My kingdom fell as my trunk grew,

my people died as my flowers bloomed,

my body disappeared as my mind

expanded.

The subway had changed quite a bit from the last time Ludwig saw it. Of course, the fact that it was a different city was at play there. But there also were small changes he suspected had come with the pass of time.

For example, the red colored tiles that worked as generators. They had existed since quite a while, but he personally hadn’t seen them. From what he remembered of an article, the tiles turned the kinetic energy generated by the pedestrians footsteps to power up the light and electrical signs in the structure and the local vicinity. Although, he didn’t know they made a sound whenever someone stepped on them.

There also was some kind of metal railing that prevented people from falling on the train tracks, which also descended and went even more underground just as the train stopped at the station. There were more security measures overall.

Although some things seemed to have stayed the same. There was a considerable amount of garbage and filth in various parts of the train.

Both Ludwig and Laura exited the subway station. The trip had only been twenty-something minutes.

They entered a different area.

It wasn’t Expansion Valley. It was obvious. But at the same time, it looked like it.

The structures were similar. They lack some of the buildings with incredible heights, and the colors were darker and dirtier, but the resemblance was there. They would have been pretty much identical if it weren’t for the holes in the ground that looked like drain canals.

They were far larger than they were wide. Nevertheless, they were quite wide.

Ludwig was able to see four from where he was standing. His gaze ran across one of them. When his eyes arrived at the end, he was able to distinguish a difference in altitude.

They descended. The difference wasn’t big. But due to the fact that the drain canals covered a good chunk of ground, there was a considerable height gap between the end and the beginning.

The people felt similar too. They were also alike. But something was off.

They were fairly average people. But, apart from the fact that there were less people in the streets than in Expansion Valley, they had a different aura. Even the kids and teens.

They looked more seasoned. Less innocent.

They didn’t look sad or depressed in any way. They just simply… Looked.

The weather was different as well. There couldn’t be that much of a distance between the area and Expansion Valley. Yet the air was way damper in this area.

“Where are we?” Ludwig asked as they began to walk.

“We’re in Wet Wood,” Laura answered. “Well, technically that’s not its name. But that’s what everyone calls this area.”

“Why Wet Wood?”

“I think the name comes from its very beginning,” Laura said while looking up to the sky and with a hand to her chin. “It had to do something with wood, that I know for sure. But I don’t know if it was due to some bridge or the wooden beams used in construction.”

“Whatever,” she finally said. ”Have you noticed that the moisture here is way heavier?”

“Yes, I have.”

“Long story short, during its first days, the area reeked with the smell of wet wood. It’s not like that anymore. But the memory still remains.”

“Ok. But, we’re not that far from Expansion Valley. How is the humidity so different?”

“That to this day still is an unanswered question. Some people think potens have to do something with it…” Laura said while shaking her head.

Ludwig felt a slight anger coming from Laura.

“...But most people don’t know what they’re talking about. Yet they still talk.”

That made Ludwig somehow feel relieved.

He didn’t know how to feel about the fact that her sister would get anxious when talking about superheroes. Now that he was one.

Would she fear him? Although, technically, he was a potens. Not a superhero. There was a big difference there. And she just seemed to get angry at the fact that people accused potens with no apparent reason. Maybe that meant she wasn’t scared about potens. Just heroes.

Or maybe Ludwig had misinterpreted her feelings toward heroes all along. Laura might just be a fan. But if she were, why would she feel nervous when talking about superheroes? That didn’t make much sense.

Was he missing something? Maybe this ‘feeling’ was wrong. It could just be him imagining it. After all, she only felt it with Laura. If it was a power, wouldn’t it activate with everyone else? Was there a conditi-

“Here you go,” Laura said while handing him a smartphone.

Ludwig looked at her.

“Hm?”

“I’m gonna visit a friend that lives nearby. I already put my number on it. So call me if something happens.”

Ludwig looked around and saw the highschool building.

“Do I wait here when I’m done or do I go to the subway entrance?” He said.

“Don’t worry. I’ll be here when you’re done.”

She then gestured again at the phone.

Ludwig grabbed the phone and inspected it a little.

“It’s a bit old. But it still works.”

The phone was a smart flip phone.

He was getting a bit tired that all the new and modern technology from when he was seventeen was now old and obsolete.

Maybe that’s how old people felt.

Ludwig said goodbye to Laura and headed to the highschool.

The building was fairly average overall. The only distinct feature on its exterior that he saw was the bronze statue of a superhero in costume next to the entrance.

He had already seen the figure before. It was Gravity. The hero that caused the most anxiety to her sister.

He would find out why she felt like that when talking about heroes. But not right now.

Ludwig went through the entrance.

