Beacon of Hope



Chapter Two

DISCLAIMER :: This fanfiction is based on Superman from DC Comics. All rights reserved. Art by CWBlaine on Deviant Art.
Author's note: Perhaps it is the start of a new collaborative universe or a standalone project for myself. I don't know, yet.

(( Chapter Theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_MlBCb9-m8 ))

The trip to the hospital was unsettlingly quiet and filled with tension. Laura insisted we take her vehicle and I was relegated to the passenger seat. The girls were in the back. A few times I glanced toward Olivia and she wouldn’t even look at me. A pit had formed in my stomach and a frog lodged itself in my throat. Many thoughts ran through my mind, none of them much intelligible. Sparks of emotion, really. Nobody said a word as my wife’s SUV weaved through the street grid toward her place of employment.

One thing I really noticed before we climbed into the car was that, beyond my clothes being uncomfortably loose, I wasn’t much taller than Laura or Hannah. At six-foot-two, I should be much taller than either my wife, who stands five-foot-nine, or my eldest daughter, who stands five-foot-eight. Walking to the car, it seemed I was roughly the same height as my wife and just a little taller than Hannah. There were other oddities such as: how my body felt, how it moved, and sensations in places there shouldn’t be any or where there should be. About a mile from the hospital, curiosity got the better of me and I flipped the sun visor down. Opening the lid on the vanity mirror, I caught my first glimpse at myself.

Wavy, dark chocolate hair draped from my head to just below my shoulders. There were no wrinkles on my face whatsoever. Overall, my skin seemed to have lightened a few shades and gained a youthful sheen. My eyes seemed to be a striking and vibrant shade of blue, which was close to how I remember them in my youth. My nose seemed smaller and my lips a little more plump. Examining myself, I tilted the mirror downward a bit more. My neck was as smooth as my wife’s or my daughters’. Looking a little further down, the mirror showed me two prominent fleshy mounds on my chest that could only be referred to as one thing. Startled, I closed the lid on the vanity mirror and flipped the sun visor back up.

“Honey, I have breasts…” I announced through quick breaths.

“Noticed that at the house, Chris.” Laura stated, keeping her eyes on the road.

“...and I look like a child.” I added.

“You look like me, Dad… except you… except like a girl.” Hannah stumbled through confirming.

Laura didn’t respond. She pulled into the parking lot of the hospital and prepared to leave the vehicle. “Enough stating the obvious, everyone. Let’s go.”

I could plainly tell that she was confused and frightened. We all filtered out of the car and toward the emergency department without another word. Olivia opted to hold Hannah’s hand rather than mine like she typically might. Deciding not to focus on it, I scanned our surroundings and found several ambulances near the entrance. It was perfectly clear this might be the case when I was watching the news at the house.

The headache came back. The crescendo was much faster than before. My hands flew to my head and I fell to my knees. In the next moment, a red filter applied itself to my vision as if it were a slow shutter until it closed in the middle. Panicked, I looked all around me. The moment my eyes fell on one of the concrete pillars outside the building, my eyeballs felt hot as if I had a fever. I watched as it seemed to be impacted by something. Adversely, my headache disappeared as I watched a localized blast impact the pillar like a large-calibur bullet. I quickly closed my eyes and held them shut, deducing that I must be causing the damage.

As I struggled to keep my eyes closed, Madison exclaimed, “Fucking LASER EYES?! What the shit, Dad?!”

“Madison! Watch your language!” My wife and I chorused in scolding her.

“Looked more like a red-orange phaser to me,” Hannah quipped.

The heat finally left my eyes and I opened them cautiously. With the world looking the same as it always does, I lowered my hands and turned to the others. “Let’s get inside and find out what’s going on.”

No one objected.

Through the doors, our first stop was the security station. The rent-a-cop behind the desk checked everyone in but me and gave them little identification stickers. Further in, we reached the registration desk. The person behind a computer looked up at us and saw me as the only one without a visitor sticker.

“What seems to be the issue, folks?” She asked.

I spoke up. “Something really strange happened to me and I need to get checked out.”

“Gonna have to give me more than that, sweetie. What happened?”

“Well…” I began.

Laura stepped forward. “Until about ten minutes ago, this person was my husband, Christopher Kent.”

Some of the nurses behind the counter looked over at us and one recognized my wife. “Laura? Didn’t you get off shift about half an hour ago?”

Laura nodded. “I did. Can we just get checked in so somebody can take a look at Chris and figure out what happened?”

The nurse pointed at me. “THAT is your husband? The teenager that’s a dead ringer for one of your kids?”

