It always started the same way.
Darkness. Then the clatter of metal. Tools sliding across concrete. The slow hum of a machine winding to life.
Somewhere, someone called his name—John, no, not John—but the voice was distant, submerged in fog. He saw hands—his hands, older, worn, scarred—tightening a bolt on a rusted manifold, oil dripping like black ink onto the floor. And always, always, the final image: a woman's face, out of focus, smiling with tired, loving eyes as she reached toward him.
Then the world pulled him back.
John Cruz opened his eyes to the dull, water-stained ceiling of his foster home in Queens.
The room smelled like mildew and old laundry. A mattress without sheets lay on the floor, his clothes folded neatly on top. It was quiet—too quiet for a house with four other kids and two overstressed guardians. But they knew better than to wake him. John didn't yell. Didn't scream. Didn't talk much at all. But everyone understood: when John woke from a dream, give him space.
It was his eighteenth birthday.
Not that it mattered.
No one knocked. No cake. No awkward hugs or forced smiles. Just the thud of footsteps down the hallway and a door closing somewhere.
John sat up, rubbing his face. He didn't remember much from before the age of six, but that dream—it was always the same. A life not his. Knowledge he'd never learned. He could take apart an engine by the time he was eight. Could solder pipes, reroute wiring, build basic security systems. None of it made sense. But he knew it all.
And it didn't matter. Not in the system.
School was a rotating door of mistrust and suspicion. Teachers asked questions he couldn't answer. Students smelled his difference and either challenged or ignored him. By fourteen, he'd made a choice—no more school. No more bouncing from one fake place to another.
Instead, he learned to fight.
The gym was hidden behind a shuttered electronics store on 34th Street. The owner, Luis—a retired boxer with a crooked jaw and a heart full of steel—had taken one look at John when he walked in, skinny and silent, and handed him gloves.
"No fighting for show," Luis had said. "This is for survival."
And John listened.
He trained in silence. Respected the mat. Practiced defense until it became instinct. His body changed—hardened. His reflexes, quickened by some unknown echo of a past life, adapted fast. By sixteen, he could spar with anyone in the gym. But he never entered tournaments. Never tried to shine.
He just needed to know he could stand if the world tried to knock him down again.
That morning, the letter arrived.
A lawyer's name John didn't recognize. A stamp from Manhattan. He opened it slowly, hands steady despite the flutter in his chest. Inside was a thick envelope with a single-page letter:
To Mr. John Cruz,
We regret the long delay in contacting you. Due to a technical error, documents belonging to the estate of your parents—Jonathan Cruz Sr. and Althea Domingo Cruz—were only recently recovered and verified.
As the last legal heir and now of age, you are entitled to full ownership of the Cruz Family Property located at 1432 9th Avenue, New York, NY.
The property, a three-story commercial/residential building, has remained unclaimed and secured under city management.
Enclosed: deed, keys, and photo identification.
Should you require legal representation, our office is open...
John stopped reading. His eyes had locked onto the photograph that fell out. Two people stood in front of a worn three-story building. A woman with long black hair and a man in a flannel shirt. Their hands were interlocked. They were smiling.
He didn't remember them.
But something in his chest ached like he should have.
He left that afternoon.
New York in early fall carried the edge of cold, a whisper of winter coming. The subway rattled beneath the city like a half-forgotten heartbeat. John stood, keys in hand, as the car rocked. No one looked at him. Everyone minded their own business.
On the platform, a child clutched a Spider-Man plushie. News headlines showed flickering footage of blue-skinned mutants being chased by angry crowds. A homeless man screamed on the corner about the "end times," shouting names like "Magneto" and "Sentinels" with spit flying.
John walked past it all.
The building was nestled between a Dominican bakery and an old tailor's shop. The bodega's sign still hung, sun-faded and cracked, its windows boarded up. Above it, the upper floors showed signs of life long since faded—dusty curtains, peeling paint, rusted iron balconies.
John stepped up and slid the key into the lock.
It turned.
The door groaned as it opened, revealing shadows and stale air. Dust swirled in the late afternoon light, cutting through slits in the boarded-up windows. He stepped inside.
Wooden floors creaked under his boots. Old shelves still lined the walls. A cash register, long dead, sat beneath a sheet. It was all untouched, like time had simply stopped.
He moved through the building floor by floor. The second level had once been a living space. He found a kitchen with cracked tiles, a living room with broken furniture, a small bedroom with a child-sized mattress.
The third floor held a surprise: a workbench.
Dust-covered tools. Rusted shelves. A single, flickering overhead bulb that sputtered to life when he flipped the switch.
It felt… familiar.
His hands brushed a toolbox, and without thinking, he opened it. Wrenches. Wire. Screws. A tiny mechanical toy car—half-disassembled, its gears exposed.
He sat.
For the first time in years, John Cruz felt something other than emptiness.
He belonged here.
He spent the night cleaning.
Sweat streaked his brow as he scrubbed the kitchen. He opened windows to air out the place. Collected garbage into bags. Repaired broken locks. His body moved on instinct, but his mind stayed quiet—absorbing, remembering.
He slept on the second floor, wrapped in an old blanket he found in a hallway closet. Rain tapped the windows. Somewhere outside, sirens wailed.
Morning came with a new chaos.
He was out front, locking the door behind him, when a commotion caught his eye.
A group of teens—five or six— aged around 14-15 chased a girl, with small stature, down the street. She moved fast, but not fast enough. They shouted things John had heard before: "Freak!" "Mutie trash!"
She turned a corner and tripped.
John was already moving.
He stepped between them just as the first boy lunged. The punch came fast—wild, angry—but John was faster. He sidestepped, caught the kid's wrist, twisted, and dropped him with a clean elbow to the ribs. The others froze.
"Walk away," John said quietly.
They hesitated. Then scattered like smoke.
The girl stared at him, eyes wide, breathing hard. Her hair as glowing faintly like that of an Aurora's.
"I didn't mean to—" she stammered.
"I know."
She looked like she might cry, but didn't. Instead, she ran.
John watched her disappear into the crowd.
The city moved on around him, uncaring.
But for the first time, he didn't feel like a ghost in it.
That night, he stood on the rooftop of his building. The skyline stretched around him—neon and steel, stars barely visible through the haze. Somewhere out there, people could fly. Shoot lasers from their eyes. Lift buildings. Stop bullets.
He was just a man. Alone.
But not broken.
He looked down at the keys in his hand, then to the rooftop across the street where pigeons nested.
This was his city.
His building.
His beginning.
Whatever the world had planned—mutants, heroes, villains, gods—John Cruz had found his ground.
And he would not be moved.