The halls were empty. They had white floors and blue lockers at the sides of a path which felt wide due to the lack of students. Afterall, it was already five in the afternoon.

The students were probably at their homes. Integrating some functions or memorizing the cell structure for the fifth time. Maybe at the local library researching for a History assignment, and while they’re at it, grab a book or two to read on the weekend.

Or maybe they were just ‘hanging out’ somewhere.

Ludwig didn’t know much about the latter one.

He was about to go up the stairs when he saw what he supposed was a teacher. He approached him.

“Excuse me. Do you know where Profesor Collman is?”

He turned around.

The man had brown skin and was clearly in his sixties. He had a beard similar to Ludwig’s, but the man’s was far messier. He wore a gray tracksuit and a red cap that said “GO! TIGERS, GO!”. It looked like he was the PE teacher.

“Who?” He answered with a deep and raspy voice.

“Professor Nelson Collman. Someone told me he worked here.”

“Ah! You mean Mr C. Yeah, he’s on the basketball court,” he said while pointing at a pair of red doors behind him.

“Thank you.”

“Whatever,” the man said while entering a joint room.

Ludwig marched to the pair of red doors.

As he approached the court, Ludwig was able to hear a ball bouncing in the distance. It had a consistent and slow rhythm. Similar to how water drops fell from a leak. It grew faster and more erratic for a while, then fell on the slower and more consistent pattern again.

The difference in tempo made Ludwig realize that he was walking at the same time that the ball bounced. He tried to correct it, but wasn’t able. He could only move his feet when the ball hit the ground.

The sound stopped, and so did Ludwig.

He then tried to move. He began walking at his own pace. Ludwig stopped to scratch his head. Had that been just a coincidence? Did he not get enough sleep? Maybe the assault at gunpoint had affected him more than he had thought.

The pair of red doors opened.

A tall teen with brown skin and short black hair came through.

“Hope you enjoy your meal, Mr C.”

“I’ll get you next time! Just you wait.”

“If you say so.”

The teen passed next to Ludwig.

His face was cold. Without expression. His walk was confident and consistent. Ludwig looked at him just as he walked out of the highschool.

It seemed appearances could really be deceiving.

Ludwig was ‘feeling’ a lot of happiness coming from the teeenager.

Okay, so he could ‘feel’ other people’s emotions in addition to Laura’s. That didn’t mean that what he was feeling was true. But at least it was a start.

He passed through the open doors.

Ludwig saw a man with gray hair and long sideburns. He also noticed some traces of a gray beard on his chin.

The man was handsome despite his longer than usual nose and the tilted scar on his right cheek. He had broad shoulders. Followed by long arms, a wide core and legs. He had been working out. His height remained practically the same.

There he was, biting a lemon with its skin, Professor Nelson Collman.

“God! So sour,” he said, sticking his tongue out. “Why did I say lemon?”

He then began packing some clothes inside a bag that was above the steps.

Ludwig stood silent for a moment.

“Mm, Professor Collman?” Ludwig finally said.

“Professor?” He said. Still packing his things inside the bag. “It’s been a while since I heard that name.”

He then turned around, went back to his bag, and turned once more in surprise.

“Alexand-?” He interrupted himself. “I’m sorry,” he said while shaking his head. “I confused you for someone else. What did you want?”

“Did you perhaps confuse me with Alexander Lock?”

Professor Collman stopped packing. He slowly turned around.

“How did you know?” He said with a careful tone.

“Well, I’m Ludwig,” Ludwig said while shrugging his shoulders.

“Quit talking!” Professor Collman scowled. “I don’t know how you know who I was thinking about, or how you know about Ludwig, or how you even resemble him a little. But it isn’t funny!” He said while thrusting a finger to Ludwig’s chest. “Both those names… They belong to long gone people. You better go before I kick your ass, until I throw you out of this institution!”

Wow. That wasn’t the reaction he had expected. Although, the fact that someone who has been in a coma for fifteen years comes and says hello out of nowhere could be somewhat hard to believe. Still, that he resembled Ludwig just a little. Maybe it was the beard.

Fortunately, Ludwig had been reliving some memories about him and Professor Collman on his way here.

“We didn’t get to talk about The Old Fashioned Knight,” Ludwig said with his hands in the air. “Although I still prefer The Black Wolf.”

Professor Collman’s finger began to shake. His lower lip began to quiver.

He tackled Ludwig.

Both him and Professor Collman fell to the ground.

Had that been not enough?!

“Please! Calm down! I think you might have misint-”

Ludwig heard him sniffing.

He laid his head on the floor in relief after a moment's worth of contemplating. Ludwig then began to pat his back to ease his breathing.

“Took you long enough, bastard,” he said between sobs.

