The reality therapist looks at her watch and tells me that's all the time we have for today. I want to tell her that time is relative when you've shattered yourself across multiple universes, but that would probably just earn me another session. Besides, she wouldn't understand. No one does, except maybe the versions of me I left scattered across reality like broken mirror shards.

Let me tell you about the night I broke the multiverse.

I'm hanging upside down in a tube of pure Parallax energy, about to either save or destroy reality, and all I can think about is how this probably started with my dad's baseball cap. The one I was wearing when he died. The one that was too big and kept falling over my eyes while I accidentally turned my second-grade class into butterflies.

This is how a seven-year-old breaks reality: First, you lose your father. Then you get powers that shouldn't exist. Then some well-meaning social worker tells your mom there are "facilities" for kids like you. That's when something inside you snaps – not your mind, but reality itself.

The human consciousness isn't meant to manipulate the fundamental forces of existence. So it does what any overloaded system does – it fragments. Splits into manageable pieces. Aspects of yourself scattered across different universes like a cosmic coping mechanism.

The Ego soared away believing he could rebuild everything perfect.

The Doubt hid in shadows, knowing only destruction awaited.

The Love fled to heal other worlds, unable to face this one's pain.

The Hope – Cosmic Black – scattered to the stars, searching for answers.

And The Hate... well, Darksun had plans of his own.

I got to keep what was left. The Reality. The base consciousness that all the others split from. The kid in the too-big baseball cap who just wanted his dad back.

For years I told myself it was fine. Learned to live with fractured powers – sometimes flight, sometimes strength, sometimes nothing at all. Like trying to run a nuclear reactor with most of its core missing. The therapists called it progress. Said I was "managing my abilities."

Then Darksun started hunting down my other aspects.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Here's a fun fact about cosmic forces: they don't like being separated. When you split fundamental aspects of reality, they try to reunite. Usually violently. Now imagine those aspects are pieces of your own consciousness, and one of them decides it wants to be in charge.

I was in a bar when Cosmic Black found me. He flickered into existence next to me like a dying star, ordered a scotch, and said, "The Doubt is gone. The Ego too. He's consuming them."

I didn't have to ask who "he" was. I could feel it – the pieces of myself being absorbed, corrupted by something that wasn't just darkness, but the absence of reality itself. Shadow energy. The thing that breaks all the rules.

"How?" I asked. Even at my strongest, before the split, I couldn't create energy like that.

"That's what worries me," Cosmic said. "But I found something – a universe he hasn't reached. Heroes there. They might be our last shot."

That's how I learned about Starstruck.

The final battle happened in a quantum space between realities. Imagine every possibility happening at once – every choice, every outcome, every version of yourself all occupying the same point. Darksun had grown massive with stolen power, trailing shadow energy like corrupt starlight.

Starstruck fought beside me – heroes from another universe, lending their strength to my fractured self. But you can't fight parts of yourself forever. Can't be whole by rejecting pieces of who you are.

The reintegration felt like nuclear fusion in reverse. Ego, Doubt, Love, Hope – each aspect flowing back into a singular point. Even Darksun, my hatred and rage, had to be accepted. The energy release was catastrophic. Shadow and light energy exploded outward, washing over Earth like a tide of possibility.

When it cleared, 80,000 people had powers. The Parallax Event, they called it. A miracle or a catastrophe, depending on who you ask.

Now I spend my nights as Starkid, trying to clean up the mess I made. Most of the newly powered individuals are just scared and confused, like I was. Some become heroes. Some become villains. And some, like Maxwell Albright, try to weaponize the residual energy.

Which brings us back to this tube of pure Parallax energy I'm currently floating in.

I broke into Albright's facility because he's been manufacturing powered individuals, pumping them full of stolen energy. My abilities have been glitching more than usual – probably something to do with the concentrated power he's using. Or maybe something to do with the shapes I keep seeing moving between realities.

The same shapes people reported seeing during the Event. The things that live in the spaces between possibilities.

Because here's the truth I'm finally starting to understand: the shadow energy didn't come from Darksun. He found it, like I did, leaking through cracks in reality. Cracks I made as a child, yes, but cracks that something else has been widening.

The shadows are deepening around the tube. Reality is thin here, worn down by Albright's experiments. As the energy begins to overload, I see them clearly for the first time – the things that have been waiting. Planning. Using my fractured selves as practice for what's coming.

I could probably survive this explosion. Probably redirect the energy, contain the blast. But sometimes you have to fall into darkness to find the light.

The last thing I see before the shadows take me is my reflection in the tube's glass – a seven-year-old boy in an oversized baseball cap, watching his future self finally understand.

This isn't where reality broke. This is where it starts to heal.

END VOL. 1