A whole day of headache and nausea can make anyone cranky. I was but a wee bit boy of eighteen summers, where did I have the wisdom to control my emotions?

By the time I got home, my brain was boiling and I was running short on patience. When patience goes down, tempers go up. Which perhaps, made my Ma think I was being stubborn.

“Why are you wearing sunglasses in the house?”

“He wants to be a hero,” Abhey said.

Do all the bullies have the same mental demons living in their minds? I couldn’t say, but he reminded me of my jolly class fellows. I bet they would have liked him too.

“You want to be an actor?” My ma said throwing the apron on the side. “I have one role available. You play it. The movie is called Maid and you are the main character. In the first scene, you pick up the apron, wear it down, then go to the kitchen and wash the dishes. How does that sound to you?”

“Oh, that’s a good one, ma.” The son and mother pair had a laughing fit. The cacophony of which made my ears buzz and my head ring. Or was supposed to be head buzz and ears ring? I couldn’t make which one was which over the headache.

I had enough of their antics. “I can’t,” I told my mother and threw my school bag on the sofa. Then I sat down on the sofa with my head in my hands. I had a headache, a brutal pulsating migraine that was making me weak in my knees and I told her the same.

She didn’t believe me.

“You won’t do the dishes?” Ma said in a grave tone that pierced my brain like a nail in my ear.

“I won’t,” I said in stubbornness. I was cranky and my temper was rising. But I forgot that my mother had no problem picking up the stick if push comes to shove.

We glared at each other. I saw in great detail the image of my mother’s face turning red and yellow. I closed my eyes when the nausea permeated, but the image was already printed in my head and it kept playing over and over again like a flip book. The quality of my photo retention was still not good enough to create a seamless video, but my brain had no problem playing a choppy 10 fps clip of just her face in all of its brutal glory.

It was the last feather that fell before the dam broke. I heaved and retched. Something warm rose from my stomach and came spurting out of my mouth. I got on my knees right there by the sofa and turned into a clogged-up fountain turning on after years of negligence. I sounded like I was trying to vomit my guts out. There were gasps and screams around me. I presumed I had vomited on my mother or my brother. I was sorry if it was the former and thought it was deserving if it was the latter.

Thankfully, I didn’t lose consciousness. Otherwise, I would have fallen on my vomit too and Abhey would have had another priceless picture of me covered in grim to torture me with. Not like he didn’t record my episode. I was sure he probably did.

“What happened? Are you ill? Get up, don’t fall in that. Sit on the sofa. Do you need water?” My mother said like a broken record. She does this whenever she panics. She was tough but tended to crumble under pressure. Like today, once she realized I was actually sick, her behavior did a 180, and then it was Abhey’s turn to get shoved around.

“Abhey bring a glass of water.”

“But Ma,”

“Abhey,” She didn’t tell him twice and he was on his feet going toward the kitchen. I could hear him muttering something on the way. He was out of earshot and I couldn’t hear him clearly, but I knew from experience there was nothing good coming out of his damned mouth.

“Was it something you ate? Or took?”

“I don’t do drugs, ma!” I shouted and then groaned. I really needed to limit or block this photographic memory because this was not cutting it.

“I didn’t say anything.” My ma whispered. It felt like a silent complaint.

“I’m not a junkie ma.” I cried out. I wanted to be alone. I stood up, trying to get away from her.

“But,” She grabbed my sleeve.

“Don’t say anything.” I freed myself from her hand and stumbled toward my brother. I took the glass of water from his hand and walked to the sink to gargle the taste of stomach acid out of my mouth. I drank the rest of the water, left the glass on the sink, and walked away from them.

“Where are you going?” My ma asked behind me.

“To my room,” I said, and this time, she didn’t try to stop me.

I got to my room using the walls for directions. I didn’t dare open my eyes and let the superpower bombard me with more information. I closed the door behind me; and fell on my bed and dove under the blanket, to hide from the world. It worked somewhat. The darkness helped, but my room wasn’t completely silent. I could hear my mother talking to Abhey in the distance. Their voice echoed in the house. They weren’t obnoxiously loud. Their voice was a droning sound that you hear when the sound is coming from a distant source. It was enough of a distraction to pull me out of sleep. Forcing my brain to wonder, think, and worry about their conversation.

It wasn’t long before the door opened and the heavy footsteps of my mother stopped by my bedside.

“Get up. Take the medicine. You’ll feel better.” I heard from under the blanket.

Taking a deep breath I asked, “What is it?”

“Something to settle your stomach,”

“I don’t need it.” I wasn’t lying. I didn’t vomit because I had the flu or something. “It’s just my head is a bit muddled.”

“I’ll get you a Saridon tablet. Get up and take this one first.” Her voice was full of concern and pleading.

I waited, not because I wanted to see if she’d go away. I just needed time to settle my thoughts a little. Then I got up and got the steel glass of water from her hand. It was cold and heavy, like our relationship.

I picked the classic green tablet from her other hand and then closed my eyes. I didn’t want too much stimulation. I just wanted to go back under the quiet of my blanket.

“Do you have a fever?” She touched my head and whispered in worry. “You are so hot. Do you want to go to the doctor?”

“No,” I jerked my head away from her hand in a hurry as if a second more and she’d figure out the lie. “Just let me get some rest,” I said in some panic. “I would love a saridon though.”

I didn’t hear her leave and I wasn’t planning to open my eyes to see.

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“Are you going to watch me take the medicine?”

“Yes,”

“That’s so very nice of you.” I took the tablet, drank half the glass of water, and kept the rest so I could take the other one too.

