Cassandra's Super Life

Chapter One: Upside Down

Cassandra lived a pretty normal life. Two parents a little brother who was annoying but not as bad as some she had heard about. She did really well in school and was a great student athlete. She even had been a cheerleader and was just days away from her first parent free date.
That is when her life was turn upside down and she would never be just normal again. She was only 15 years old when she had been hit by a speeding car. An accident that should have ended her life, or at the very least caused her serious injury, but that was not her fate.

No not her fate at all. The collision hurt but no more than if someone had ran into her. It did throw her about twenty feet down the road but the car was totally wasted. She remembered as everyone rushed to her side to see if she was ok some stayed behind to stare are the human sized dent in the front of the car. It caught her eyes as well as you could plainly see the outline of her legs in the bumper and hood of the car.

The ambulance rushed her to the hospital. While she had, had a few cut and scrapes, along with some bruises when they had left the scene, she was left with no visible injuries and only a slight soreness when they arrived. The doctors were in complete shock and ever her parents were amazed.

That had been her last day as a normal person. The next few days blurred together as doctor after doctor ran test after test on her with her parents blessing. As far as she was concerned she was tired of being messed with. And then after what seemed like a month to her but really was only a week a group of white coats came to visit her and her family.

   "Mr. and Mrs. Garrett" their leader began "my name is Dr. Benjamin Sullivan and we would like very much to talk with you and your daughter concerning her unique condition." He said this with a smile on his face but when the Garrett family heard the word "condition" a wave a fear stuck at their heart that was visible on their faces. Dr. Sullivan seeing the looks on each of the family members' faces quickly said "there is nothing to be fearful of. To be honest most of us believe it to be a very good thing."

Upon hearing that, the family seemed to relax a little. Everyone that is but Cassandra, she was not so sure yet. These people had poke and prodded her for a week with no answer. Seeing the look on his daughters face Mr. Garrett took her hand and smiled giving her hand a little squeeze making her feel a little better if only a little.

Mrs. Garrett asked the doctor to continue and he did. "Well normally Mrs. Garrett I would not be involved in day to day work in a hospital. Me and the fine people who came in with me are specialist who normally analyze data and do research on changes and variations in the human genome." The family each looked at one another not understanding what this had to do with anything. Once again Dr. Sullivan noticed this and went to answer this look. "You see when Cassandra was rushed here after her accident it was with much relief to those in this hospital that she was fine but still a few things must be done to make sure that she was really ok. You may not be aware of this but upon arrival they attempted to draw blood and did not have very much luck with the normal gauge needles. The reason being that the smaller needles could not break her skin, it took needles much shaper and much stronger to finally draw the blood needed." Again the family looked confused. Every eye of her family fell on Cassandra making her feel as though maybe she had done something wrong. The doctor continued "This is a strange occurrence but it was when they tested the blood that we were called in to try and understand it."

Now everyone in the room stared at the doctor waiting to hear what was wrong with Cassandra. She herself felt eyes on her and nervous and so she demanded from the doctor "who are you people. What is wrong with me. Tell me now."

Dr. Sullivan stood from the seat he had taken and walked toward Cassandra and smiled as he spoke his next words. "Dear girl there is nothing wrong with you. On the contrary you may be the only person I have even seen that I can say there is nothing wrong with you nor will there ever really be very much wrong with you. As to who we are Cassandra I have already mentioned that we are genetic scientist who were asked to come in and try and map your DNA so we could figure out what made you able to more or less walk away from the car crash, and why your skin could bend needles." Cassandra broke in "so I am some kind of mutant freak, is that what you are going to tell me." She started to cry. "No Cassandra we do not believe you are any kind of mutant freak. We do think however that there are some things that you do need to know."

With those words the door to the room was shut and the doctor moved his chair next to the bed. He then asked for the family to sit down next to Cassandra so he could explain what he and his group had found.

He began "Cassandra you are a very special and unique young woman. Upon seeing the earliest tests of your blood, my group came here trying to figure some things out. We drew blood from your family under the pretense that it may be needed for you if something should go wrong for that I am sorry but it was important. You share the same DNA as you parents so you are their child I am happy to say. However there is more DNA data in your strain than we have ever seen and so we tried to figure out what all the extra data was. Simply put your DNA contains things we have never seen before. This does not make you a mutant freak it makes you unique. I could bore you with endless testing results or I could just explain the findings as we have them right now." The Garrett's urged him to continue and so he did. "Cassandra from the very best we can tell you are the worlds very first super human. What that means is that basically you are going to have some abilities beyond just about every single human being on the planet. It is nothing to be afraid of on the contrary it is something to embrace and take pride in.

Cassandra sat upright in her bed not sure what to make of what she had just been told. She asked the first thing that popped into her head "so I can fly and stuff?" Dr. Sullivan laughed out loud and shook his head "no my dear I do not think you will ever fly but from what data we have been able to decode this is what you can expect. Everything about you is a factor of five. We base that on each of the sequences in you extra DNA is repeated five times. This included bone density, muscle strength, brain function, and your immune system. Every last thing about you is five times more active than a normal human being."

