One night Alejandro and some friends were talking about the trending gossip at the public square.

“Hey Roberth, have you heard the news? Foreign companies from other countries are arriving here to collect the Bellusaxum, all of them are subsidized by the Red Confederacy. They’re telling us they are here to support us comrades while they take our resources,” Alejandro says with a mocking tone and laugh.

“Yeah, it’s not only here, but worldwide, they are desperate to get as much as possible, I find it funny how they gorge the Bellusaxum,” says Roberth.

One of the group gets serious. “Dude, you know what will happen when a conflict occurs between all those countries of the Red Confederacy and the U.S. and its European allies? We are talking about China, Russia, and North Korea. And our little country hasn’t taken a side. Venezuela has a great reserve of that stuff. They could collapse our whole economy, or send in troops if they wanted.”

“So what if they take some mineral? It’s not like we’re using it. As long they mind their own business and leave us alone, we should just let them get on with it,” says another of the group.

“Those are our resources, it’s a damn shame our government just found another way to fill their pockets,” says the last of the group.

“Just another classic case of third world corruption, I’m not surprised, even with the high value of Bellusaxum this nation will continue its path of decadence,” Roberth remarks.

“Things will get worse...” says Alejandro.

After one hour of goofing around the square, the group says goodnight, and everyone meanders back to their respective homes.

***

One night not long after, Alejandro is in his room at his aunt’s house, surfing the Internet, trying to ignore the family problems that made him move out of his home and stay with his aunt temporarily. The news on the Internet predicts war, and the riots here in Venezuela are only getting worse. His stomach growls; he had skipped dinner because there wasn’t enough for everyone, and he didn’t want his family going hungry to take care of him.

Suddenly he hears some kind of muffled crash in the backyard. Instantly afraid that the house is being robbed, he runs outside as quietly as he can to see what was happening. Everyone else is asleep, at 12:15 am.

The yard seems empty, he sees no one here. He finds a strange black rock. Slowly and cautiously getting closer, he notices some sort of yellowish crystal protruding from the rock and expelling particles. He can’t help but stare at the crystal. He feels the crystal is subtly shifting before his very eyes, and for whatever reason Alejandro feels compelled to move toward towards the crystal, getting closer until finally grasping the yellow shard and being surrounded by the particles. He immediately feels an intense surge of energy that he can’t describe traveling through his body and ending at his brain. His vision starts to blur and distort, then he loses consciousness.

After the event, Alejandro awakens with an eerie sensation roaming his body, especially around his head. He’s beginning to think strangely, like he’s becoming someone else. He checks his smartphone to see how much time has passed since fainting, just four minutes. Nobody has noticed what happened… for now. He goes to his room and takes a look at a mirror to see any unexpected facial change, nothing drastic on his face but his eyes’ appearance have changed; the iris has a subtle, spiral-like pattern reaching inward to the pupil and both of them have a mild crimson coloration.

“Damn it, I hope this is not permanent…”

Luckily for him, in the mirror his eyes began to normalize, returning to their original state but the iris still retains the unusual coloration.

“The hell is happening to me…”

Alejandro felt a rare but not uncomfortable burden in his head, he was feeling tired after the incident so he thought it was better to sleep for now, and figure out what happened tomorrow.

The next day he wakes up and goes to the living room like any day. Most of his family were in the backyard. Going out he saw that they were contemplating and whispering about the black meteorite that crashed at midnight. The meteorite was still expelling particles but in minimal quantities, to the point it’s no longer visible, and the crystal is gone.

One of his aunts looks at his eyes and her face changes. He knows that he doesn’t have a good excuse for the situation and so tells her about the incident. She got the attention of the others, they asked how he feels and if he is suffering any illness. He tells them he is feeling very good despite being exposed to the space rock, immediately they began to throw all kinds of questions, most of them about how he is feeling right now and what happened.

“Alejandro! What happened to you?” said one of his aunts worriedly.

