He was disoriented, and not because he had used his power. No, he hated this kind more than anything else. The doctors told him he had gotten a pretty bad concussion, which tracked with how much the stooges targeted his head. Felix pulled the blanket covering him up to his chin, enjoying the small comfort that it brought.
The rest of the hospital room was as one would imagine. A TV occupied the far wall, and a bouquet of flowers occupied a vase by the windowsill. Briefly, Felix thought about who would have left them, and he settled on Christina. She'd have been notified by the hospital since she was his emergency contact. Felix's parents lived out in the country, so it was pointless to have them in the system for that.
Reaching for the remote, Felix decided that he'd make the most of his stay in the hospital. If he was paying through the nose for a comfortable blanket and a completely uncomfortable bed, he might as well make them pay for cable. He wondered if he might be on the news. After all, it had been a pretty violent altercation.
The reporters had other things to worry about. Felix sat up in his bed, enraptured by what the TV showed. There was a guy, flying. No, not like in a plane. He was levitating mid-air, and doing all sorts of acrobatic tricks. Were there others with powers that no one knew about like him?
But then what made now a good time to come out to the public about them? Felix couldn't think of anything. The lady at the news desk was talking. Felix raised the volume up to fifty percent… how quiet were hospital TVs?
"This just in, new videos are being uploaded online showing people demonstrate superhuman abilities that we've never seen before. Are the Seven no longer just seven, Bill?" she turned to a well-dressed man sitting next to her.
"It certainly seems that way, Rebecca. Obviously, these guys look to be completely new to their powers. We just saw that one video of a man burning his house down on accident. That raises the question of why so many people developed superpowers in the past twenty-four hours," he explained, his voice sounding authoritative and confident, the complete antithesis to how Felix felt.
Excitement and terror warred within himself. Excitement for all the superheroes that would arise because of this, and terror for all those that would suffer at the hands of those with less than good motives.
"The Seven have called a summit, and they are presently discussing the ramifications of this development. Stay tuned, and at 2:00 we'll hear from them at their joint press conference," the woman, Rebecca, said. The news turned to commercials, and the images of superhumans faded away. As soon as they did, someone began knocking at his door.
"Come in!" Felix called out. Christina would be at work, so she wouldn't be visiting in the middle of the day. Without any of his friends knowing what had happened last night, there was no way they would randomly show up at the hospital. Who was at the door? Maybe his parents?
It wasn't. A short man with unkempt golden hair and a hospital gown of his own entered the room. He beamed at Felix before stopping to introduce himself. "I'm Kyle Jacobs. I'm the one you saved last night," he explained. Now that Kyle said it, he did resemble the shadow on the ground, at least in shape and size. "I wanted to thank you for what you did for me."
Felix shook his head. "Don't worry about it. I'm Felix Hale, nice to meet you." He held out his hand, and Kyle shook it vigorously. Felix winced. "Easy, easy."
Kyle jumped backwards. "Oh my god, I'm so sorry! Of course!" Worry blossomed on his face, wiping the radiant smile away. With a smile, Felix shrugged off the apology. Instead, he opted for small talk.
"What do you make of the new supers?" Felix asked, nodding towards the TV.
"The what?"
"Did you not see the news in the past four hours? It's all they've been talking about," Felix watched as the confusion in Kyle's face evaporated.
"Oh, people like you?"
Time stopped. Well, not literally, but it felt like it did. Felix could have heard a single pin drop, even over the cacophony his heart was making. He looked up with a panicked expression only to see the mirth in Kyle's eyes.
"How did you know?" he whispered.
Kyle laughed, his voice echoing off the walls in the small room. "Well, I didn't know for sure until you told me. You're pretty new to this, aren't you?"
Felix cursed, much to the amusement of Kyle. "Yeah, I am."
Kyle paced around the bed, as if he were a professor about to conduct a lecture. And for what it was worth, that's exactly what he did. "To be fair, I wouldn't have ever drawn that connection if it weren't for all the stuff about the superhumans – you called them supers – on the news. You walked into the alley shaking; you were that terrified. Then, all of a sudden, you pounce on this man and grab his knife from within his jacket. There was no way you could have known about the knife, not unless you were special ops or something," Kyle paused, looking Felix up and down.
"And you don't look like special ops. That leaves you as one of three things: a kid who's spent a significant amount of time on the street, someone with bipolar disorder, or a bona-fide superhero. You don't look or act like either of the former, so I figured I'd guess the latter first. And what do you know, I was right."
Felix's mouth hung open in amazement. In the pitch-black darkness, with only slivers of moonlight to illuminate the alley, Kyle had managed to pick up that much information while having people step on his head. "Who are you, Sherlock?"
Wiggling his thick eyebrows, Kyle crossed his arms and said, "I might just be really smart."
Well, he definitely was observant, at the very least. That still landed Felix in a tight spot; he hadn't planned on revealing his abilities to anyone for quite some time, if at all. And now a complete stranger knew about them.