“So… Kept you waiting, huh?” Ludwig said with an overly deep voice.

“Fuck off!”

“Ok.”

They stayed like that for two minutes. During that time, Ludwig was able to feel Professor Collman’s chest swelling up with air as he breathed.

Professor Collman then got up and extended a hand to Ludwig.

“Sorry for the tackle.”

Ludwig grabbed his hand and propped himself up.

“Nah, don’t worry. I was held at gunpoint today. This is nothing.”

“I would like to believe you were just joking. But I’ve been living here for a while now,” he said while wiping his tears away.

“Is it really that bad?”

“Regular Thursday. Although, here in Cintia that happens less.”

There was a pause.

“I’m really glad you woke up.”

Ludwig tapped his shoulder.

“Me too. So, what have you been up to?”

Ludwig and Professor Collman moved to Collman’s classroom and began talking about the things he had been doing for the past fifteen years. For the majority of the years, he had continued to teach in his old highschool in Miami. But then came the Land Wars. Ludwig asked him about it.

Professor Collman told him that ten years ago, a group of potens tried to fracture the entirety of Florida to reshape it to their will using terrakinetics, potens capable of controlling the earth with their minds. It had been the second biggest potens related event in recent history. Over twenty thousand potens participated in the terrorist events.

Fortunately, the government reacted as soon as Pangea, the name of the terrorist group, made an apparence. Accompanied by an early Ataki and their best superhero teams, they confronted Pangea in what turned out to be two months of conflict between potens and the US army. In the end, the military forces and Ataki won, but not without collateral damage.

More than five hundred thousand people died in the event. Heroes, terrorists, civilians, soldiers, potens who refused to aid the terrorist in their mission. And the partial fracture of Florida.

Ludwig didn’t know what he was referring to when talking about ‘fracture’. Professor Collman showed Ludwig a current and updated map of the state. An erratic line that went up and down from Miami to Marco Island was now the coast of the mainland. The rest had been divided into four bodies of land, separated by the sea.

Expansion Valley was in the leftmost body.

Ludwig was left speechless by the image.

How many terrakinetics were there? How could only twenty thousand people do this?

Ludwig asked Professor Collman and he in turn gave him some curious facts about potens. The Kinetic category was the most common for a potens. After the Land Wards, twenty percent of the potens population in the world were kinetics. Being pyrokinetics the most frequent of all, and terrakinetics the rarest among them. So rare, in fact, that apparently, there were less than a hundred terrakinetics in the whole world. Not many had survived the incident.

Also, Professor Collman gave Ludwig the approximate number of potens in the world.

Seven hundred thousand people in the world were potens. One in every ten thousand people.

He had expected it to be even rarer.

Professor Collman dunked more facts about potens in Ludwig’s head.

After the exposition dump, he apologized. The Potens History teacher had just been a father and Professor Collman had been elected as his substitute.

He then told him about how he moved to another city deeper in the mainland, began working for a company as a mathematician, his visit to Germany, France…

And then the death of Ludwig’s father.

Alexander’s death had caught Professor Collman way too much by surprise. He told Ludwig that it had caused him severe depression. Loneliness. The death of his best friend. Someone who was even closer than a brother. Had left him broken.

Then Laura came. She had called him and asked him to teach at a highschool in Wet Wood-Cintia. She had told him that it could serve as a distraction. Help him.

And he had accepted.

Apparently, no one liked him when he first arrived. His students wouldn’t even listen to a word that came through his mouth. His fellow teachers would alienate him since he was an outsider. For six months, he felt as a stranger in the environment he knew the most.

But one day, Professor Collman noticed that the majority of the students basically played on the basketball court every day. So, one day, he went to one of the better players and challenged her to a one versus one. If Professor Collman won, she would have to do her homework, else, the student would get paid fifty bucks.

No one believed he would even score one point. But, according to him, he played basketball in college, so there hadn’t been anything to worry about.

He won. He then challenged another student. He won again. And again, and again, and again…

He only lost three matches out of sixty.

At the end of the month, he had every student in his class analyzing functions.

Ludwig was surprised at the fact that the students kept their part of the deal. Professor Collman then explained to him that, out there, in Cintia, respect and your word were one of the most valuable things.

Money was still far more valuable. But they were close.

Only one student had been able to beat him every time. Jacob, the teen that just got out of school when Ludwig arrived.

What was curious about him was that he didn’t want any money. That’s why, instead, he made Professor Collman eat a lemon, not shower for a week, be his chofer and other sort of punishments. The rest treated him with respect and called them Mr C instead of Professor Collman. That seemed to be the turning point for his fellow teachers.

