MCU: No Limits

While staring at the unfamiliar reflection in the foggy mirror with cracks in some corners, Michael was speechless, astonished.

A young child's face with Eastern physical features, undeniably Japanese, stared back at him with expressions identical to those he probably had at that moment.

Two round eyes, slanted upwards with deep black pupils overflowing with confusion, a short nose, chubby cheeks, and blond hair cut in a bowl style, slightly tousled. A light pink children's pajama was the outfit this child was wearing.

This unknown body was short, Michael had noticed when he woke up in a room that seemed much larger than it actually was, and it still makes him uncomfortable and a bit dizzy. Michael clearly remembers that he was 1 meter and 70 centimeters tall, which is equivalent to 5.58 feet, according to a quick search he did on the browser two months ago.

And this child's body, which looked nothing like him, regardless of the angle, was 102 centimeters, or 3.2 feet tall. And that is the approximate height of a healthy 5-year-old boy.

Knowing this, Michael was standing on a blue plastic stool, much to his dismay. He wouldn't be able to see himself in the bathroom mirror of that strange and silent house without it.

With some effort, those hands managed to reach the doorknob of that room. Fortunately or not, the bathroom door was not closed.

Michael didn't like the feeling of almost not being able to open a door, but right now he was very worried about a terrifying possibility.

"Did I steal this boy's body?" He murmured with wide eyes, swallowing hard. 

Even the voice isn't familiar, he thought.

"But where did he go?" He said in a slightly louder tone, and fell silent. Trembling, he murmured in an almost inaudible voice, "Did I... Did I kill him?"

His mind is agitated, thinking of answers to this question so simple, but also so... so bad.

None of the answers he thought of were positive, and then Michael slapped the right side of his face hard.

He realized that speculating about the fate of an innocent child's consciousness in such a morbid way only showed him that he had no empathy for others.

"How... How would you feel in this situation, friend?" He asked, looking directly into the deep eyes of his reflection, but he wasn't looking for an answer.

In fact, Michael was looking for some sign that this boy was somewhere, deep within his consciousness, trapped in his own body while someone else controlled him.

He gave another slap, this one stronger than the previous.

Frustrated with himself, Michael clenched his right hand into a fist, applying force to his grip. These nails were so small and well-trimmed that they barely pierced the palms of his hands, but they left slightly reddened marks.

Noticing his frustration and irritation with the abnormality of the situation he was experiencing, Michael got off the bench before sitting on it, then doing a long and slow breathing exercise, trying to calm his turbulent mind.

After an indeterminate amount of time, but which Michael was sure had surpassed the ten-minute mark, he continued inhaling slowly and deeply through his nose, expanding the rib cage and pushing his belly forward.

Then, Michael exhaled slowly, pouting his lips to reduce the friction of his tongue against his teeth.

All the while, he maintains an upright posture, with his head aligned with his spine and his shoulders relaxed, also being careful not to accidentally hold his breath.

He did diaphragmatic breathing ten times, and it was enough for his nerves to become a little less agitated.

When he was about to stop his exercise, Michael stopped, feeling an extreme fatigue that was almost absurd.

"I... I feel as if all the vitality is disappearing through the pores of this body, like the steam from a kettle. It's painful." He says, with his hand on his chest, feeling a tightness in his heart, then his eyes widened when an absurd realization appeared in his thoughts. "This... Can't be. Or can it?"

Deciding to test this absurd theory, Michael resumed diaphragmatic breathing until he entered a completely focused state.

Briefly, he could "see" tiny points in his pores, from where the vitality of this body was constantly and very slowly lost, like the steam from a kettle. So, deciding to test his theory, with great concentration and some willpower, he controlled all those supernatural pores, one by one, until he completely closed them.

Gradually, the feeling of tightness that Michael had disappeared. And then, he opened those pores one by one, with the care and precision of a surgeon, until he finally felt a viscous fluid completely enveloping his body like a second skin, emanating a constant and comfortable warmth.

"The first of the four basic principles. The principle of wrapping, Ten" He says dramatically, before laughing at the absurdity of his words. "The feeling is identical to what I imagined, I think. Wait, wouldn't that mean I'm in the place where giant, deadly ants... feed on people?"

Frightened, Michael averted his gaze. His eyes focused on the curtain around what appeared to be the bathtub. He was startled when he saw the shadow of what appeared to be a person inside, and he hurriedly ran to the bathtub, pushing aside the curtain.

Michael didn't notice when he started gently shaking the shoulders of the seemingly dead woman, but it was the moment he saw cuts on her wrists and a metallic red liquid pooled at the bottom of the bathtub, flowing down from her wrists.

He first checked if she had a pulse and, as soon as he found one, he placed his hands on her shoulders. Almost at the same moment, she convulses as if electric shocks were hitting her heart and spreading through every cell in her body.

She slowly opens her eyes before looking at him, paralyzed, soon starting to cry with her hands covering her face.

Michael had already run away from there, alarmed, going to look for a phone to call emergency services in this unfamiliar house.

When he found a cell phone on a red sofa, Michael ran back to the bathroom while his fingers reflexively dialed nine one one, even though he had never dialed that emergency number in his life.

Praying that this number existed, he was attended to after a short wait. Michael explained the situation as clearly as he thought a confused and scared child would explain, before giving the address he found written on a piece of paper that was so easy to find. The emergency would eventually arrive, and sitting on his plastic stool near the bathtub, he watched very attentively as the woman cried and murmured unintelligible words with a muffled voice, but which were mainly her apologizing, according to what Michael could understand.

At no point did he realize that the viscous fluid of life energy enveloping his body had not yet dissipated.