I sit on the couch and watch TV. More and more kids are getting superpowers. It's getting pretty late though, and mom wants me to go to bed even though I won't be going to school tomorrow. So I stand up and go put my pajamas on. It looks like Wolverine's old suit, before he vanished. I walk back out of my room and go to my mom's.

"Going to sleep Ace?" She asks. I nod with a yawn.

"Night ma." I say and kiss her cheek. She kisses mine and I walk back to my room. I scratch my back one more time before laying down and going to sleep for the night.

I wake up the next morning with a sore feeling on my back this time. Like someone pinched all of my muscles for twelve hours. I groan and roll over, desperately trying to relax those muscles. More specifically my shoulder blades. Thank God I got suspended yesterday. I don't think I can get up.

Mom walks in and knocks on my door. "Come in." I say and she opens it.

"Hey..." she looks at my back. "Are you ok?"

"Yeah, my back just feels like it's being crushed on either side of my body and pushing to my shoulder blades."

"I can try to massage it out if you want me to kiddo." She says.

"Please." I reply. Mom walks over, sits on my bed, then starts putting light pressure on the muscles by my shoulder blades. "Oooooooow." I groan.

"I can take you to get this looked at." She suggests.

"I'll be fine, I promise."

"Alright. Let me know if you need to be checked out." Mom says and continues rubbing circles in my back. It hurts, but its slowly loosening, for the most part. It still feels like boulders crushing my shoulder blades, but I think I'll live. After a while I tell mom that I feel better, even though I don't, because she needs to get her stuff done. I don't want to take up too much of her time. I rub at the back of my head and feel strange pricks brush across my fingers.

What the heck was that? I scratch at it lightly. It feels a little like how I'd imagine a cactus to feel like, stiff and pointy. I move my hand back to find a large clump of hair tangler around my hand. What the? I'm twelve, I'm not supposed to lose my hair until I'm at LEAST forty-five.

What is happening to me? I scratch at the itchy prickles on the back of my head, to find that it feels strange, but not bad. I keep lightly scratching the area, gently pulling off the dead skin layer over the bumps. The itch is gone by the time I stop scratching dead skin off. The prickles feel like hard hair. They bend a little when I brush my fingers across them with pressure.

Maybe this happens to boys my age? I dunno. I run my hands through my hair and find that the bumps are only on the bottom part of the back of my head, the back of my neck, and my shoulders. Not so bad. I can get all that off in the shower. I force myself up, grab a back brush, and some body wash before walking into the bathroom and shutting the door.

I make the shower as hot as I can physically handle, then hop in. I take the brush and start scratching at the dead skin. It feels amazing! The hot water loosens my back muscles farther and the brush massages areas mom couldn't do because of the bone. I put down the brush and pick up the shampoo and massage the back of my head with it. It feels great as I get the rest of the dead skin I missed off it. I rinse out my hair and step out of the shower.

I shake to dry myself out, then put my clothes back on. I roll my shoulders and walk out. Mom already left for the store I think. I grab a bowl of cereal and sit down at the table to eat it. In the shower, the rest of the hair in the bumpy spot on the back of my head fell out. But I don't think that the hair is gone for good. I mean, stuff is growing back there.

I keep eating and rub the now empty spot on the back of my head. It feels really good to run my hand over the prickles. I finish up, drink the milk, then rinse out the bowl and put it in the sink. Then I pull up YouTube and look for any more videos of Angel. I see some sort of fighting ring channel and I look at it confused.

I click on it and... hold up that blonde guy looks familiar. I click on the video and start watching. Hooooly shit that's Angel. I stare at it as I watch Angel beat the living hell out of other mutants. What... what happened to him?

I heard mom walk back in and I quickly shut the video off.

"Hey kiddo, feel better?" She asks.

"Yeah. I took a hot shower. It helped loosen the muscles in my back. The weirdest thing happened though." I reply. I turn around and lift my hair up to show her the prickly spot. She looks at it in confusion and brushes her fingers across it. She gasps. "What? What is it?"

"Don't worry about it kiddo. I just need to give you a haircut." She says. "Come on" she grabs clippers and sits me down in a chair. She grabbed a towel and put it around my neck. Then she began to buzz the back and sides of my head. Then she shaped my hair into a short, layered cut. Not a whole lot of my hair was buzzed, but it does feel significantly lighter.