I got a little angry at this point and raised my voice. “Can we just can it and get me checked in, please?! This is weird enough without the scrutiny, thanks!” I took a quick breath to calm down. As I exhaled quickly, frost formed on the plexiglass dividing the waiting area from the staff area, a protective measure from the pandemic. “Christopher Kent. Date of birth: April 18, 1980.”

I could hear my daughters gasping in the background. Madison leaned over and whispered to Hannah thinking I couldn’t hear. “You thinking what I’m thinking?” She waited for a non-verbal response I couldn’t see. Once she got it, she responded, “It’s giving Superman.”

Rolling my eyes, I simply extended my arm awaiting the inevitable hospital bracelet. Laura finished relaying our address, my phone number, confirming herself as the emergency contact, and confirming our insurance information. Typical hospital things. Finally, I felt the bracelet being wrapped around then fastened to my arm. We turned and did our best to find a spot to sit together. It wasn’t easy with the number of patients around. It had been a weird day, so more than the usual amount of weird things happened that sent people to the hospital emergency room waiting area.

We sat there for HOURS while we waited. It was clear I wasn’t actually hurt, so I was definitely not a priority. That suited me just fine because it was definitely my feeling that the people actually hurting should be seen first. Comparatively, I’m just having a weird day. Hannah and Madison messed around on their phones. Laura had brought a tablet for Olivia. After a while, I stood up and started pacing.

The girls were all born over at Rush Oak Park Hospital about twenty miles from here. We don’t go to hospitals much. I was accustomed to the surroundings at ROPH. I was not as familiar with the interior of Northwest Community, where we had gone and Laura works. The difference in my surroundings was what was affecting me. Generally, everything is a little further away than it was at that time. The tops of doors seemed a little higher. The chairs seemed a little taller. It wasn’t just the comparative heights between myself and my family. It was such a slight difference. The only comparative concept is an “uncanny valley” in art or film: where a face looks almost human but our brains know it isn’t, subconsciously, so it looks weird to our conscious minds. That’s what I was feeling about the world around me: the uncanny valley.

At one point, I stopped to stare at a television screen while the news was on. It was one of the stations I know to be a little more loose with the truth, but I was looking for those kernels of truth. It was all still much the same. Nobody knows what exactly happened. Scientists are baffled. There have been some casualties and fatalities linked to car crashes all across the United States. No plane crashes but massive delays. The airlines have been delayed four to six hours, they speculate. The thing that caught my eye was isolated reports of people with certain… abilities. In the exact words of the commentator: powers like people in comic books or comic book movies. Could that be what’s happening to me?

I’ve read several comics in my day and seen a few movies on the big screen about superheroes. In 2025, who hasn’t? They’re fantasy, though. Some are science fiction, but that’s basically the same genre in a round about way. They’re not real. Like the gods, monsters, heroes, and villains from antiquity we study in literature classes, it’s all myth with a deeper meaning. They teach lessons as well as entertain people. The things they can do are larger than life. They were never meant for the real world.

On a whim, I returned to sitting with my family. Each of them looked bored, except for Laura who seemed to have the weight of the world behind her eyes. Olivia was slumped against her refusing to make eye contact with me. Letting out a sigh, I turned to the teenagers.

“What did you mean by ‘It’s giving Superman’, Madison?” I asked cordially. The pitch of my voice was still confounding me.

She leaned forward from behind her sister to look at me as we were all sitting in a line with Laura and Olivia opposite us. “You heard that?” She asked, an eyebrow raised.

I closed my eyes and took in a breath. “Yes, Madison, I heard you.”

She shook her head and rolled her eyes. “There’s another one.”

“Another one what?”

Hannah scoffed. “Madi, don’t.”

Madison sneered at her sister. “He’s gonna figure it out eventually.” She then turned to me. “Okay, so… remember back at home when you said all you could see was skeletons? Did you mean that literally?”

That creepy image came back to my mind and my eyes widened in response. “Unfortunately, yes. There was this blue filter over my eyes. There were all kinds of outlines of the things in our house. I could see the electronic structure of the TV. When I looked at all of you, all I could see was the outlines of your bodies… and your skeletons.”

“So, x-ray vision.” Madison concluded. “Also, when you moved from the couch to the bay window, none of us saw you move. It was REALLY fast. Then, you shot these beams out of your eyes that took out a chunk of that pillar outside. When we got here, you frosted over the plastic spit barrier at the check-in desk. Just after that, you heard me whisper to Hannah.”

My brow furrowed at her. “What are you saying?”

