Getting a Superpower and a Tragic Backstory

After a brief thought and a certain period of time, I was left with this beauty floating in front of my face.

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[Your Superpower: Conceptual Card Creation and Manipulation

•Convert concepts into cards and use them as you wish. Concepts can either be {Copied} or {Extracted}.

•Concepts can be copied or extracted if the concept is unaware and you possess higher soul strength; or no longer actively resists.

•{Copy} creates a conceptual card by copying, leaving the original concept untouched.

•{Extract} creates a conceptual card by extracting the concept from reality, thereby erasing that concept.

•Conceptual Cards can be Merged at your discretion, with your will imposed on them can lead to creation of a new card with the characteristics that you want.

•A Conceptual Card is formed of a concept, but it can be Split into different components and hence into different Conceptual Cards as per your discretion.

•All Conceptual Cards; copied, extracted, merged or split, you can {Replicate} them once.

•Conceptual Cards creation and manipulation is a power unique to you, nobody other than you can know about, feel, see, or touch or use them, and they are bound to your soul.

•You can remotely manipulate Conceptual Cards similar to telekinesis, but your range for the same depends on your soul strength; but Conceptual Card creation gradually improves your soul strength.

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Pretty Overpowered, I know. I mean, I made it that way. While not as absolute or immediately repaying, it had great potential. While in the short run it had minimal payback, and no visible gain or usefulness like any other ability, like [Ice Manipulation], [Reactive Adaptation], or [Psionics], this had the potential to be ground breaking. All I had to do was keep my head down and be low key, unlike Loki(Mcu) who fucked up being too high profile. Bad pun, right? I know, I made it.

Still, let's see if my power gets accepted by this Screen. While [Conceptual Card Creation And Manipulation] was not exactly [Omnipotence], give it time, and it wouldn't be too far off.

And my fears came true, with my beautiful creation marred by flaws, burdened with tiresome limitations. But the thing which truly ticked my off was that I forgot to add limitations, rather expected my power to get approved, but because I failed to provide my own limits, the Screen or System deemed it appropriate to add it's own limits.

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[Submission being checked by World Will.]

[Checking completed. Superpower above allowed limit.]

[Checking for limitations provided. Limitations found: None]

[Applying suitable limitations. Application successful.]

[Sending Superpower for Re-Submission.]

[Re-Submission successful.]

[Submission approved by the World Will. Superpower finalized.]

[Initiating Transmission.]

[Happy Questing! May the odds ever be in your favor!]

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With this last ominous message, the Screen dissipated and I completely lost my sense of self, losing myself in the comforting embrace of solitude.

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Weary. Tired. And a bit cranky.

I woke up with a gasp, my senses working in overdrive after a brief period of sensory deprivation. Still disoriented with this experience, I stumbled out of the bunk bed I found myself in, and somehow managed to trudge towards what I somehow knew was the restroom in the dark, with the dim light peeking through the gap beneath the door acting as a lighthouse to the chaos of my muddled mind.

Tripping and shuffling my way across the large room, avoiding the clothes and articles more suited for young children, while keeping to the center of the room to ensure not to alert or affect in any manner the beds placed near the walls, bunk beds like the one I woke up in, which I knew for a fact were not unoccupied; all of this while trying to deal with the killer headache I found myself with when I woke up, which kept on growing in intensity with each passing moment until I could no longer think straight.

I did what had been a part of our instincts which guaranteed our survival, I followed the light.

Somehow dragging myself over to the door, I gave the door a shove, which thankfully was ajar and opened without protest, distracting my addled mind from the fact that I could no longer reach the door handle, or that the room and everything in it was disturbingly large; momentary relief clouding my reason, and I finally managed to enter the restroom.

What greeted me was a normal restroom. Wash Basins, Cubicles, Urinals, and the like. Nothing special there. I rushed to the Basins, splashing the cold water against my face, the cool sensation a contrast to my overactive mind providing a brief glimpse of relief against the pounding in my head. Regaining a certain amount of composure, I saw that my hands, my handspan was significantly smaller than what I was used to. Now alerted by the possibility and my previous death experience, I quickly checked myself. 

I was small again. And with trepidation, I slowly lifted my gaze a bit above the basin, and found myself looking at a little boy.

A small raven-haired boy, with black eyes and baby fat on his face, with an expression of shock and excitement on his face.

Like a lock in my head had been released, the headache I was experiencing seemed to implode, before I clenched my head and simply lost my senses once again and wandered into the comforting embrace of darkness.

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Alexander Walters. Five whole years' worth of memories, literally from birth till date of a kid with a same name and face as me, who lived in Queens, NYC along with his parents fused into my mind.

Son of Mark Walters and Amanda Jones, both scientists of some kind and successful ones, atleast from how often they had to be out for work. I used to be left unsupervised, for I was well behaved and easily distracted by the tv, atleast until I managed to enter their in-house laboratory. They arrived soon, courtesy of the cameras, I guess, and so the days of me being unsupervised were gone.

The next few years were ordinary, and fun in the same manner. I remember going a lot on play dates with my neighbour, a blonde girl named 'Gwen' who became my best friend, and her mother, 'Aunty Helen' who was a close family friend and often the one who looked after me when my parents were away. It was a good life, but like usual, all good things come to an end.

It was sudden, with no prior signs. If one had to nitpick, one could say that their increased presence in the house, the tension in the air, the late night arguments, and the multiple visits to the inhouse laboratory while towing me along were a sign, but I was just a little 5 year old boy happy to spend time with his busy parents. The last memory I had of them was them telling me that everything was alright, everything was okay, and that there was literal perfection in my blood. When I look back at it now, that is a strange thing to tell your child, especially a five year old.

But, that seemed important, from all the bits and phrases I could catch and make sense of from a drug induced haze, slipping in and out of consciousness with everything suddenly loosing focus and gaining clarity at a moments notice. The last thing I felt was my father's warm embrace and my mother's kiss on my forehead before I lost consciousness for the final time.

The next day I woke up in Gwen' room, with Helen watching me worriedly from a chair. What followed was the normal affairs, except she seemed tense, which in turn made Gwen loose her bubbly demeanor and I had to start my day on a gloomy note.

Though, I did get the reason for the buildup.

My parents were dead.