It was just after the first of the year, and I was seventeen. Like always, I was exploring old warehouses. I did not want to go home yet; my dad was a mean drunk, and my mom... well, my mom was a hooker. School had gotten out a while ago, and I was watching a storm that was in the distance.

The loading dock I was on had this hole about three feet deep, and it was full of water. I had sat on the railing to watch the storm; it was about five miles away, so I was not worried about the lightning. I saw this huge bolt of lightning zigzag across the sky and suddenly head right for me. It was like everything was moving in slow motion.

The lightning seemed to drop close to the rooftops and then, at the last minute, it curved over a roof and struck. It hit me in the middle of my chest and threw me backwards towards the large puddle of water. When I hit the water, the lightning bolt seemed to be stuck to my chest, lighting everything up in blue flames. Even as my body sank below the water, the lightning was still there.

I could not move as energy coursed through my body and then out into the water. As suddenly as it had come, it was over, and I floated to the surface of the deep puddle. I floated there looking up at the roof and part of the sky. I knew I was breathing, and my heart was beating; I just did not want to move.

It was like I could feel my body, or to be precise, my brain, changing somehow. It felt like I could hear a million people all talking at once. I could see my own future reach out before me, branching at every decision I made. I knew I could reach out with my mind and move things or even teleport them or even myself.

I floated in that puddle all night, feeling my mind change, adjusting itself. The sun had just come up when I was found. A police officer had seen my backpack from the street and decided to check it out. When he got closer and saw my body, he thought I was dead until he saw me blink.

After that, it was yelling and splashing as he jumped in next to me and pulled me out. Then there was the ambulance ride to the hospital and the doctors poking me in the emergency room. The lightning had charred and blown most of my clothing off. Every time they hooked a machine up to me, it shorted out.

I had left my driver’s license home, so they called me John Doe and moved me to a room with four other beds. All were empty, though. A young nurse came in, and she looked at me with pity. I could hear her thoughts about it being a waste. They thought my mind was gone; they just could not prove it.

They were going to put tubes in me in case I went to the bathroom. When she got closer and started to pull the sheet back, I shook my head slightly. She froze, looking at my face and reached for the sheet again. Again, I shook my head slightly, and her eyes widened. “You are aware?”

I gave a slight nod. Even that was a distraction from trying to process what was happening in my mind. The nurse bent over me. “You do not want us to put anything in you?”

I shook my head, no, only moving slightly. I saw and felt the doctor at the door, but she did not. She was still watching my face intently. “Are you in pain?”

I shook my head, and she glanced at the doctor as he moved closer. She looked back to my face. “Can you move anything else?”

I nodded, and she smiled. “Move your arm for me.”

I shook my head, no, and sent a thought to her. She frowned and took my hand. “Well, just a finger then.”

I used my finger to lightly tap a SOS into the palm of her hand. She looked down at her hand. “Do that again.”

The doctor moved up next to her as I did it again. She looked into my face. “SOS? Are you in distress?”

I slightly shook my head first, yes, and then no, sending a thought to her again. She looked at the doctor and back at me. “You can talk using Morse code?”

I nodded, and she looked around before grabbing my chart and flipping a paper over. She set it on the bed with me and put her hand back in mine. “Okay, go ahead.”

I sighed and began tapping, “hit by lightning. Need to process what happened. Wait.”

She looked at the paper and the doctor before they both left. It was several hours later when the doctor came back with another man and stood beside my bed. I knew the man with him was here to read my signals, “we need to connect you to some machines but they keep shorting out, do you know why?”

I knew but was not going to tell him that it was me. Instead I tapped, “lightning?”

The man repeated what I said to the doctor and he frowned. They both left and a nurse came in, she put a tray of food in front of me and pulled a chair close. The next thing I knew she was feeding me slowly. That was the way I spent the next three days, the doctor and every once in a while another man would come in. He was an engineer and kept touching me with a volt meter. After the third one burnt out he never came back.

Everything changed early the morning of that third day. My mind had finally adjusted and I sat up and got out of bed. First, I went to the bathroom and then I took a shower. When I came out of the shower two nurses were waiting for me. I had put the drafty gown back on when I came out.

I walked to them and gave each a kiss on the cheek whispering, “thank you.”

I walked out and they just watched me. It was a cold walk home. Dad was passed out on the couch and Mom was asleep with a man in her bed. I quietly got dressed, this time taking my driver’s license. I had spent four days thinking and processing what had happened to me. There was no way I was going to let just anyone know what I could do now.

I had a plan and would start working on it today. First I needed to read Crystal’s mind, people think that just because you are a telepath you know everything they think. That is not necessarily true, mostly you only read their surface thoughts. If they think about something then you can read it. I wanted to read her because I had a crush on her since I was twelve. I thought she liked me but there were times that she was distant.

The second thing had to do with drug dealers. I needed someplace special and had just the place in mind. It was an older brick warehouse about two hundred feet long and seventy feet wide. It had four big rooms, two downstairs and two upstairs. There were two bathrooms, the one upstairs was huge.

I walked to school; it was still early, so I sat on one of the benches out front. It was like old times when Crystal walked up and sat beside me. She smiled, “I missed you last week.”

I smiled and probed her mind. I sat back suddenly, stunned by what I had found. I did not let it show on my face as several futures ran out ahead of me. I looked at her; at least I knew she liked me, “I had a ... accident.”