It's the devastating crack of the floor that settles in the air, thick with a haze of smoke and falling debris. Heavy chunks of concrete tremble as they plummet to the floor, a smoldering dust sweeping across the room. Red lights blare as distant screams echo throughout the planet, all shrill and desperate as the ground shuddered.

There, amidst the chaos, crouched a woman.

Cupping her bloodied head from a piece of metal that now lay beside her, once firmly attached to the ceiling, the woman gasped. She hunched over further, pressing a small bundle against her chest as she ignored the aching pain of her forehead. A wince caught her features before her lips narrowed, and she stood on firm legs.

Across the room, a steel door trembled and ached before giving away from the force outside. The metal creaked as a hand yanked it open, and a man with bright eyes stared forward into the room before them.

"Honey," Her husband breathes out. His voice is strained and barely a whimper as he sets forward, quickly reaching his wife's side to hold her and their little bundle of joy.

"I saved her," The woman breathes out. "She's okay."

The man's eyes linger on her forehead, obviously bruised and bloodied from the debris, but the woman gives him a firm look.

"The pod is ready."

It's a bittersweet feeling that sweeps across their expressions. The woman lets her face soften, and glances down at their baby as she gives a breathy giggle.

"Our precious little girl is going to be safe," She gasps out. Her husband nods quietly, and rests a hand on her cheek for a moment before the floor rocks again, a devastating boom sounding in the air.

"It's time," He whispers.

His wife, is lovely and wonderful wife he's dedicated his life to, nods gently. Her hair brushes down against her bloodied forehead as their planet quakes underneath them. Soon, the two of them are running towards the room he had just been inside of, dodging falling lights and debris as they shield each other and their child from harm. The pod he's prepared is bright with color, humming with the words 'Ready to Launch' across the screen.

"I love you, honey," His wife says, planting a soft and fluttering kiss against their newborn's forehead as she moves to sit her down amongst the plush chair of the escape pod. Her husband stood at the control panel, pressing buttons as he grunted through the rumbling of their ground and screams of those outside.

The lid of the pod slides closed, leaving one tiny baby inside, staring wide-eyed at her parents with innocent, confused giggles. They can only wave, finding solace in one another as they hug and watch the pod begin to lift into the sky. Painful expressions cross their faces as both hope and grief filter through their eyes.

And from a planet devastated by destruction, a single pod lifts into the sky and, in a flash, launches into space.

___

Jonathan is reading the newspaper when he hears it.

It's a morning ritual at that point. They've been doing it ever since they both got married at the ripe age of nineteen. Early, everyone had insisted, but when he saw his darling Martha trailing down the front porch of her rickety family home in her prom gown, he knew instinctively he wanted to marry that woman. And he did. Even now, so many years later, he wouldn't change a thing. Now that life has slowed down and they've grown older, a lot of things have changed. But two things never would. His unwavering love towards his wife, and their usual little rituals.

The morning one was so simple, yet so consistent. Jonathan would slowly make his way out to the front porch and sit in his favorite rocking chair with a plain cup of coffee, no additives. Eventually, after the roosters finished their typical calls Martha would bumble out, her hair abysmal from bedhead and she would sit with Jonathon, drinking a cup of tea and they would enjoy the usual silence.

And then came the crackling sound of something sturdy clattering and crashing against the earth. The boom was so devastating that he could feel the wooden planks under his feet vibrate from the impact. Instantly, his animals practically howled and clattered about in the distant farm as he watched smoke bellow up into the air.

His wife's footsteps thud against the floor, and he's already on his feet the moment she hurls open the front door. It's almost instinctual to find her hand on his shoulder, seeking support in a time of fear and confusion.

"What was that?" Martha asks, her face wrinkling into worry as her anxious hands held onto his shoulder tightly.

"I don't know, Marth'. I'll grab the gun."

Jonathon doesn't like things messing with his family. That's his wife and his farm he plans to protect, even if it costs him his life. So he bolts up the stairs like his legs are on fire and snags the shotgun from the wall where it was mounted. If it's those damn teenagers again, he's going to turn them in to the police again. Setting off small explosions on his farmland was too far.

His lovely wife was crouched over near the pig pen when he came rounding their small wooden barn. For a moment, a warning is on the tip of his tongue to back away from a very large and very obvious impact hole. At least, there was, until his wife pulled back up.

Holding the smallest, tiniest bundle of fabric around a wide-eyed infant.

She's tiny. Round cheeks, big eyes open with curiosity, and ruffled black hair. Jonathon is in so much shock that he drops his shotgun, mentally thankful that he had the safety on before he gently walks up to his wife. Ever so entranced by the baby just like she was.

