I stare up at the ceiling, trying to remember the last time I turned the lights on in my apartment.

  Ever since I got my powers, I haven’t bothered turning the lights on. I can see through walls something as simple as darkness doesn’t bother me anymore.

  Not being able to see color is a pain, but honestly, the benefits outweigh that.

  I need to go out and buy groceries. I think to myself, rolling out of bed and stumbling towards the bathroom.

  I don’t remember the last time I got groceries, but with the gang coming over today, I need at least snacks and, preferably, more.

  The actual answer is that I’m going to be getting both snacks and stuff to cook.

  Once I’m done doing the basics required to put myself fully together, I rummage around through my nightstand, looking for a glasses case.

  I know I have a pair of sunglasses somewhere in my room, but I need to find them.

  Three dresser drawers later and checking underneath the bed, I find the sunglasses case!

  They were on the floor of my closet though I haven’t the foggiest of how it got there.

  Opening the case reveals a pair of mirrored sunglasses that should hopefully make it really difficult for anyone to see my eyes.

  Sunglasses on, I then move on to the bathroom to look into the mirror, twisting my head around to try and figure out if there are any angles where you can easily make out my eyes.

  This is going to be as good as I am going to get unless I get something specifically made to make sure that you can’t see my eyes in the slightest.

  With my eye situation covered, I finish getting dressed before grabbing all the important stuff. One last check before making my way out of my apartment and towards my car.

  As I drive to the grocery store, I run through the list of things I need to buy, trying to think if there's anything I’m missing.

  Candy, chips, beer, soda, actual food, veggie tray, some ingredients to cook.

  That should be everything, I think.

  One shopping montage later where I thank whoever invented the idea of self checkout, I make my way back home.

  Nothing too complicated today. I’m just going to make some homemade pizza.

  With the three pizzas in the oven, now comes cleaning, I suppose.

  Music drifting through my apartment, I make my way through the cleaning. I make sure to periodically glance at the time and how much longer the oven timer has to make sure that everything will happen at around the right time.

  My timing impeccable, just after I take the pizzas out of the oven, I hear a knock on my door.

  Setting the pizza down on my cutting board, I quickly pick my way over towards the door.

  “Come on in!” I say, opening the door letting everyone in.

  “Hey man, how’s it hanging done ghosting everyone?” Caleb asks before doing the patented handshake into a bro-hug maneuver.

  “You know how it is, dude. I got lost in my most recent project and everything slipped my mind.”

  I reach up to mess with my sunglasses, trying to get them into a more comfortable position.

  They’re pretty comfortable, but I’ve spent my entire life not wearing glasses permanently, so having to transition to wearing them around everyone is already super awkward.

  I’ll take it over, telling everyone I’ve got abilities, though.

  Reyna and Ben trail behind Caleb, giving me their own hugs before trickling into the living room.

  “You know when Amelia is going to get here?” Reyna asks, picking up a drink from the table and pulling the tab.

  “She’s going to be here in a bit looked like she was having a rough phonecall when she pulled into the lot.” Ben shrugs, jabbing his thumb toward the window and to the parking lot below.

  I take my seat, helping myself to a handful of chips as I lean back. “That blows I had a call with family not too long ago and it sucked.”

  “I’ll drink to that.” Reyna snorts before downing her drink.

  “I bet it’s her ex dude’s been an absolute tool about the breakup.” Ben wages.

  “So what games do you have ready? Going to free me from the shackles of forever gming?” Caleb asks hopefully.

  Before I can answer, there’s a knock at the door, so it seems like my duty as a doorman isn’t over just yet.

  With a heave, I get out of my chair and saunter towards the door, deftly managing to not clip my toe on the corner of the wall.

  Best part of having a magic-psychic map in my head for sure.

  I make a buzzer sound as I open the door, revealing our last guest.

  “Thanks for inviting us,” Amelia says with a quick hug before joining Reyna on the couch.