“Honestly, I’m not even sure… but one thing for sure is I feel fine, no pain, fatigue or stress, does that count?” said Alejandro.

“I say we should go to a clinic and get you checked” said another member of the family.

“I would rather not… how would I explain it?” He starts. “Hey Doc, I got exposed to something out of this world and my eyes have this funny look, what’s wrong with me?” Then he switches to high voice to mimic the doctor. “Mmm I’d say this is something out of my expertise… let me refer you a ‘specialist’…” He returns to his normal voice. “Then the next day we have government people, military, men in black suits knocking our door, are you seeing where I am heading?”

They say nothing for a moment, and before they can, Alejandro responds first.

“I swear I feel good, if I feel sick or anything I’ll let you know, I need to go back inside.”

Without wasting time to check the news he heads back to the living room, all the media outlets are showing people with superhuman capabilities; lifting heavy objects, tearing down concrete walls with bare hands, some of them making long jumps and landing without suffering any leg damage and patients with terminal diseases who have been cured miraculously and are healthy. All have had encounters with unknown rocks, and these cases are currently occurring in Europe, U.S. North-East zone, the North region of Latin-America and Central America.

“Looks like I’m not the only lucky winner of the lottery…” Alejandro thinks, although he’s not aware of any health problems in himself that the rock might have altered.

Then he hears on the news that that the alien rock grants powers to anyone, no matter their background, race or beliefs, they can be used for misdeeds; assaults, robbery, and pillaging are the most frequent reports from certain superhumans, often accompanied by normal individuals, but they can be neutralized like any person, from cutting and blunt weapons to bullets, that means they’re not a serious threat for the moment, nevertheless not every superhuman is an evildoer, most of them are doing volunteering work and using their newfound abilities to give a helping hand to others.

“Aliens, World War III, superpowers… things are starting getting more weird.”

Some hours later he receives a text message from Roberth:

“Hey, if you have nothing to do, come here at two, I want to show you something cool.”

His first impression was that his friend could be another fortunate victim of the space rock, so he went to his friend’s house. When he arrives he spots some workers fixing a small hole in the middle of the road, he returns his attention to meet Roberth and knocks the door, after 8 seconds the door opens and he’s surprised by a red-hot lead pipe emitting a searing heat in front of his face.

“Watch out partner, or I’ll mark your cheek,” says Roberth.

“Whoa! That was close, great, you have powers too,” says Alejandro.

“Yeah, it’s exciting, isn’t it? What about you?”

“Is not obvious?” He points to his eyes.

“Mmmm I see, and what have you got aside from conjunctivitis?”

“I’d say I can make ‘magic’ with my mind but I’m not very sure at all, I’ll have to find out by myself, speaking of which, what happened to your space rock?”

“The government took it away, at least they don’t know I won the big prize.”

“That’s good to hear, anyways I’m gonna do some things first, besides, we should talk later about this issue of our powers, not gonna lie this feels intriguing but I’m not sure what could happen long-term regarding our health, if nothing bad happens then I’m going to keep learning what else I can do.”

“I agree, so far my family doesn’t know what happened to me, I guess they’ll know sooner rather than later, I can heat up metallic things but that’s it… for now, I’ll keep an eye on the news and everything, talk to you later,” says Roberth.

***

Three months later…

Another round of the same meteorites falls to Earth, this time covering most of the planet and ensuring every country has their share of superhumans. The situation in Venezuela remains precarious as usual and during the previous months, Alejandro has managed to discover more skills and capabilities while training to improve his faculties: increased muscular strength, substantially dense bones, hardened skin, keen senses, and enhanced agility. His main talent is the ability to influence the minds of others in different ways, he also possess enhanced memory and information absorption; enabling him to learn and quickly master any science and technical topics with ease, perhaps the best part is he has not experienced any negative side effect since the incident and he feels confident his overall health has improved substantially.