Jamie Fawks was walking down the corridor with a clipboard in hand, checking over one of their more recent patient’s vitals. It frankly wasn’t looking good for them. Several broken ribs, a few fractures in their arms and legs; that was all fine.

The issue was that she was in a coma.

He stopped and stepped to the side while he rubbed his head to ward off the buzzing headache he had. With modern technology, they could heal the bones using internal biodegradable casts, however, the coma was a lot trickier.

While medical technology was certainly impressive compared to the past, the brain had still remained a complex mystery. They knew it worked, obviously. They even knew what most areas of it did. However, how it worked was still up in the air.

How did little electrical signals running along fleshy circuits create sentience and actual thought? No one knew, or, at least, if someone did they weren’t telling. Shaking away unimportant thoughts, Jamie continued to his patient’s room.

Doctors in 2123 didn’t actually do a whole lot. Surgery was mainly handled by the Med-bot’s as they could perform more accurately in less time than any human. Instead, doctors were more like scientific experts in the field of biology as well as consultants and companions to the hurt or sick.

Jamie was currently acting as a companion to those that needed it. Talking and joking with patients came naturally to him. He couldn’t help but feel guilty in some circumstances though. Cases where the patients couldn’t be saved weighed heavily on his soul.

His job in then was to keep the patients happy until their passing. Acting like a friend for those that didn’t have any, and like a son for those that wanted one. Of course, some just wanted some privacy in the end and he would oblige.

It was hard work being a doctor.

That’s kinda what he was doing right now, going to check up on his patient in the off chance she was conscious of the world outside. He would read her stories he thought she might find interesting. Old ones about superheroes and villains he’d found online.

He’d been amazed when he’d heard about how many comic books she owned. Thousands of them, many of them could’ve been considered museum pieces being over a hundred years old. It was like an obsession. He’d wondered how she’d managed to pay for all that before he heard about her parents.

Joesph and Katrina Miller were both pretty average people, however, they’d died about three years ago. With both of them being in high-middle class bracket the inheritance Ms. Miller got wasn’t anything to scoff at. There’d been no other inheritor in her parents will so she’d gotten all of their possessions.

She supposedly sold almost all of it, including the house. Moving away after college to LA, she bought a small flat and became a shut-in. Spending her inheritance on antique comic books and various other paraphernalia.

However, something must’ve happened as not more than a month ago she started to apply to various jobs. She was accepted soon enough by a firm and started working there.

Walking through the door to Anna’s room Jamie greeted her. “Good morning, Ms.Miller,” He said politely. “And how are we doing today?” He asked as he started to check various instruments around the room. “Oh, it looks like your brain is much more active than it was yesterday, that’s a good sign. It also looks like your bones have almost completely healed, and only after a week! That’s also a very good sign!”

Moving over, he continued to talk to the comatose body as he checked it over physically. “You look like you're in good shape, Ms. Miller. It shouldn’t be too long before you can leave.” Turning around, he pulled out a comic book. “Now, I’m sure you’ve probably heard all of the stories before but they’re still new to me, so I love to read them to you. Please excuse my impertinence.”

Sitting down in a seat right next to her bed, Jamie began to read. The story was fairly typical. A bad guy robs a place and the hero shows up to stop them. However, it turns out the bad guy was part of a conspiracy to bring down the hero council and that he’d accidentally tipped his hand. It all turned out to be a ruse though and that the bad guy had lured them into a trap. Oh no!

“I’ll stop you, Gerald Fox!” Jamie cried out, taking on the voice of the protagonist.

“Only if you can catch me first!” he said in a lower more nasally tone of voice.

It continued on like that for a while. Twists and turns that made following the story more like trying to get out of a maze. The plot slowly deepened as it turned out that there was a spy in their midst. Betrayal caused the tension to rise and teammates turned on one another.

However, eventually, things ended with a big ‘TO BE CONTINUED’ when it was revealed that the main character was the mole all along. Brainwashed by the antagonist.

“That was entertaining, Ms. Miller. I can see why you like comics now. There’s a lot of effort that goes into these things isn't there?” He commented as he started to pack up his stuff. “I can’t wait to see how it ends! What other surprises do they have in store?” He said with a smile towards the still body. The only sign that it was alive was the faint breathing he could see.

Standing up and shouldering his bag he gave a light salute to Anna. “Well, I guess this is all for today. I'll see you tomorrow!” He called as he made his way towards the door.

“...Captain United, Issue 542... I always did like that one.” He heard softly behind him.

Freezing in shock, Jamie whipped around.

Anna was sitting up in bed and looking out the window at the sunset. She turned to him and smiled. “You’ll never expect how it ends.”

Jamie just nodded dumbly while pulling up his V-Screen. It rang for a moment before a grumpy voice answered. “What?!”

“She’s awake.” He said, not surprised by the annoyed voice.

Anna laid back down and just stared up at the ceiling while the kind doctor started talking on his V-Screen, trying to get used to having a physical body again.

Seeing nurses flood into the room and start checking the devices around her in a flurry she sighed. ‘This is gonna take a while, isn’t it?’

Anna was right. It did take a while.

The doctors and nurses needed to check if she was in a healthy condition mentally and that she didn’t suffer from amnesia. Then, once the medical checks were done, the police wanted to speak with her.

