Superstition

Chapter one

Ulises was the main electrician in a small, Tacuarembo town of Russian immigrants. He helped with the installation of the first generator and many other electrical installations. He was the one to answer the call; he had a calm and soothing voice, but it did nothing to mitigate the impact the news had on his wife. They took route 3 direct to Montevideo. After less than four hours, they were at their son's bedside.
Ulises always felt uncomfortable in places like hospitals, too many people and weird energies. Adrian was in a deep coma, he looked pale and lifeless, but he looked much better than his mother, Devenna. She was inconsolable, feeling the pain only a good, loving mother could. Ulises, on the other hand, felt uneasy, he couldn't handle the situation. There was something weird and unsettling about it. He was normally quiet and stoic, but he couldn't stop pacing inside the room. When the doctor finally came, it felt as though a seal of silence and fear had been broken.
— This is difficult to say, so I'll be blunt. We are lost. Your son had an extreme reaction to a new synthetic drug. We aren’t quite sure of the effect it had on him, it was possible an allergic reaction or something along those lines. You may have heard of the different reactions this drug has caused. There are videos all over the internet but there has not been a proper study done on it.
— No! That's a lie, Adrian is a good boy, he's a great student and an athlete, he would never take that kind of shit.— Devenna answered in a manic scream still holding her son's hand.
The doctor reluctantly looked at Ulises’ long face and silently showed him Erica's statement and the toxicology report.
Ulises stayed awake until the first lights of daybreak began to shine through the windows, framing the mother and son like a renaissance painting. At least, that's what he thought as he was getting up. He walked to the bathroom to wash his face and he caught a glimpse of his reflection in the mirror and stared at himself for a while. The bags under his eyes weren't new but looked uglier than ever. His receding hairline, long face, and thin lips made him feel blessed that his son looked so much like his mother.
— “He just inherited bad things from me”— He thought— “My allergies, my baldness, and worst of all, my nightmares. All I can do is hope he doesn't have to go through the same messed up shit I did”.
For the first time in ages, he reminisced about his teen years. His problematic attitude along with his obsession with the supernatural.
He had always been different from others. When he was a baby, he would cry before anything happened or knew his dad was coming home early. As he was growing up, he was able to focus enough to predict the answers to his teacher's questions or the emotional state of his classmates. It would cause him to feel intense compassion for them, mirroring their emotions, forcing him to push them away to avoid being affected. It wasn't until he turned thirteen that he finally confessed to someone about his abilities. He chose his “Baba”  Mariza, an old lady who wasn't really his grandma but an old, very Russian friend of the family that helped raise him to be his confidence.
Baba was a strict and traditional woman, but undoubtedly she had the biggest of hearts. She was always helping those in need, at least, those, who she deemed worthy. She advised and taught him how to take control of his gift. She taught him to train himself so he could be like her and cure the ill—hearted, or even, talk to the dead.
Her advice was like a snowball that grew uncontrollably during his teenage years; until one night in November when he flew too close to the sun.
— “Why am I remembering this?”— He asked himself
— “This discomfort is too recognizable, there is something familiar in all of this”— Said a voice inside him.
He returned to the room as Devenna was waking up. He kissed her forehead, then Adrian’ when suddenly, a stroboscopic flash of feelings invaded his world for a fraction of a second. The shock was so intense that it made him physically jump against a wall.