that means there should definitely be at least one super from such a loss of life! Someone within the 26 survivors. and I've already questioned all the survivors, all of them but you!" The doctor straightened back up and mimed holding a tea cup complete with the pinkie out. Then in a fake posh British accent," Now my dear Watson. What does that mean for you?"

  Seeing the smug look on the doctors face Elm squinted his eyes," Are you serious? It means there was no super."

  "What? But. No! You have to be a super!" with expressions similar to a child realizing someone had just taken their candy away, the doctor lunged forward, grabbing the bed frame, and putting his face directly in front of Elms.

  Leaning back with mock disgust, "Ugh, what was your name again?"

  "Oh how rude of me" the doctor put out his right hand for a shake, after wiping some the sweat off on his lab coat," My name is Dr. Amin Toumen, pleasure to make your acquaintance Mr. Analcime"

  Now with a slightly less put on expression of disgust, Elm leaned back away from the offered hand and looked Dr. Toumen in the eyes," Well then Dr. I hope you don't mind when I ask your superiors about this... Interaction."

  "Oh aah, that... shouldn't be necessary, how about we just forget about the whole thing! Haha." Dr. Toumen obviously paled as his slowly backed up towards the door. "Yeah, no hard feelings, just a, ah, joke between men." as he finished his last words he had just reached the door. Quickly turning around opening the door then sprinting down the hallway as his white hospital shoes sleeked loudly at each of his panicked steps. Then finally the door closed cutting off the squeak of the retreating doctor, and letting Elm breathe a sigh of relief. He doubted the quack of a Doctor would give up, but hopefully he could have a better lie made up before he came back with more questions.

  Though this experience definitely made Elm reconsider the whole hero thing. If he were to do it, it would be putting not only him at risk, but also anyone he cared about, admittedly it was a short list, really only containing his father. But he had already put far too much trouble on his dad, and with this new power he may finally start to pay him back, hopefully in more ways than just monetarily.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

...

  After Calming down a bit, and calling for some food. Elm Transferred back to his Calcium alter ego, just to make sure it wasn't just some weird dream, It wasn't. After quickly transferring back to his body, then simply sitting back, content to just wait for his food to arrive. Which it did. Surprisingly quickly as well. One check to his phone revealed why, as it was just after lunchtime, so he obviously wouldn't have to wait for anything to be reheated.

  Ignoring the cleaning bot as it left the room Elm looked down at his glorious meal, a cheese burger and fries, with the smallest bottle of soft drink he'd ever seen. Barely containing his hunger Elm pounced upon the meal, quickly discovering the burger was just more disguised tofu, but his ravenous body certainly didn't care. This felt for him, like the most satisfying meal he'd had in months. Elm wasn't sure if it was his new power making him so hungry or just his body wanting materials to heal with, he couldn't tell. One thing Elm was sure of, is that he definitely needed to figure out how to make tofu burgers.

  After half a blissful hour wait for the slightly bloated but highly satisfied feeling to pass, Elm found himself where most people confined to a bed for any amount of time reach, he was bored. Luckily he had the perfect way to pass the time. Feeling to the back of his mind with his new-found mental clarity, he'd come to realize that was something likely influenced by his new power, he mentally pushed at the one, now slightly clearer connection that he found there. The now known, but still not comfortable, travel along the connecting line at a speed that must be what a bullet feels like. Elms vision is dyed in light then dark, as the rooms hallways and walls, make themselves known without any actual helpful information being passed to his brain. Then he was back in his new skeletal form. Already Elm head was cooking up ideas about the new super hero, Captain Skeleton!, trade marked. Running around town saving old women from muggers and pulling puppies out of fires. Though he'd probably have to work on that name. Skeleton was far too villainy sounding. Wouldn't want people getting the wrong idea.

  Though now that he put a bit more thought into it. Wouldn't a skeleton super hero be a pretty hard sell? He couldn't imagine having someone not run away in fear if he popped out of an alley at night to return their stolen property. Hmm, maybe another problem for later, preferably after he'd figured out all the things he could actually do with this body.

  Looking down through his undead body, Elm could see into the inside of the rib cage using the blue flickering lights in his eye sockets to light up the cavity. First he would need to know the physical capabilities of this alter ego. Lifting his right hand, he first tried turning it at the wrist. Something not normally possible, as technically the two bones connecting it to the elbow are what twist. That is also what happened here, however when the two bones touched each other, when a wrist would normally be unable to rotate anymore, the hand itself seemed to disconnect and continue rotating independently. A little shocked and morbidly curious of the possibilities, Elm tried spinning it faster, and faster, eventually finding the limit at a speed similar to that of a cheap, slightly low battery, cordless drill. Quite impressive considering it seemed to have much more torque, as he wasn't able to slow it with his other hand. After relaxing the imaginary arm muscles, the spinning hand came to a stop and forearm bones snugly swung back into their natural position.

  Thinking what else he could test, Elm remembered seeing the skeleton collapsing just before he blacked out at the bank. Deciding he should try recreating that first, a pile of bones is less conspicuous than a walking skeleton after all. So first he tried willing the right arm to fall to pieces, and to his surprise, it did. With an almost worryingly little amount of effort, the arm fell apart like a toppled Jenna tower bouncing pieces all over whatever metal tray he was laying on. Worried for a second he tried to will the arm back together, unlike making it fall apart however, pulling the pieces together took a lot more effort, more effort than anything else related to his powers so far. Well except whatever he did with that womans skeleton, but he really didn't want to try that one out again anytime soon. Though it took almost a full minute of concentration as the bones floated up one by one, reconnecting with the arm stump. Until finally the last digit, the pinkie finger, was completed. 'FUUOOAAhhh' releasing a mental breath, Elm let his bones rest back against the hard metal as he let his thinking muscles recover.

  Well he could now confirm there was definitely some cost to his power. Some actions seemed to stain him much more then others. As he relaxed back, just staring up at his blurry blue skeletal reflection, he wondered if he was able to effect the amount of light he emitted. Stealth operations would be very difficult if he was always a walking lighthouse. Testing his mental muscles by moving it between all the available connections, finding it mostly recovered, Elm stared up at the reflected skeleton and willed, 'dim'. As he did, the reflected skeleton faded until all that was visible was the barely still lit eye sockets. 'Well that was easy' He thought. However upon trying to move his arms he found that, though he couldn't see them move, they felt slower, as though he was moving them through water. 'So not really a perfect solution'

  After trying and failing to go darker than dim eyes mode, or brighter than his default, Elm returned to his normal glow and decided that was enough playing with lights. Now it was time to test the real important part for a super hero, strength! Reeling back his slender right arm, well as much as he could anyway, though it would still be basically been a zero distance punch. He let fly his fist, putting as much force behind it as he could, the bone met the thin metal ceiling.

  ClOOOONGG-

  The sound echoed even outside Elms box as he himself admired the massive dent and small knuckle imprints on the once smooth metal. 'Probably just a bit stronger than a very well-trained normal human' He mused.

  "HEY WHO'S IN HERE!"

  Elms currently none existent heart leapt out of his chest as he heard that familiar voice, 'OH SHIT!' Up until he felt the metal wall near his feet shift, as whoever he'd just alerted opened the freezer box door.