"Where did she come from?" Jonathan asks, letting a finger inch forward to gently brush a loose strand from the infant's forehead. "She couldn't have... not from here, right?"

There's a crater out just before the couple as if something came from the heavens and tried to pierce the earth itself. With a thick round pod glowing with colors and weird consoles that Jonathon couldn't even begin to comprehend. The inside was thick with plush padding that no doubt was shaped to hold a child around her size.

Did a baby drop from the sky?

That's the only conclusion Jonathon can come up with, even if it wasn't necessarily fully logical. A baby. A little infant girl, with such tiny fingers and the most precious smile he's ever seen, dropped from above. The impact crater indented into the earth spoke as much, despite the pod she had been sitting in moments ago not having even a single scratch on it. In fact, Jonathan didn't even recognize the material it was made from.

"Why is she all alone?" Martha asked quietly, her voice drawn into nothing but a soft, pushing whisper.

"Honey, I love you to death," Jonathan says, watching his sweet darling wife hug the newfound infant close to her chest, "But I believe we have bigger issues than that."

There's a huff that escapes her and lord almighty, he loves this woman. "I would rather try and find an answer to the question we can possibly guess over the question I can't even begin to understand."

"Yeah," Jonathan all but grunts, and reaches forward to brush a strand of loose hair from the child's forehead. "I suppose."

"She has your eyes, Jonny." Martha has this look of adoration on her face, as if she only held her for a second, but already knew that she was holding the world.

"Don't get attached," Jonathan says, knowing full well he is a hypocrite, and moves to place his hand on the upper part of his wife's back. "Come on inside, it's chilly out this morning. We'll figure it out."

Of course, figuring out the questionable pod that crash-landed in their backyard that morning never did come. They kept an eye on the clouds as if expecting parent pods with even more confusing circumstances to appear out of nowhere in a blaze of glory. Nothing else came, nothing but a soft drizzle of rain that pelted against the windows in the afternoon.

Eventually, after watching the skies and roads alike for any new visitors to try and lay claim to the sudden child, Jonathan ventures outside to try and tinker with the pod. The lost cause becomes evident rather quickly, before finally Jonathon smacks his knees and begins hauling the mysterious object to a back corner of his red-painted barn. He fills in the hole and does his best to sturdy the ground back to a more leveled look before he eventually finds his way back inside.

And what a domestic scene it is.

It's no secret that he and his wife had been craving a child, but a few visits to the doctor years back proved it simply wasn't going to happen. Jonathan was a man of loyalty, and he swore to himself that children or not, he would stay with Martha. Any life with her was a perfect one. And there his wife sat, proper on the couch, hair tied back as she gently rocked and forth with the sweet little girl they found a few hours ago. Humming a lullaby her own Mother used to sing to her, her voice warm and melting.

"She's so lovely, Jonny," Martha whispers like a prayer, brushing her thumb along the fattened cheek of the newborn. "She has your eyes and my dimples, and her smile is the cutest thing in the world."

Jonathan creeps forward, as if any sudden noise would break the spell of happiness, and moves to sit beside his wife. He wraps a hand over her shoulders and cups her hand, watching as the tiny baby giggles and smiles at them.

"She is," He agrees.

"I wouldn't mind adopting, Jonny," Martha speaks in a matter-of-fact tone.

"Nor would I."

After a call to the local police department reveals that there are no reported lost infants, Jonathan and Martha decide to take in the child. Wherever she came from, the two had decided, it was a gift from god. Their own little angel, sent from above to a newfound little family. Jonathan didn't know who her biological parents were, but he swore to himself he'd do whatever he could to protect and raise their child as his own.

Jonathan and Martha had to go out and frantically purchase all of the necessities for a newborn baby, but they do so with pride. Whatever obstacles they faced, the two agreed, they would face head-on. As a family.

And then Jonathan walks into the nursery the next day and sees the half-destroyed crib, and well, that certainly is an obstacle.

There sat Clara, after his grandmother's name, holding a half-shattered piece of plastic as she chewed idly on her left pointer finger. Where bars usually sat for the crib there was a gaping hole, as if the tiniest newborn Jonathan had ever seen decided to rip them off before idly tossing them aside.

He stares. Clara giggles, and a third bar of plastic gets ripped off by her bare hands.

"Martha, darlin'," Jonathan calls out into the other room, "I think we might need a new crib. Something sturdy."

And thus begins their turbulent life of parenting Clara.

