Chapter 39: Training (4)
August 12, 12040
Darren opened his eyes with a start, looking around the unfamiliar environment.
Oh, right. He was at the athletics lab.
Sweat dripped between his creased brows. His heavy breath caught in the back of his throat as he struggled to breathe. His throat was dry and hoarse as he coughed.
Darren gripped the bedsheet as he remained on his back, looking up at the ceiling. He could see the micro-grooves on the ceiling and the white paint that was slowly flaking off. He shook his head as he placed his hands on his temple. He must have activated his super-sight again.
When Darren sat up, his head struck the ceiling. "Ow," he whined. He shook his head as he sat up. He looked down to see the floor and his bed, empty with about three meters of space between him and the mattress. He was floating - sleep-floating. His ability to fly must have activated when he was asleep.
As he was distracted, he fell from his position. "Whoa." He bounced slightly on the mattress when he hit the bed.
Oh, thank goodness for the bed. He was not thankful because he was afraid of being hurt from the fall. He was worried that he would fall straight through the floor.
Alesia was doing him a favor. Darren did not want to destroy her home.
'Like I destroyed everything else.' The thought disappeared as soon as it came as Darren shook his head.
"Aida, what time is it?" he asked.
"It is currently 5:48, which is just under one hour before sunrise," said the virtual assistant. "Is there anything else I can do for you?"
"No. That's all, thanks."
Darren remained on the bed for a while, but he did not try to go back to sleep. He did not want to go back to sleep. The night had been filled with nightmares, and every time he closed his eyes, his fears would manifest in his dreams. And his most recent nightmare was the worst of them.
Darren sat in front of the glass windows, his feet curled beneath him as he trained his eyes on the mountains. Although he was afraid of his powers, he preferred the sound of the shrubbery that covered the hills over the silence of his white-walled room.
As Darren calmed down, and his heartbeat slowed. He sat up straight in a lotus position with his hands on knees. Tora always told him that meditation could help him relax whenever he felt anxious. He heard many things about meditating on scripture whenever he went to church. He tried it before but found himself getting distracted. Although he used the breathing techniques to help curb his panic attacks, he found it challenging to sit down and think about breathing.
It had been a long time since he tried it. Darren decided to try meditation again.
Darren sat, inhaling deeply, then exhaling, focusing solely on his breathing. He watched his hands and made sure to loosen the muscles in his feet. With his back straight and his eyes at half-mast, he watched his chest rise and fall with each breath.
As Darren meditated, he went back to his dream. He saw the orbs of light. He saw the explosions and the children die, then he saw the world reduced to nothing. He continued to focus, keeping his breathing steady. He moved on from the vision.
His mind settled on a Bible verse from 1 Corinthians 10, verse 13.
Darren opened his eyes as he repeated, "No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation, he will also provide a way of escape, that you may be able to endure it." His mind continued to move from the verse.
Darren remembered what Tora told him: "Only by overcoming the things we fear can become stronger."
He moved past Tora to another figure. Darren looked at his younger self in his mind, who looked at him. His younger self smiled and nodded with satisfaction. "If we don't experience good and bad things, then how will we know when something good happens or when something bad happens. We have to accept the bad with the good, or life won't be worth living."
It was something he said to Tora when they were in their teens. Several years passed, but Tora still cried over her father at night. She missed her brother also.
Darren wanted to help her mitigate her sorrow. He said those words to her before telling her not to give up on seeing her father. They could never know what the future might bring. Her father could appear before her at any moment, just as he wished his father would appear before him.
His younger self told Tora, "When my mom died, I was really sad, but I was happy because my dad was still with me. A man risked his life to save us and inspired me to want to be a superhero. When my dad left, I was also sad and angry because he abandoned me. Then, I met you, and I was really happy because I made a new friend, and I wasn't alone anymore."
Darren took one more deep breath before opening his eyes fully, just as the sun was peeking its crown over the mountains. Darren stood up in front of the window with arms wide open, letting his skin bathed in the early morning sun.
His body shimmered through all the colors of the rainbow, red to violet. He felt the movement of the sun's energy seeping through his skin and into his blood. It went into every cell in his body, energizing him.
Darren brought his arms down and clenched his fists. "Everything is going to be okay," he reassured himself.
After a nice long shower, Darren dressed in the EXosuit and strapped on the watch. The day is gym day; it was the day to gauge his strength, speed, and other physical abilities.
The EXosuit and the smartwatch would keep track of his vitals while he exercised to make sure everything stayed in a healthy range. If anything unusual happened with his heart, temperature, or breathing, they could stop the experiment so he would not get hurt.
The Titan Athletics Laboratory was a fitting name for the facility, Darren thought as he entered the part of the building dubbed the Fitness Laboratory.
There were doors and hallways on the side that were marked as Basketball court, swimming pool, dance studio, and even a batting cage? Why? Darren wondered as his eyes glanced around him.
The walls were high, probably around ten meters, with a blue and yellow color scheme. The walls were painted blue, while the words on the wall were painted yellow. "Strength, endurance, training, discipline, hard work," Darren read off the walls.
Each term was associated with an image that correlated with the concept. Above the words were some tinted glass windows that he could not see through.
All the latest equipment ran parallel to the mirrors of the elongated room.
They entered through the part of the room where small objects lined the walls and racks. Balls, jump ropes, yoga mats, hoops, and multiple smaller exercising equipment greeted them at the entrance.
Next were the machines: stair climbers, bikes, ellipticals, and treadmills were abundant. They made their way to the last section of the room: the weights. Hundreds of dumbbells and tens of barbells organized in a V formation that led to a great machine at the end of the room.
The machine reached high up to the ceiling as if the room was made around it. It was a pulley weight stack, with a monitor where it seems they could input how much weight they wanted to be lifted off the stack. The chain that dropped into the loads was marked 200 kilograms. The weights of the floor went from the lightest at 500 kilograms to a ten-tonne slab of metal.
"Whoa!" he said. "This place just keeps getting more awesome."
"I'm glad you like it."
Darren and the company heard the voice boom in the room, but they had no idea where it came from. As Tora, Miriam, Nathan, and Matt were already in the gym, and the voice was not Aida, Darren concluded that someone else was in the building. As he searched for the origin of the sound, a part of the wall rose up.
A set of feet walked down the sets of stairs, with her face still remaining in the shadows. As she walked down the stairs, more of her body came into view from her black and white high sole shoes to her tight black and white EXosuit.
Darren's eyes were wide as he finally saw the face of the young genius, heiress of the century: Alesia Wang-Haines.
"But you haven't seen anything yet," she said with an arrogant smile as an orange twinkle appeared in her eyes. Standing like she owned the place, which she did, she placed her hand on her hips as she said, "Hello everyone. It's nice to finally meet you face to face."
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone