ACT 2: DRIFT

Carlos sat quietly in a chair on the porch while the afternoon wind drifted slowly by him. Somewhere nearby, birds called from the trees, their sounds fading gently into the distance.

For a while, he simply sat there letting the breeze pass over him.

Then suddenly, something shifted inside his mind.

Not a new realization.

A remembered one.

Carlos slowly sat up straighter.

These powers…

It wasn’t the first time he had experienced them.

Fragments of forgotten memory drifted quietly through him, indistinct and dreamlike, impossible to fully hold onto.

But one memory remained stronger than the others.

He was young.

Very young.

And he was flying.

Not in a dramatic way.

Not like a superhero.

It felt light.

Natural.

He remembered gliding rhythmically through the sky with complete freedom, almost like swimming through currents of air. There had been no fear in it at all. Only joy. A kind of carefree happiness so pure that even remembering it now made his chest ache slightly.

Back then, the powers had not felt frightening.

They had felt whimsical.

Wonderful.

Like something that simply belonged to him.

Carlos stared quietly out toward the street, trying to hold onto the feeling before it disappeared again.

“I’ve done this before,” he whispered softly to himself.

A gentle current of wind passed across the porch.

Without thinking, Carlos lifted his hand and traced it along the movement of the air instinctively, as though some forgotten part of him still remembered how to move with it.

And suddenly, more than fear or confusion, he felt something else.

Nostalgia.

A quiet, aching disbelief that he could ever have forgotten something that once felt so natural to him.

“How did I forget this?” he asked quietly.