“Your power set, Dad.” She counted on her fingers as she listed things off. “X-ray vision, super hearing, super speed, heat vision, and frost breath. If we find out you’re super strong, basically invulnerable, and you can fly, you’re basically Superman.”

Hannah joined in. “Normally, I’d call my sister an unhinged, cringe-worthy nerd but she’s got a point. Some weird stuff is going on today. Especially with you, Dad.”

Letting out a sigh, I allowed my head to fall while closing my eyes. “No kidding.” Taking a large breath, I continued. “The reason I asked is because I was watching the news on the TV over there. The desk anchor was reporting about some people actually having powers, like in the comic books or in the movies. Unsubstantiated, of course.”

“What’s ‘unsubstantiated’?” Hannah asked.

“In the news business, it means they’ve heard some rumors but haven’t been able to collect enough sources to report it as fact.” I rolled my eyes. “In the rush to be first to report on something, they’re forgetting to tell the irrefutable truth.”

Laura finally joined the conversation by rolling her eyes and responding, “The old ‘some people are saying’ that some stations get away with.”

I nodded in her direction. “Exactly. Perversion of the news, if you ask me.”

She managed a smile in my direction. “My husband: the news man with integrity.”

“Darn tootin’ I am.”

My teenage daughters slapped their faces with their palms. Hannah spoke for both of them. “Geezus, Dad. You can be so corny, sometimes.”

Olivia finally spoke, looking up at Laura. “Mom, why does Daddy look like Hannah?” Her eyes then finally landed on me.

“We don’t know, yet, honey. That’s what the doctors are going to figure out.”

As if on cue, one of the nurses approached us. “Hello. Are you folks the Kents?”

Laura turns to her. “We are… ?”

“Which one of you is Christopher?”

I held up my arm with the hospital band on it. “That would be me.” I may have to get used to the double-take she gave me at that moment.

The nurse led me to the triage room and set about taking my vitals. Laura and the girls waited just outside the room. She first put me on a scale with a ruler on it, getting my height and weight: five feet and ten inches tall, weighing in at one hundred and fifty three pounds. Last I checked, I was six feet and two inches tall while weighing about one hundred and eighty six pounds. In a matter of moments back in my living room at the house, I’d lost four inches of height and thirty-three pounds. That doesn’t take into account an apparent change of sex and return to youth. The other vitals such as blood pressure, heart rate, oxygen saturation, temperature, and breaths per minute were all within normal parameters.

After a heated discussion about not being seemingly sick or injured at all, I was finally escorted to an exam room with my family in tow. Once again, we had to wait a while for anyone to even come into the room to attend me. When they finally did, they were rather dismissive but cooperative. Nearly an hour passed before the doctor even came into the room. In his green scrubs, he looked utterly exhausted and a little confused when he walked in. He did that double-take in my direction.

“Am I in the wrong room? The chart is showing that there’s a forty-five year old man in here.” The doctor asked.

“You’re in the right room, doctor.” I sighed as I spoke. “I’m Christopher Kent.”

He blinked several times. “Wow… okay… I mean… you’re the third one this shift.”

“Third one what?”

“Mysterious, almost instantaneous sex change or age regression… or both.” The doctor announced before taking a strong breath. “Okay, we’ll get a full blood panel, some CTs, and a full MRI. I don’t know if we’ll be able to get any answers about how or why this happened. You’ll probably be here for a while. Are you okay with that?”

I turned to my wife. “Laura?”

She firmly nodded. “We need to know, Chris.”

My gaze turned back to the doctor. “Let’s do it, Doc.”

He simply nodded and got to work. I turned again toward my wife and kids. She looked worried still and they all looked tired and bored. My conscience would not allow me to inconvenience them for many more hours. A minute or two after the doctor left, a phlebotomist came into the room armed with needles and vials. She began to prepare my skin for the needle poke.

“Honey, maybe you should take the kids home. They look really bored and tired. I don’t want to feel like I’m forcing them to stay here or anything.” I stated toward Laura.

None of them responded at first and all of them looked at the arm the phlebotomist was trying to get a needle into. I turned to look and she’d already broken or bent three needles. She was trying one last time to put a needle in my arm. It wouldn’t penetrate. Instead, the needle bent under the force. The phlebotomist looked at me with surprised eyes.

“I can’t get a needle in. Your skin isn’t even indenting when I try.” She stated plainly.

Madison raspberried her lips. “Invulnerable.”

“Madison, don’t jump to conclusions.” I scolded her before turning back to the phlebotomist. “Has this ever happened before?”

She shook her head. “No. I’ve never bent or broken a needle against someone’s skin. This is too weird. I’m gonna talk to the doctor.”

