As an ordinary genius

The door had barely clicked shut behind Felicity before Ethan bolted off the couch. A week of restlessness had left him itching to return to his project. He headed straight for the garage, his mind buzzing with determination.

The underground workshop smelled faintly of burnt wires and scorched metal. His half-finished project, once a frustrating tangle of errors and dead ends, sat waiting for him. Ethan took a deep breath and dove in.

At first, it felt like any other session of tinkering. He adjusted a circuit here, rewired a connection there. But then something shifted. His hands moved with a precision he didn't recognize, and ideas flowed into his mind like water.

"Wait... what?" Ethan muttered as he stared at the completed section of his project. The solution that had eluded him for weeks now seemed glaringly obvious.

He tested the connections, expecting the usual cascade of errors. Instead, everything worked flawlessly.

"This... this doesn't make sense," he whispered, his voice tinged with awe.

Ethan pulled out his old project notes, flipping through pages of failed attempts and miscalculations. One by one, he revisited each error, his mind offering corrections almost instantly.

"Why didn't I see this before?" he wondered aloud, scribbling revisions at a rapid pace. It felt as though someone had flipped a switch in his brain, unlocking a level of clarity he had never experienced.

Hours passed in a blur. When he finally looked up, his project was no longer a mess of incomplete ideas—it was nearly perfect.

Feeling both exhilarated and unsettled, Ethan stepped out of the garage and into the living room. His body was exhausted, but his mind was still racing. He turned on the TV, hoping to distract himself.

The news anchor's voice filled the room.

"Authorities have confirmed that last week's particle accelerator explosion at S.T.A.R. Labs caused widespread power outages across Central City. The incident has raised concerns about safety protocols—"

Ethan froze, the words sinking in. "Particle accelerator explosion?"

The anchor's report continued, but Ethan wasn't listening anymore. Fragments of memory began to surface. The garage, the storm, the blinding flash of light...

"It wasn't me," Ethan murmured, his heart pounding. "The power cut that night—it wasn't my project. It was... lightning."

The realization hit him like a freight train. The strange ease with which he had completed his project, the sudden clarity of thought—it all began to feel connected to that night.

Ethan sank onto the couch, his mind a whirlwind of thoughts. Whatever had happened during the explosion, it had changed something inside him.