  “I got all the board games I’ve collected over the years, so if you don’t remember them, that’s on you. I have my console if we want to do some party games and enough controllers for everyone. And I have a one-shot prepared if we want to play some tabletop.” I concede, revealing my darkest secret.

  That I actually do prep work.

  Ben makes a dive towards the shelf with the board games, pulling out the one I immediately balk at.

  Yeah, it was fun to play once.

  I do not have the patience to play a game for twelve hours now as my forces are slowly vanquished and I am choked of resources.

  “Boooo!” Caleb roars. “Put the ten-hour strategy game down! I want to play tabletop as a player! Free me from my eternal throne!”

  “How about this instead?” Amelia asks holding one of my deck of cards. “I want to go on a hot streak like last time.”

  “No! You cheat! Somehow! At least I’m pretty sure! I want to play party games. Those are fun to play and chat during,” Reyna disagrees, pointing her can at other people threateningly? Or maybe imploringly.

  I pause, trying to think of what I want to do.

  “Be quiet minion. You are supposed to be here for our entertainment as an apology for vanishing in the work cave for a weekend.” Caleb says, throwing a chip at me as punishment.

  “That’s a good question. What would put Jason most on the spot?” Ben asks, seeming to have recovered from his lapse in sanity, having put the strategy game out before rifling through for something else.

  “Not the gaming thing. If he’s confident enough to share it, that means he’s positive he’s ready.” Reyna says patting Caleb comfortingly on the shoulder as he mock wails in despair.

  “Actually, to definitely derail the subject, I got something I want to ask. What’s with the mirrored sunglasses, Jason?” Ben asks, pointing at me with a look that tells me he’s looking for something that’s definitely not there.

  “Because I figured you needed all the help. You could get at cards and this way you can look at my hand.” I quip doing the classic anime glasses pose.

  I get a round of chuckles out of that one.

  “But seriously, what’s with the glasses?” Amelia asks with a mischievous smile.

  You know what the glasses are for. Why are you asking me?

  I can’t say that.

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  “You know those migraines I’ve been complaining about on and off for years? They’re for that to help filter out the light so that it’s not bothering me as much.” I say, mostly not lying. I haven’t gotten a migraine since I got super powers, but I originally bought sunglasses for that exact purpose.

  “Well, if you’re wearing glasses to let everyone see your hand, you’re definitely completely ready to play cards and lose.” Reyna sighs, though she doesn’t seem to upset at another option falling away.

  It makes the odds of party console games significantly higher, which would mean she wins, though.

  Hard to be disparaged if you are getting exactly what you want out of a situation now, isn’t it?

  “How about this?” Ben offers, holding up a black box that I immediately recognize.

  Definitely one of my favorite card games to play. Though it’s incredibly hard to read out all the cards while keeping a neutral face.

  Who am I kidding? I’m probably not going to read anything without breaking down into laughter.

  “We could watch a movie?” I offer since nobody seems to make any progress in the whole deciding what we want to do game.

  “Nah, what’s the point of playing a game and hanging out if we can’t shoot the shit?” Amelia waves off.

  “Alright.” Caleb says clapping his hands together to bring order to our chaos. “How about we cross off the ttrpg for that reason as well? We want to talk and hang out, not rp characters we didn’t even get the chance to put together.” He says, earning a selection of nods from everyone.

  “Let’s do the party games.” Ben offers, putting away his box of laughter inducing chaos.

  Thank god. They were going to make me read all of the cards or something like that, and it would have been an absolute nightmare.

  “I call the silver one!” Reyna calls, snatching the silver controller from the collection before putting the rest on the table for the free for all.

  After a not so hectic battle in which I got the last one left since it was the farthest away, I end up with the arctic camo one.

  “Just the usual or something else?” I say, connecting my controller and moving over to the games folder and flicking through it, looking for which one we might want to do.

