the incredibles ; original

𝟎.𝟎

ZERO|ZERO;
origins: part one

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Chinatown, San Francisco
— 3:07 PM


THERE WAS A reason why the little Chinese restaurant on the corner of 3rd and Sacramento Street was never crowded.

Minghao's was tucked in the shadow of the local library, hidden behind a maze of apartment complexes, and resembled more of a concrete box than a restaurant. Very few San Francisco natives knew about it, including those of Chinatown, so needless to say, it nearly impossible for tourists to find.

Maybe that's why Caelum Columbus liked to come here so often. Minghao's seemed to sit apart from the rest of the city, the only place in San Francisco that wasn't hustling at the speed of sound.

Caelum was sat in the back corner of the restaurant, homework splayed on the table in front of him. He tapped his pen against his hand, desperately trying to recall the notes he took in calculus. What was a limit again?

The clack of his pen was the only noise in the almost empty room. Minghao, the owner and namesake of the restaurant, was patching up the red and gold wallpaper that had begun to peel on the space above the door. The only other patron was occupying a table on the opposite side of the restaurant, by a floor-to-ceiling window draped in red ribbon. He was so wrapped up in his game of sudoku that half-eaten noodles were falling from his mouth.

After staring at the same equation for ten minutes, Caelum decided to scrap the work. With an elongated sigh, he stood up to stretch, arching his back and outreaching his arms. He cocked his head to the side as he stood, studying the equation from overhead.

Caelum snapped his fingers. "Aha!"

The poor Sudoku Man jumped at Caelum's sudden realisation, almost choking on his meal. The boy scrambled back into his seat and picked up his pencil, scribbling 'the limit does not exist'. Before he could finish writing out his eureka, though, the world turned black.

For a fleeting moment, Caelum thought that this was one of his precognitions — the visions into the future that occurred a little too often for his liking. Soon, though, he realised he was wrong. Something felt off this time. Different.

He couldn't feel any part of his body, every inch was numb. For all Caelum knew, he wasn't even sitting anymore. Just as panic began to claw at his stomach, his vision cleared. It was over as quickly as it had started.

Caelum whipped his head around, checking his surroundings. He was still in Minghao's, which was a good sign. The sun was in the same position as it had been before, another good sign. No one had seemed to notice his episode.

The boy rubbed his eyes, and brushed off the whole thing as some kind of weird side effect of his precognitions. At least, that's what Caelum thought until he looked down and the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end.