Dangerous Days of Daniel X

Chapter 7

HERE’S THE THING that I have to share with you.

I have these powers, and I don’t know exactly how I got them. I can create things, for example. Like my parents. Of course, technically they’re not my parents. My real parents are dead. My imagined parents are probably just mental projections that I make real.

And when I say real, I mean it. When I manifest my mom and dad, they’re as real as you or me. Right down to their DNA.

How do I do it? Good question.

I don’t know the specifics, but what I do know is that at its most microscopic, most subatomic level, everything in the universe-matter, people, the air, all the elements, and even energy-is made up of the same basic materials. And I was born with a strange ability to rearrange the material at will.

I know what you might be thinking. I can just snap my fingers and what I want is there, but it’s not really like that. Not at all.

There’s only so much I can create, for a limited period. I have to be really calm, and concentrate like you wouldn’t believe. If I’m tired or cranky, forget it-it won’t work. Plus there seems to be a mass limit. Or sometimes I seem to run up against a mental block of some kind. One time I tried to create a really cool, flaming red Ferrari, but nothing happened.

Some things are easy to create. My mom and dad, for one. I do them a lot. When I’m afraid or lonely. They’re like a recipe you’ve done over and over again until you can do it in your sleep.

I’m pretty fast too. I’m talking about movement now. One time a New Jersey state trooper tried to arrest me for hitchhiking, and as he started to close the cuff on my wrist, I reached out, grabbed his hand, and pulled it forward so fast he actually cuffed himself.

Oh, and I’ve caught birds. Not slowpokes like chickens either. I plucked a passing sparrow out of the air-gently-just to see if I could. I could.

I’m strong, especially for someone who’s five ten, 140 pounds. Not strong enough to lift a car, but I could probably flip one in a pinch. I can influence people. Sort of an instant hypnosis type of thing. And I can sometimes tell what’s going to happen before it happens. Like knowing that there were cops at the door.

But this is the most important part. Life-and-death stuff. Don’t let anybody tell you any different: there are aliens on this planet. They’ve been here millions, maybe hundreds of millions of years. They were on the earth before man, even. And most of these creepy-crawlers are seriously homicidal lunatics.

Number 19 was a horror show and a half-but Number 6, my next target, was actually plotting to change everything about life on Earth. And I don’t mean he was going to bring in universal health care and solve global warming. I’m not talking homicidal, I’m talking genocidal. Number 6 wanted to take over Earth and destroy every life-form, then recolonize with freaks from his own planet. That’s why I had to go after Number 6 now, before he got on a roll…

One more thing I need to cover. There might be some good aliens here. I’ve never met one, but hey, never say never, right? The one thing I know to be true, there are definitely bad ones. I don’t think I can stress that part enough.

But wait a second.

This is going to blow your mind. It did mine.

Actually, I have met a good alien.

In the mirror. In every mirror I look at.

I’m pretty sure I’m an alien too.