  “This time I’m going to get a fucking star.” Reyna says, answering my question with more words than may have been strictly necessary. To be fair, though, she got royally screwed last time we played.

  “Get a star or keep the star?” Ben asks, settling back down in his chair just before he gets kicked in response.

  “Alright, we here for one long game or a bunch of shorter ones?” I say, moving to the game mode selection as I use my free hand to grab myself my drink.

  “I want a long one.” Amelia jumps in, grabbing herself a beer before settling back into her seat.

  “Long one is good by me,” Caleb agrees.

  “Can do.” I agree selecting the game before finally releasing all of us to choose our characters where we play everyone’s favorite game of do you pick your own favorite character because they’re your favorite or do you pick someone else's favorite because it’ll be hilarious to piss them off.

  Thankfully, everyone remains cordial for now as everyone’s playing, if memory serves me right, their favorite character.

  “Come on, big money, no whammies.” Amelia shouts as she rolls the ever important dice to determine her turn in the order. “Damn it!” She wails after rolling a two.

  “Sucks to be you!” Reyna laughs before rolling a three.

  “Ha!” Amelia laughs.

  “Still better than you buzz off!”

  Ben rolls a four, revealing that this video game can count from two to four, which is an impressive skill.

  I decide to not say anything to be the bigger person when it comes to the law of rngesus so that he will not screw me over.

  I roll a one.

  “As the best among you…” Ben trails off to watch Caleb roll. “As the best among you, I shall go first. You may now witness how you’re supposed to actually roll the dice.”

  The chant of roll a one echoes through the room and thank the stars above Ben in fact rolls a one and makes a staggering step forward.

  Moments like these are the best.

  I’m going to focus on figuring out how to contain my mind. This map is absolutely infuriating sometimes. Being able to see what everyone is doing is kind of painful.

  Not painful, but. It’s hard to process everything going on in this moment. I am at least figuring out how to sleep without looking around.

  I take a drink as I stare down at my feet, trying to focus on my normal senses.

  Maybe my phasing is growing as well, but my mental map has certainly improved.

  The details are becoming a lot clearer, and the range is definitely extending. Which if it continues at that pace, I’m going to need to figure out a way to turn my power off!

  I close my eyes before taking off the shades and pressing my palms against my eyes with a good amount of force.

  “You do know that no matter how much you can put colors into your vision and see other dimensions doesn’t mean that you can see one where you win,” Caleb points out.

  “Yeah, I know. I’m just more than tired.” I say, laughing. This time I make sure to shut my eyes before I remove my hands and then put the shades back on.

  “Have you considered actually sleeping, dude?”

  “Sleep is for the well adjusted and functional, so I’m unfortunately not qualified.” I snort before grabbing another handful of chips off of the table.

  I pull a knee to my chest wondering if I’m doing the right thing not telling them; I am a super?

  There’s a lot of horror stories where people lose friends and family because their identities are known. But all of those stories are about heroes.

  I’m not a hero, though. I’m just a guy with powers. And yet I still haven’t told anyone besides Amelia.

  I wince at remembering Amelia knows not that I’m upset, that she knows I’m glad someone knows about it. But that means I owe her a scouting mission to figure something out about the lab so she can report it in.

  I have a couple of days before I’m going to get in trouble for not doing it, but at least for right now I’m good.

  But before I do something crazy, like sneaking into an evil scientist's base and looking to see what all I can research and scout, I want to get a little familiar with my powers.

  The victor of the first round is crowned with Reyna and with great annoyance the consensus is to go at it again!

  If at first I don’t win at party games, try again while almost certainly failing again. My luck is abysmal, so the dice rolls are not on my side.

  Though I don’t really care about winning.

  “Ben Caleb, you two are going to that study group at the library tonight, right?” I ask after my phone chirps to remind me what time it is.

  The two boys share a conspiratorial glance that makes me think that they’re definitely not just going to be studying, but I’m going to believe them. No reason to believe my friends are lying to me.