Clara is, by all accounts, lovely. A sweet little girl with the most curious eyes in the world that the two couldn't help but adore. But her natural-born strength was certainly a curveball if Jonathon had ever seen one. Other parents at parties mulled over the difficulties of crying at night and lost sleep. Jonathan had to hold his drink nervously and try not to share how his difficulties lay in trying to ensure his child didn't keep shattering the wooden table whenever she got excited when Martha played airplane with the bottle and mush-covered spoon.

It became a common occurrence for Clara to latch onto an article of clothing whenever one of them had to head out without her as she sobbed, wanting both of her beloved parents to stay at home. When that happened, they began to distract her with food or tickles until her grip slackened and they could free themselves from her impossibly strong grapple.

Clara grows, and soon enough, begins to walk and babble as words become comprehendible from her lips. As much as Jonathan and Martha absolutely adore their sweet little girl growing older and developing, new challenges arise from the issue.

Clara is a runner. If there is anything slightly interesting, she would immediately begin moving towards it, no matter what obstacles or dangers lay in between her and her desired location. Whatever sense of self-preservation she had was next to none, as Clara would bound forward with the pure, blind determination only a toddler could have. It's adorable when it comes to her pushing aside wooden chairs in the kitchen on her way to go hug Jonathan's legs or crawl onto Martha's lap for a story. It's not as cute when she's practically sprinting towards high traffic, giggling like a mad woman the whole way. Jonathan nearly had a heart attack at the sight of his beloved daughter rushing towards the very dangerous and very packed road outside of the convenience store.

He chokes on a shout, moving to rush forward to grab his child and protect her from the cars. But one blink later, and a sudden burst of wind against his knees and shins, and Clara was suddenly beside him.

Jonathan stares. Clara, who he knew was about thirty feet away a mere second ago, stares up innocently at him. In her fists, she was gripping a small, yellow flower that she gently held up for him. The flower must have been her focal point of interest on the other side of the road.

Jonathan breathes, and accepts the offering. Later that night, the flower lays between him and his wife on the kitchen table as the T.V. hums mindlessly in the background.

"I don't think she's..." Martha trails off for a second, holding one of their daughter's favorite toys in a tight grasp. The doll sags as her knuckles turn white from the force of her grip. "Human."

It's something the two had been dwelling on for a while. A topic neither dared to bring up, but one they couldn't help but think whenever the occasional incident happened. At the words of his wife, Jonathan finds himself releasing a breath he had just been holding ever since he saw the tiny, precious daughter of theirs being plucked from a pod fit for the heavens.

"She looks human," He says, quietly. "She feels and talks just like kids her age, Marth', and she's still our daughter."

"Heavens, of course, she is!" Martha defends quickly. "I still love her, and I would never abandon her. But we do have to take this into account and how this will change our approach to parenting her. And we have to consider the risks and possibility of her... people showing up, one day."

"I agree," Jonathan says.

___

Martha is the one who takes Clara to her first day of school. As much as the two wanted to coddle her, letting Clara go down to school to learn what they could not teach her was the preferred alternative to homeschooling.

On that first day, Clara was dressed up in a cute pair of overalls with pigtails and couldn't keep her grin down, spread ear to ear as her entire face stretched from the pure joy of meeting new kids her age. Clara could barely contain her excitement, jumping up and down until the sidewalk threatened to crack.

Lord, Martha prayed within her mind, nervously picking at her fingernails, Have mercy.

Super strength and speed. That's what they had to worry about whenever Clara came to mind. The two had been blessed with the sweetest, well-behaving child known to mankind. Always said please and thank you, always brushed her teeth to the hum of a song, and didn't throw fits when being sent to bed like other children her age. But where there were such brimming positives, there were conflicting negatives.

Clara was strong. And even though she was well-behaved, children her age were known for everything but their impulse control. Giving a child that was just getting the hang of speaking full sentences enhanced speed and strength wasn't a good combination. And now Martha was tossing the mini bull into a room full of equal-minded toddlers with poorer impulse control.

Lord, give her strength.

"Mama is going to be out in the hall the whole time, sweetie," Martha promises, adjusting the collar of her striped shirt. Clara beamed up, all antsy to go meet more kids her age. "Right out here. Have fun."

"Thank you, Mama!" Clara says and catches a quick peck against her Mother's cheek before she practically hurls herself into the mass of other giggling children.

It takes less than an hour for her to be called down to the Principal's office by a hurried assistant teacher, sweat staining her forehead as she rounded the corner. Martha thinks she might have to take on more bets with her lovely husband because frankly, she called it.

Clara isn't a troublemaker. She's not a trickster or a devious little thing. She's a little girl with a few odd quirks to her biology. Who could blame her if her excitement caused some extra strength to slip? Heavens knew that if Martha had those abilities, her control would be just as lacking at Clara's age. Possibly worse. Martha liked to imagine she was as sweet and sugary as her lovely daughter when she was five years old, but she knew she was a brat. By all accounts, Martha wouldn't trade Clara for the world.

