“Dad. We need to get everyone off this train at the next stop.” my sister Suzy said loudly as she shook my father by the shoulders. The blood seemed drained from her face. Some of the people in our subway car looked in her direction, now mildly interested. I could tell she wasn’t joking and so could my father who said “What is it honey?” before pulling her closer. She hesitated. I could barely hear her the words as she whispered “I smell terrible things” into his ear. “Oh brother” I said incredulously. “You smell a fart and now you want to evacuate a whole train of people?” I shook my head and completed my rant by calling her a weirdo. In my defence, my sister was kind of a weirdo and her strange ability wasn’t the weirdest thing about her. My father looked over at me and said “Quiet.” Before returning his attention to Suzy. “What do you smell, sweetheart?” he asked seriously. There were tears starting to roll down her cheeks at this point and I felt bad about teasing her. “I smell burning and smoke and metal and meat cooking.” She said before adding “It’s not just the smells, it’s different this time. I just know we have to get off this train.” which was all it took for my Dad to spring into action. I hadn’t seen my dad use his “super power” in years. For all we knew it had completely faded away but there he was in his super hero stance once again, with his fists tightly clenched with the exception of his index and middle fingers which were pressed tightly to his temples.

Suzy and I knew what was coming next but it startled everyone else on the train when my dad began to speak not just with his mouth but also with his mind. His voice boomed in my mind and echoed around the train as he said “Ladies and Gentlemen, my name is John Goots. I have a super power and I am speaking to everyone on this train using it. My daughter has a super power as well. She can” he paused for a bit then continued “she can tell the future and she tells me we all need to get off this train at the next station. Please make sure everyone gets off the train at the next stop. Your lives may depend on it.” This not only interested the train passengers but put them into quite the panic. A blind guy beside us was yanked out of his seat by his guide dog who pulled him towards the doors of the train and was now staring intently at the doors waiting for the next station. Had the dog also heard my father? It had never occurred to me that his ability also worked on animals. I decided to ask him about that once all this was over. For Suzy’s sake, I hoped this wasn’t a false alarm. People weren’t too kind to super powered people nowadays and especially not to super powered people who delay their morning commute and scare them half to death for no reason.