Chapter One
It blasted him like a sucker punch. Sam wasn’t sure where the pain came from, but the burning sensation radiated from his temples all the way down to his ankles. His body was immobilized and seized by a flash of fire. The wind rushed out of him. He dropped to his knees on the kitchen floor. He clamped his eyes shut, not daring to open them.
Son of a... What is this pain?! Oh my God! My head… Is it a stroke? Can’t breathe… Heart attack? Why won’t it stop? What’s wrong with me?
Then it left, as quickly as it came. The flash of torture disappeared. Sam sat on the cool tile and raked shaking fingers through his short, sandy blond hair.
What just happened?
The burning, still fresh in his memory, made him wish someone was home. His mother would be home soon, or he could call his dad at work. But Sam didn’t want to worry either of them. Especially since now everything seemed normal again.
Well, almost normal. He shook his head and realized that there was something new going on inside his brain. Not pain. But a sense of something extra.
Still lightheaded, he got to his feet and reached for a glass from the cupboard. He turned on the tap and the stench assaulted his nose. He glanced down – the water looked clear, but he could vividly smell the iron and fluoride as it ran out of the faucet.
Maybe it’s just my imagination. I can’t be smelling fluoride in water. What does fluoride even smell like? And is that calcium carbonate? What – how do I even know what that is?
For a boy of sixteen, and one that didn’t pay much attention in his general chemistry class, he couldn’t figure out why these thoughts filled his head – let alone how he could smell and identify each of the particular elements themselves.
A loud sound, something like a bowl of cereal crackling distracted Sam. He turned to peek out the curtains and saw a bicycle in the driveway. Just the neighbor kid, riding his bike after school. He headed back towards the kitchen, and then froze.
How in the world can I hear bicycle tires on the sidewalk?
Standing still, he closed his eyes to test his ears. What else could he hear? The quiet hum of the refrigerator, Mr. Parker’s lawnmower from across the street, the television in Sam’s upstairs bedroom that always stayed on, which resulted in constant nagging from his mother. But there was more.
He could hear the toilet flush from the basement bathroom in the house next door. He knew that sound didn’t come from his house, since he was home alone. So how exactly could he sense the specific location of that sound?
A squirrel scurried up one of the trees in the back yard. Without even looking, he knew from the sound that it was the papery bark of the birch tree in his mother’s flower bed. And further back, he could hear the gum balls falling from the sweet gum tree – the tree his father always griped about – from Old Lady Cullen’s house, whose property butted up against theirs.
How can I hear all of this? And will someone please shut that dog up?!
Suddenly he realized that the dog was Buttons – the poodle from two blocks over that never left the house except for his morning exercise. He only knew the bark because he heard it every morning on his way to school when he passed Buttons and his very nice looking owner as they took their morning jog. Buttons always lunged and barked at him, but Sam never minded, probably because he was too busy checking out Jeannie in her spandex.