“You tried your best. Thank you.” I softened my tone toward her, understanding the plight.

She shuffled her cart away with the bent and broken needles. I felt really bad for her. As soon as she left the room, Laura turned to me.

“Okay, Chris. I’m going to take the girls home. They have school in the morning.” She sighed. “I’ll get them settled in and come back.”

I nodded slowly. “Sounds like the best idea, honey.”

No one hugged me or gave me a kiss when they left. There’s never been a time in my life where a parting from my kids or my wife didn’t involve some sort of hug. Laura and I don’t part without a kiss good-bye. My heart sank as I watched them leave. Part of me longed for that connection but the other part understood that this entire situation must be just as weird for them as it was for me.

The next few hours crawled along like anyone that’s been in the hospital and subjected to such a vast battery of tests would experience. The staff had me strip out of my sweaty clothes and into a hospital gown. There was a moment that I marveled at how completely my body had changed. I’d seen very few naked women before Laura and I got together. This body seemed fairly standard fare. I didn’t dwell on the moment too long before slipping on the hospital gown and subjecting myself to whatever tests they deemed necessary. CT scans, x-rays, MRIs, a pelvic exam, and urinalysis were all conducted. I had empathy for my wife at the gynecologist before, but now I knew exactly what that was like. Laura came back after the CT scans and held my hand through the pelvic exam like I’ve done for her numerous times. They at least let us order some food since we were there so long.

After a couple hours more, the doctor finally came in to speak with Laura and I. It was a different doctor than we’d seen hours before. This one was a thirty-something woman that actually wore a lab coat over her scrubs. She came in with a clipboard that contained the chart information that had been gathered through the night.

“Okay, Mr. and Mrs. Kent. I’ve got good news and bad news, depending on your perspective,” She announced.

“Doctor, I’m a journalist. There’s no such thing as good news or bad news. There’s only objective truth. Please, proceed.” I stated.

“Well, that’s good at least.” She responded. “So, there’s nothing wrong with you, medically. No broken bones. No internal bleeding. We didn’t detect any pathogens in your urinalysis. We, apparently, can’t take any blood samples, so that’s not saying much.” She held the clipboard to her chest and took a quick breath. “As you no doubt already discovered from the pelvic exam, you are definitively female, Mr. Kent. MRI confirmed the presence of a female reproductive system with no trace of any male systems. Based on corroboration between the CTs, x-rays, and MRI, you seem to have anatomically become a young woman approximately seventeen years old. I have no explanation for you, other than that.”

“How is that possible? One minute, I’m a forty-five year old father of three and the next minute I’m my own daughter’s younger sister? It’s madness!” I exclaimed.

“I agree, Mr. Kent. If I knew how this happened, I’d be getting a letter from the Nobel Committee. Complete change of sex is something less complex organisms do every day, but not creatures as complex as humans. There’s no scientific precedent for age regression.”

Laura actually took my hand in comfort. “What are we supposed to do?”

The doctor shrugged. “I have no idea, Mrs. Kent. The only thing I do know is that we’re going to discharge you. There’s absolutely no medical reason to keep you. I suggest you go home and… I don’t know… adapt?”

Both Laura and I slumped. “Thank you, Doctor,” I sighed and moved to get off the gurney.

While getting myself dressed, Laura and I didn’t say a word. Neither of us were really prepared to face this new reality and “adapt”. Something quite profound had happened and a lot of things had changed. Worst was: there were no answers. Questions swirled around in my mind about what this meant for me, for Laura, and for my children. Yet again, there were no answers.

Laura accepted the discharge paperwork on my behalf and we shuffled out of the hospital. All I had on was the button-up shirt, boxers, slacks, and socks I’d worn home from the airport. They were stained with dried sweat and it smelt horrific. None of it really mattered. The chill of the forty-five degree weather didn’t even register. My feet walking on the hard surface of the sidewalk and parking lot on the way to the car didn’t even register in my mind. It was as if my entire body was as numb as my mind. I settled into the passenger seat of my wife’s SUV, buckled in, and just stared out the window watching the suburban landscape pass by. Neither Laura nor I said a word to each other on the way home.

Once home, I followed Laura into the house. It was fairly quiet. It seemed like the girls were all in bed sleeping. We ascended the stairs to our bedroom. Laura excused herself to the bathroom and closed the door, which was a new behavior to me. I stripped out of the sweaty clothes, deposited them into the hamper, and found a t-shirt and sweatpants combination. My usual choice of underwear was proven unnecessary, so I didn’t wear any.

Laura and I climbed into bed and turned off the lights without exchanging a single word.