She nodded –I know because she made this hmm sound that she makes when she’s nodding sometimes-- and left the room for a while before returning with the coin-sized Saridon tablet and a Paracetamol. That was a lot of over-the-counter drugs taken in a short period. Even junkies aren’t that stupid. I guess being muddleheaded made me more courageous than them.

I pushed the thought away. Took the medicine and fell back onto my bed and under the blanket. Away from light and noise.

“Close the door on your way out,” My heart beat rose after saying that. Reprimanded many times for doing the same without permission, I felt like I had stolen a small win from my ma when I heard the door close.

My mind was thinking about too many things and I couldn’t sleep. So I spent most of the time wondering about the system. Why I had received it and what I should do with it.

I asked the system if it was there, it remained unresponsive as if it didn’t exist. I wouldn’t even know it existed if it wasn’t for the reminder, the headache. Most people look to God for answers when something bad happens to them. I was no different. I was just paranoid enough to question the occurrence of everything whether good or bad. And I didn’t question God, I questioned myself.

The system was the right amount of good and bad for me to freak out over. I had seen both good and bad and knew it was not a normal thing to get chosen by the system.

I wasn’t perfect, but I knew my shortcomings. Even though I was harassed in my younger years, a few people stood up for me and helped me out during bad times. I understood that good and bad coexist in this world. I appreciated the good more because of all the bad that had happened to me. But who was to say I wouldn’t use the power to eliminate the bad all together? After all, power changes people.

For now, I had no plans of world domination. I simply wanted that power to limit all powers and then I planned to improve my endurance so my body could store more energy. To store more energy faster, I needed faster absorption of food and nutrients. Our body takes 3-6 hours to digest the food, which was not enough for me. I was also looking for an alternate source of energy. Sunlight was one. I was worried the superpower would turn my skin green like Piccolo. Though, I could always disguise myself to look human. However, I didn’t know if disguise would work since it wouldn’t let me turn my skin green like Hulk.

I also wanted to find a way to level up the powers because I wasn’t getting better at them with use.

It was hard to lay on the bed unable to sleep. Twisting and turning on the bed, wondering. Before long it was evening. I knew because my dad came back from work. I heard him talking to my mother through the walls and then he came over to ask about my health. He wanted to take me to a doctor. I told him I was fine. I just needed rest. At night, my mother made me a special sick people’s meal, rice porridge. It made me laugh out crying. Here, I was hoping to juice up on the calories so I could study later when I put a limiter on photographic memory. There, my mother was feeding me low low-calorie, high-protein meal that was easier on the stomach. Her intentions were good, but this meal wasn’t gonna cut it.

I fought with my ma over it, but it was to no avail.

“I’m telling you I’m fine,” I told her. “I can eat! Let me eat real food.”

“Perhaps you should open your eyes before you say that. Otherwise, I won’t believe you.” She blocked all my roads of escape and I could only do as was told.

I left my brother snickering at the dinner table, picked up my bowl of porridge, and went back to my room. I didn’t forget to abuse my short-found privilege by closing the door before sighing and going to bed. I didn’t dare slam the door. I didn’t want to overdo it.

The porridge was not bad. It wasn’t tasteless. It just wasn’t flavorful. My ma has a knack for bringing out the natural flavor of the pulses and vegetables. My Dad’s also cooked for us sometimes at night but he couldn’t do that. They aren’t even in the same realm in terms of cooking. Maybe I’d learn how to cook in time and surprise them all… and perhaps then I wouldn’t have to eat porridge when I get sick. Until then, I had to make do with this. I sighed and slowly ate spoonfuls of the porridge until the bowl was as empty as my heart.

Soon it was midnight. I’m joking. It took its sweet ass time to arrive. I got so bored of waiting I almost wanted to get up and play a PC game or something. Sadly, I couldn’t. I didn’t want to puke my guts out. I get motion sickness from playing video games. Not all of them, but when the setting gets dark and repetitive, my mind starts spinning and I start feeling sick. Sometimes it takes an hour, sometimes just a few minutes.

[The Daily superpower system has heard your wish!]

[Limiter is a power that can allow you to limit your senses and abilities. The number of senses and abilities that can be limited depends entirely upon the skill level. So don’t forget to improve the levels of your superpowers. The powers hide various surprises that will only unlock if your skill level reaches the optimal level.]

[Task level: F]

[Limit all of your senses for a moment.]

[Would you like to accept the task to acquire the ability? Yes/No]

“What kind of a description is that? Are you calling me lazy? Brother if I knew how to improve my powers I would have already. At least give me a clue! Don’t act all mysterious like God.”

The system didn’t respond to my query/complaint. It only burned brighter as if telling me to stop wasting time and choose. I chose yes. Of course! This time the task level was even lower than the previous ones. I thought the task levels would increase as my number of powers increased. I guess… not.

The task seemed easy, but completing it seemed troublesome. Was it even humanly possible to limit all of your senses? I guessed if I could take a cold bath then perhaps. Still, taking a bath in the middle of the night didn’t seem appropriate. It was possible our neighbors would think someone in our family was doing black magic. That stigma was hard to erase once given.

It was also still the month of October; the tap water was still lukewarm. I would need ice, lots of it. Or just enough to numb my skin for a moment. Well whatever it takes, I’d have to wait till morning to try it. Or my mother would skin me alive. I also wondered if I should just receive the tasks in the morning. There was no point in wasting sleep hours when I couldn’t even complete them in the night.

Sighing, I stopped thinking about it. With the system unresponsive, sleep came quickly this time. I didn’t even have time to worry about what I would do if the cold shower didn’t work.

Before I knew it, the alarm was ringing. I woke up to a surprise. The task was automatically completed overnight.

“The answer was sleep?” I couldn’t believe it. “No wonder it was an F-level task.”