Our subject in this story is one Carl Jason Edwards - a 38 year old petty criminal, down on his luck, dangerous and unhinged due to betrayal, prison time and substance abuse.
The product of a broken home, Carl had been in and out of foster care after his dad had fled town when he was young, leaving him in the care of his alcoholic mother, who'd sooner worry about where her next drink was coming from than where her son was. He'd hated school and the authority of the overbearing teachers there, leaving him to fall in with the wrong crowd.
After doing a stint in juvie when he got caught stealing, he found it was only the mob waiting for him on the outside rather than any real family or friends. He began to get good at his sordid trade though, committing dozens of burglaries and assaults on their behalf. He'd often thought about going bigger, but wasn't prepared to spend a long stint inside, or step on the toes of his paymasters.
He even found himself a girlfriend, Melissa, who people would often tell him was ‘out of his league’. She kept badgering him to give up his life of crime, though wouldn't complain when the money came through. Slowly but surely, Carl was building a reputation for himself - but with that came the watchful gaze of the law, and a certain young detective called Nick Trask, out to bust his ass for a promotion.
Carl would often give him the slip though, leaving him to think that he'd finally got some luck in his damned life. That's why it hurt all the more to find out his own girlfriend ratted him out to the cops, leaving Trask with plenty of evidence to drag him to jail. Any hopes that the mob would bail him out quickly fell by the wayside. They abandoned him to his fate, leaving him to rot in jail for 7 long years.
By the time he got out, he barely had a thing to his name. The mob wanted nothing to do with him, Melissa had long gone and no reputable firm would hire him with his record. He was flat broke, and what little he did have was frittered away on his addictions. He eventually managed to get a crappy little apartment in the rough end of town, committing some petty crimes every now and then whilst trying to avoid the law, but his life was never the same. In all the struggle, he thought of nothing more than revenge on those who'd ruined his life.
Little did he realise, the universe was about to throw him a bone. On the way home from another drinking session one evening, he was passing by some old warehouses when he saw it - a shooting star in the night sky. All Carl could ever wish for was a way to turn his crappy life around and get back at those who stabbed him in the back. That's when he saw the star getting brighter, and brighter…
...until whatever it was eventually fell out of the sky and crashed behind one of the units.
With no security around, the inebriated Carl went to take a look. There, he found a small crater where the thing had crashed. It glowed a luminous green hue through the smoke, though not from the heat of its atmospheric entry. This was something different. As he got closer, he saw a rock with some sort of machinery hooked up to it, particularly a little antenna protruding from the top. Curious, and tipsy, Carl extended a hand out. He couldn't feel the heat he expected, so he reached further until he extended a finger out to the antenna.
That's when he felt a spark and a massive surge of energy cascade through the device and into him. It blew him back a full 20 feet back before he landed with a thud on the ground.
“Ow, fuck!” Carl cursed as he rubbed his temple. He checked himself, but couldn't seem to find any sign of injury, save for feeling a little sore. Groggily, he got to his feet.
“What the hell was that?!” He exclaimed, looking back at the crash site. He also noticed that he now felt like he was completely sober. Whatever the blast had done, it had cleared up the effects of an evening's drinking.
Creeping back over to the rock, he couldn't see it glowing anymore through the smoke. In fact, as he got closer, he saw the machinery and the rock encasing it, were starting to disintegrate. Eventually, they were little more than ashes in the crater.
“What the fuck?”
He circled it once or twice more, still in disbelief, before sighing and turning away.
“Great” he sarcastically huffed, throwing his arms up heading for home. Looking at his watch, it was 10:47. Whatever had happened, he wasn't going to tell anyone, especially the cops.
Little did Carl know though, that the power encased in that rock wasn't of this planet. Nor was it ever meant to end up here. It left him, unknowingly, with the ability to do the following;
1. Leave his body and possess other people. His own body, in that time, would be pilotless, essentially in a comatose state until he returned, meaning he couldn't just leave it anywhere. Those he possessed would have no recollection of him or what he did in their body, and would be knocked out cold for a short time when he left them.
2. Carl could send ‘clones’ of himself into other people - mental projections of his own consciousness that would overwrite the victim, leaving a copy of Carl in control until he withdrew them. They thought and acted exactly like him, but were completely subservient to the commands of the original. Like when he possessed someone, the victim would pass out when his clone left them, with no recollection of what happened while possessed.
3. Carl could shape-shift into any form he or his clones had possessed, with the genetic code of their skin and clothing his to use as he saw fit. He could also, in turn, morph those he'd possessed into a copy of himself.
***
There were a few individuals immune to his abilities, but not many.
As he trudged off into the night, Carl's story was only just beginning…
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