Still unsure she asked the basic question "so that is why I didn't get hurt?" The doctor smiled again and answered. "Cassandra you were hurt pretty badly I might add. Your legs were shattered you hip broken spine broken along with more than I can to mention but you heal at such a high rate that by the time people got to you, you were mostly healed minus the scraps and bumps and bruises and they were mostly gone by the time you arrived here. What you must understand is that your bones and skin and muscles are every bit as strong as steel. They can be broken but they heal very fast so it doesn't matter much. You are so hard and strong that you did more lasting damage to the car than was done to you. The car that hit you basically hit a concrete wall at whatever speed it was running."
This was all too much to take it for everyone in the Garrett family. Cassandra heard the story in her head and kept repeating the words super human. She for better or worse was a super human the very thought scared her because she was afraid of what it would mean for her normal life. So Cassandra asked another question more selfish than she wished it sounded "does this mean I can't just be normal." It was the doctors turn to be surprised. After a moment he spoke. "Cassandra you can be as normal as you choose to be, but you dear are anything but just normal. My guess would be that school has always just been easy to you. You read and see things and just remember them. You pick up things you see very easy. You're a good athlete without really trying to be everything has just been easy and natural. That has been because for whatever reason these abilities have not been fully awake. They are now though. My guess without any further testing is that without very much effort on your part and this is just a guess you could lift as much as 900 to 1000 pounds without much trouble, you may easily run at a speed of 50 to 60 mile per hour, I would even venture a guess that if you were handed serious scientific material and after reading could understand it and even improve upon it. What I am trying to make plan to you is that Cassandra you may be capable of these sorts of things but you will choose what you do with these abilities."

"How is this possible this kind of stuff only happens in like comic books and stuff like that" asked Cassandra looking around the faces in the room and not seeing anyone who had any idea she was starting to freak out a little. "Well that we don't know we could test you from now until forever and never know why. As far as it happening Cassandra it never has before and it may never happen again but it looks like it can happen in the real world now not just in comic books. Before I leave I want you to understand that there are only a handful of people who know anything about this and they will not go public with this and we will keep your secret. We would like to have you do some testing for us but it your choice only."

He stood up then shook hands with Cassandra's parents before looking at her again and saying I hope you will come and show us what you can do so that we can maybe better understand what caused this and maybe even better understand what all you can do. I leave you with a warning. You are not the soft Cassandra you were a few days ago. You may feel soft to the touch but you are hard and you can hurt people without really meaning to so please be careful. If you would like to come it please just call me." He handed her parents his card, smiled and left.

If she was suppose to be this super human why did she feel so powerless at that moment? Try as she might Cassandra felt as though her nice normal life walked out the door with Dr. Sullivan. Her world as well as the world at large had just been turned on its head and now it seemed that everything was upside down.
     
   
Chapter 2 Advanced Weightlifting for Beginners

Cassandra was allowed to leave the hospital not long after Dr. Sullivan had left the Garrett's room. The time between that and when they left was the most awkward period of her life. It seemed that no one in the room really knew what to make of the talk they had just had and none of the family Cassandra had any idea of if this man was telling the truth. Cassandra's mom tried very hard to comfort her while at the same time trying to remember her daughter ever really being hurt or sick. The answer that kept coming back was that she had never really been hurt it had always took a lot to scratch her, she could not ever really remember Cassandra being sick.

Instead of that helping it only seemed to prove what the man had been saying. Cassandra didn't need that though because she was thinking back on her life to that point and as far as she knew everything the man had said was the truth. School had always been easy for her she was a very good athlete without much effort. She was slightly taller than most of the girls in her class but not huge, however she was stronger and she knew it. She was neither slim nor chunky but she had noticed of late that she was developing more muscle than every girl she knew. In her mind she knew he was not lying.

As they left the hospital and rode home her dad was the only one that seemed to not be a true believer. As far as he was concerned "that man" was crazy and was some quack who should be locked away from normal people. Her mom knowing better than to just mark it up to silliness was trying very hard to make her husband understand that their little girl was something more than just a soft little thing.

Each member of the family had their own thoughts on what should happen next. Everyone that is but Cassandra she sat in her room over the weekend wanting nothing more than to just be normal she was not sure about what should happen next. It would be good to know if what the man had said was true or not. She wanted to test it out but was unsure of how to go about it without making a scene that would draw attention to herself. Last thing she wanted was to be made out to be some freak weirdo.

A plan began to take shape. She would go to school on Monday like normal and see just what she could lift when she went in for her P.E. class. She had tested at just a bit more than what the other girls had done because her basketball and softball coaches had said they didn't want her hurting herself.

She made it though her classes with the normal ease but people were all looking at her. The story of how she had escaped serious injury when she was hit by the car was everywhere and so she had lots of people checking on her and all of her friends were surprised to see her and even the teachers were grateful for her lack of injury.

Once in her P.E. class she had second thoughts about if she should try lifting when people could see her. She was worried about not being what Dr. Sullivan thought her to be she was even more afraid of what it would mean for her if she was super human. She remembered that when  weightlifting before that she didn't really get tired when lifting the weight nor did it feel heavy but she didn't know what it was suppose to feel like. She couldn't break away to do anything in the weight room during class as she was mobbed by her team mates from the basketball team and so she played with them. She would have to wait before she could hit the weights.

She slipped into the weight room after the class was finished and everyone else was getting ready to leave for the day. She was not sure what to put on the bars. She had lifted 150 pounds before and so she figured she could put on an extra 50 and just see if she could lift that. With no spotter she knew this was dangerous but she had to know. She lifted the 200 without any problem she put on another 50 and no problem again. She went on in this way for a good while until she had put all the weight on the bar she could fit which was over 500 pounds. She was scared and excited all at the same time. She didn't think there was a single person she knew who could lift that much but she could.

She pumped that weight with little to no effort. She knew what she needed to know now and so she put the weights back on their rack. She started out of the room when she looked back at rack counting the weight on the rack it was easily 1000 pounds in weight. Could she even move it? Why did it matter to her so much now? She ran over to the rack bend down to get a grasp on it and lifted it budged she steadied herself some and got it to her knees but it was too much for her but just by a little. She sat the rack down and started for the door with a wide grin on her face. She thought to herself "I am a super human."