They questioned her whether she thought that this was a deliberate attack on her person. She responded with a ‘no’ and the police asked if she was sure? To which she she responded with a ‘yes’. The questioning basically ended there.

Of course, the trials weren’t over yet, because then a corporate representative showed up.

This one actually surprised Anna.

She’d expected the check-ups, it’s just common sense too, and the police questioning, based on what she saw while time was stopped, but she hadn’t had any idea that the corps were taking an interest in her. She was confused about what they wanted with her, but once the meeting started it was all made clear.

They basically bribed her.

Oh, it was offered in the form of ‘compensation’ but it was only under the condition that she would keep her mouth shut about what caused her crash. Anna happily accepted the large sum of money as she really didn’t have any reason not too. Everyone would find out about the malfunctioning CI’s in a few months anyway and Anna could definitely use the cash. She needed it to fund her research.

Well… ‘research’.

Once Anna got home she immediately collected all of her comic books strewn around her flat in boxes. While she was doing that she decided it would be best to clean up too.

So, we get to now, with Anna sitting in her newly cleaned bed reading comic book after comic book. She had a notebook by her side in which she was writing notes and comments.

‘Ooh, that looks interesting. Let’s add that one under ‘possible ideas.’’ She thought as she finished yet another comic. Tossing away the very expensive antique in a way that would make nerds across the multiverse cry, she turned back to her notebook. Filling in the new note, she started to review what she’d written.

It was, frankly, a mess of scribbles.

If someone else were to look, they would assume that the author had come into contact with an eldritch monstrosity.

Of course, like most people with horrible handwriting, Anna could read it fine.

‘’Possible powers’, hmm… quite a lot of those…’ scratching her head, she scrawled in a few more that she’d found in her most recent conquest. ‘Ok, good… you know, maybe we shouldn’t have any psychics… or at least not a lot of them.’ Making another message in the little space that was left.

Moving on to her ‘possible ideas’ entry, she smiled. ‘Just a few things I have to make sure happens.’ Humming to herself she added ‘ride a shark into an exploding volcano’ to the list.

Flipping to the next section, the smile slipped from her lips and she let out a grunt in frustration. She’d reached the ‘origin story’ section and she still didn’t know what to add. Several ideas for the possible origin of powers were written on there, but most of them were scratched out.

A ‘secret mutation gene’ wouldn’t work. Humanity had mapped their gene’s decades ago. For one to show up all of a sudden would be… strange.

‘Mysterious alien technology’ was also out. That would require actual aliens to exist and Anna wasn’t sure if she could even do that. Nevermind, if she should.

‘Ancient magical artifact’ was a possibility… but, it was like the gene thing. For a previously-undiscovered-highly-advanced-ancient-empire to just show up wouldn’t just be weird. It’d be unexplainable.

‘Magical reawakening’ could happen, but Anna didn’t really want to go down that path. Just straight magic was too easily controlled. It wasn’t chaotic enough. Governments would get a handle on things quickly and clamp down on magic use. It would certainly shake things up for a time, but a status quo would eventually be found.

That wasn’t what Anna wanted. She wanted something that would continuously create chaos, something that would continuously shake things up. Something that would force humanity to grow.

Heros and Villains would accomplish that, not wizards and monsters.

Groaning Anna flopped back on her bed. “Why is this so fucking complicated?” she asked herself. “What’s that old acronym? K.I.S.S.? Keep It Simple Stupid, right? So what’s the simplest I can make this?” she snorted. “Well, the simplest option would be to just have it happen. No explanation, no reason, it just does.”

For a moment Anna considered it. ‘I mean, it is easiest. People would come up with their own explanations for it meaning I wouldn’t have to do anything. But that’s the issue. People would come up with their own explanations for it. That means that if some religion declares that demons did it or that every person with power was a demon then we get witch hunts and crusades.’

“Also,” She continued aloud, “It feels like a cop-out. There’s no story, no emotion in it and, if I’m being frankly honest, that’s boring.” She sat up and suddenly declared, “And if an event is going to bring awesome into the world, that event must also be suitably awesome!” She nodded wisely, as if she’d just spoken some sort of ancient wisdom, and laid back down in bed.

‘So, what’s the next simplest option?’ she stared at her ceiling for a while. “Well, I could always just make it happen. Not me me, of course, but a god alter ego. Make it, I dunno, some sort of divine intervention or something.”

Muttering to herself she started to expand on the idea. “Let’s see, let’s see. Keep it simple. Why would I do this? because I... wanted too? What kinda god would want something like this to happen? Some sort of… conflict or chaos god I would guess. Why would I do this on earth? Because… God gave Earth to me to manage. That’s the truth really. About as simple as I can get...”

Anna paused in her brainstorming to try to sort out her thoughts from that rambling session she just went on. ‘So, the idea is this. I am the god of chaos and I’ve just taken over management of the earth because God left it to me and got tired of it... Not necessarily wrong, let’s continue.’

Getting out of bed, Anna started to pace. ‘So, to spice things up a bit and to create a bit of chaos I decide to give people powers and watch what happens…’ she stopped and considered.

“That might just work… I would have to be careful though. If I’m not, then people will start to think about supers as my ‘children’ or some such nonsense,” She reasoned aloud.

“Fuck it, let’s do it."

And with that profound declaration, superpowers were brought into being and the world was forever changed.