  Thankfully, my birthday is not anytime soon, so they can’t be planning a surprise for me. At least it shouldn’t be a surprise aimed at me.

  “Yup.” Ben nods.

  Caleb gives me a thumbs up.

  “You’re still good to drive me home, right?” Reyna asks, looking at me with hopeful eyes as she reaches to grab another beer.

  “Yup, you don’t have to worry about anything.” I promise, giving her a thumbs up.

  I idly consider to myself if alcohol still affects me the same way that it used to, but I put that thought aside and focus on being present at the moment.

  Many rounds of party games later and with my food supply completely depleted, the night is slowly winding down to the end.

  I’m feeling good about today. I’ve been able to hang out with my friends and yeah, I’m feeling way better about everything now.

  As the night winds down, I can feel myself getting a little restless. It’s not that I want my friends to go, per se, but I really want to be left alone at this point. I just want to have some time and space to myself.

  Taking a glance, I’m glad to see that everyone else seems to be more or less on the same page.

  The game has been left to its own devices for who knows how long and we’re all quietly taking the chance to enjoy everyone’s company.

  It makes me feel safe.

  Pulling out my phone, I decide to take the chance to read to myself for a bit, wanting to bask in the presence of my family.

  I am going to tell them, eventually. After the lab is behind me, I think. I need some time and space to figure everything out first and I think that’s okay for me to take that time.

  “I’m going to get going. I want my bed,” Amelia jokes, standing up and marking herself as the first of us capable of dragging ourselves away from the moment.

  Though, as everyone still has plans, I doubt that she’s going to be the last one to leave.

  And far more likely to be the signal that convinces everyone else to get off our butts and get back to doing what we’re supposed to.

  “Alright you mooks unless you want to be late to your studying or you want to help me clean. That probably means you’re going to get going to, right?” I ask Caleb and Ben the moment the door is closed.

  “Nope.”

  “Definitely leaving.” Caleb agrees, standing up as the two pick their way across the room to leave.

  They talk about their most recent college class but it sounds forced and honestly I think they’re planning a surprise something and just trying to keep the illusion up.

  “And now there are two.” Reyna muses propping her feet on the coffee table as she reads some more.

  “You good if I clean up a bit before I drive you?” I hum as I stand up and begin ?putting away all the food.

  “Take all the time you need.”

  I nod gratefully before putting on some soft music and working to make a dent in all of the chores I need to do.

  “Alright Reyna, let’s get you home.” I nod to her as we make our way to the door.

  “You actually good, Jason?” She asks as soon as we’re outside of my apartment. “You just have seemed a little off. Been texting weird.”

  “Texting weird?” I ask, resisting the urge to laugh.

  “Yup.”

  “Are you sure that’s not drunk brain talking?” I tease, opening the door for her.

  “Jason.” She warns.

  “I’m fine. You know how it is. As soon as you feel like you’ve figured everything out, life needs to hit you upside the head and make sure you have no idea.” I say, definitely deflecting to the best of my ability.

  “You know you can talk to us, right? You don’t need to keep it all bottled in.” She says, getting into my car and putting on her seatbelt.

  “I well, I’m not sure.” I admit before closing the door.

  Part of me wishes I pull off my sunglasses and show them all.

  But I can’t bring myself to.

  I really wish that I hadn’t shown Amelia if I’m going to be honest with myself.

  This is my burden to bear, and I really don’t want to let anyone else bear it. Though that doesn’t mean I’m going to lie to Amelia about what I find when I’m scouting everything.

  The lab needs to be stopped and I’m going to do everything I can to make sure that they are stopped.

  Well…

  Not everything.

  But I’m going to get as much info as I can.

  “Do you want to go see the new Valiant movie coming out next week?” Reyna asks, changing the subject away from my current failures of bottling everything up.

  “I shouldn’t have anything super important coming up, I don’t think.” I say after a moment of consideration.