Collman didn’t tell him anymore since he had to leave for an appointment. But before leaving, he gave Ludwig his phone number and asked to call him some day of the week. They said their goodbyes and marched in different ways.

Ludwig left the building and arrived at the entrance. He looked around but didn’t see Laura nearby.

He decided to wander around. See some ground to make time.

Ludwig walked next to one of the rectangle-like drain canals. His left hand just passed above the metal railing, which was stained with some dirt and corrosion.

He was meditating while exploring the two-named city.

He now knew he was able to feel other people’s emotions. It didn’t work with everyone, so maybe it had some condition. The problem was that he didn’t know what it was. He really would need to experiment with it, huh?

That reminded him of his other ability.

Ludwig tried to extend his threads.

After five minutes of trial and error, he was able to pull a single thread out. It had a dark red on it, similar to garnet. Then he tried pulling it in.

That seemed to be twice as hard than pulling the threads out.

After ten minutes, he was able to retract the thread inside his body.

He figured that if he was going to experiment with his threads, the first step would be knowing how to bring them in and out of his body.

He didn’t want to repeat the accident from before.

Once he got the hang of it, Ludwig began to discreetly swing it around.

He didn’t need much concentration to just move it around. He could control the thread easily enough. The hard part was when he tried to coil it on itself or bend it to mimic the motion of a snake. Every time he tried to do it, he would stop dry on his tracks and forget to breathe.

He also couldn’t move them around with a lot of precision nor speed. Not that he was swinging the string slowly. But he just wasn’t able to move them at full speed. Every time he tried that, the thread would just get out of control and lose all speed. He would also have to retract it quickly enough that no one would have been able to see Ludwig swing a glowing thread as if he was doing rhythmic gymnastics.

Ludwig then tried to pull out as many threads as he was able. The number turned out to be quite small.

He only pulled four strings out of himself. Two orange ones and a yellow one accompanied the garnet like thread.

Controlling multiple threads became a completely different story.

He wasn’t able to move the threads in different directions. And whenever Ludwig swung them around in the same direction, they would just move painfully slowly.

Another thing to add to the ‘Practice’’ list.

He looked at his phone and saw that twenty five minutes had passed by. He backtracked until he saw the highschool building across an alleyway. He began to move towards it until someone stopped him.

“I wouldn’t go there if I were you.”

Ludwig turned around.

He then saw a wide and short man lifting some boxes out of a truck.

The man had a lot of hair. The top of his head was wild while his beard remained trimmed. He was a caucasian man with glasses. He wore a white and sweaty T-shirt that fitted him a little too tight and a pair of blue jeans. But that seemed to work in his favor.

His muscles were easy to spot.

“Why is that? Am I going to get robbed?” Ludwig said, almost sarcastically.

“Boy, if that’s the only thing that happens to you while in there, you’re a lucky one.”

Ludwig looked at the man.

The man replied to him with an unbreakably serious gaze.

“Ok. Do you know how I can get to the school?”

The man dropped a cardboard box on top of another one, making some dust fly, and pointed to the right end of the street.

“Go straight, then left, left again, then right, and you should be there.”

“Thanks.”

The man proceeded to pick up another box from the truck.

“You’re welcome, kid,” he said as he groaned due to the weight of the box.

Ludwig followed the man’s indications and soon found Laura waiting outside. She was analyzing the bronze statue.

Ludwig didn’t feel any emotion coming from Laura.

His new abilities were proving to be not as helpful as he would have liked.

“Hey,” Ludwig said.

Laura turned back. She looked at him somewhat surprised.

“Weren’t you supposed to be inside?”

“I finished early and, because I didn’t see you here, I wandered around a little.”

“Sorry. It took longer than I expected.”

“Don’t worry. I got to explore a little,” Ludwig paused for a moment. “Hey, is this place safe?”

Laura looked at him with curiosity.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I was walking to the sidewalk, and I was about to get inside an alleyway when this short fella-”

“YOU WHAT?!”

Ludwig recoiled from her sister’s scream.

“What?”

“Don’t go into the alleyways here! Never!” She regained her breath. “Ludwig, Wet Wood isn’t as dangerous as a lot of people say, although you might not know that. But it is still fucking dangerous!”

There was a pause between the two. Laura gasped for clean air while Ludwig stood there silently.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scream at you like that,” she said while putting her right hand above her eyes. “Please, don’t go onto the alleyways here. They’re really dangerous. You said something about a short man? Was he the one to warn you?”

“Yeah.”

“Make sure to thank him the next time you see him. It could have been really bad, Ludwig. I’m dead serious.”

Ludwig scratched his head.

“Guess today’s my lucky day. If we don’t count the shoplifters.”

He sighed heavily.

“Couldn’t my first day out of the hospital in fifteen years be a normal one?”