Snippet #1702828

Lucas sat on his bed, his knees drawn up to his chest, his headphones firmly in place as usual, blasting the music he liked as they always did. He could still hear though, not physically hear of course, the music was too loud for that, but hear...and he could hear his parents arguing, every thought...Not that they had to hide that of course: why keep secrets when your son can read your mind like a child's picture book? That was Lucas' curse: some cosmic screw-up had decided to dump the whole damn psychic package on him, then leave him without an instruction manual...Telekinesis, Clairvoiance and, this was the killer, Mind-reading...not just when he wanted to, that would have been too easy, but all the time, every thought that every human had, pouring into his head every day of his whole damned life...let's just say that his headphones weren't just a fashion statement: without them, the noise was even louder...he knew he was being rude, but he listened in to his parent's thoughts, just to investigate whether they were arguing about something other than their messed-up son, i.e. him...no such luck...

He can't just stay in his room his whole life, what about school? Or friends? What about getting a job?his father, a staunch believer that Lucas was just acting out, although he could never quite shake the feeling that there was something seriously wrong with his son...but nothing that couldn't be fixed by actually being social every once in a while...
You know how much it hurts him to be outside, and he told me the other day that he wanted to quit school, because of his...odd little quirk...he's still our son, Jake, we can work something out that can help him..., his mother was a little more understanding of his plight, but the worry in her mind always made Lucas feel guilty that he was burdening his parents in this way...even though he had no control of his 'quirk', as his mom had put it...

He didn't want to listen anymore, so Lucas turned the volume of his music up even further, all but drowning out the thoughts around him, and he lay back, running a thin, pale hand though his dark hair, his charcoal-coloured eyes drifting closed. He wasn't asleep, he rarely did since the noise kept him awake most nights, he was simply thinking, his own thoughts this time, no one else was interfering this time...he hoped...