It doesn't make it any less awkward to sit through a parent-teacher emergency conference on the first day of school, Clara bunched up awkwardly into her seat, to be told about her new game of tree picking.

"Can you repeat that," The principal whispered, leaning forward to rub at her forehead as her frown deepened. "One more time?"

The teacher beside Clara sputtered with his breath. "I-I know, it's unconventional, but she ripped up the tree out back. You can go check. Almost dropped it onto another kid! I - I stand by that all children are good, and I'm not using this as an excuse to abandon Clara or ban her from my class, but for heaven's sake, she picked up a tree out of the ground with her bare hands and can we just talk about that for a second."

And who could blame him? Her sweet darling child had the strength of a bull. Even though Martha knew her little Clara could do some extraordinary things for her age, she might have doubted it, if not for the disjoint tree out back she could see through the window. And by the way, Clara sunk further into her chair, it likely happened.

"I didn't mean to," Clara mumbles. "I-I don't even know... how, Mama," She whispers out the last word before hunching over herself and biting back a sob.

"Oh, hun," Martha says slowly, reaching over to rub her back. Her poor girl.

"She did what?" The Principal stresses, looking up in disbelief. "As in actual - fuck, Martin, you don't lie but I just -" The Principal looks towards the tree again. "I mean -" She waves her arms around frantically, before running a hand through her hair. "Just - okay, okay, it's fine, we educate children here no matter their race or abilities or their quirks so this is fine, this will be fine - this doesn't leave the room. At all. I don't want no government coming down here or other towns coming to laugh at our children like some livestock. Agreed?"

"Agreed." Everyone other than Clara, who had her face buried beside her knees, quickly spoke.

Martha takes Clara out for ice cream soon after the discussion wraps up, and has to tell Jonathan about the sudden power development as Clara sniffles on the couch. He looks ever so caught off guard by the sudden development; his eyes popping out of his head like a bug-eyed fish.

Her strength was something they couldn't have possibly imagined. How are they supposed to manage raising a daughter who could pick them up without breaking a sweat?

Clara barely manages to get full control over her... abilities. Excitement seemed to cause her to accidentally lose her grip on herself, it seemed, and Clara was a very excited child. Her favorite movie was on? She breaks a cup. Did she get a cookie after dinner? She runs around all night. It's the kind of repetitive cycle where eventually her inhuman abilities become an obscure detail of their life. Another bump in the road. There were a good few items in their home that Jonathan had to patch up, to the point where he just had a kit ready to go in case Clara lost control.

If only it stopped there.

Clara, once past a sweet little toddler, moves into the beginnings of middle school. Her hair is most open up in pigtails at this stage, as Martha loves to sit her little angel from heaven down and comb her hair back every single morning before school. Daughter and Mother bonding time, she always insisted on.

Clara brings home a new friend with matching pigtails about two weeks into the school year. Some girl with blonde locks as long as her body itself, with a missing tooth and dirt-stained jeans. The child had an absent Father and a Mother who seemed adverse to parenthood, so Martha had no qualms about letting the girl come over for the occasional sleepover, even when she was a little worried about her daughters... extra abilities. Other than the major slip-up on her very first day of school, they haven't had any incidents in public since. Their farm was vast and secluded, and they managed to hit home how important secrecy was to their sweet little girl.

Clara and her friend were climbing the crooked old oak tree out front that particular day. Well, Clara was. Her friend was sitting adjacent to the tree, an apple juice in her hands as she watched Clara scale the bark with ease. Martha herself was sitting on her favorite rocking chair out front, complacent to the warm spring day.

"That's really high," Clara's friend berated. "Are you sure you wanna keep going?"

"Yeah! It's the best view from the farm on the very top of the tree!" Clara giggled.

Her hand slips when she goes to look at her other friend, and Martha barely has time to spring onto her feet in surprise as Clara nearly falls. She goes to shout, to try and run, but her words get caught in her throat as Clara suddenly moves.

And a gust of wind burrows through the leaves, and a blur of her darling child is caught in her sight. Hundreds of leaves that detached from the sudden burst of air flutter into the sky, making a small section of the tree practically bald as they cascade down in a brilliant tumbling of green flecks. Clara, who was halfway up the tree, was now perched on the very top, holding a branch that looked twice her size in one tiny little fist. Her friend stared up at Clara, gripping the juice box so hard it threatened to spill down and over her fingertips.

"Clara, what was that?" The girl squeaked. "Is everything okay?"

Clara sucked in a breath, staring beady-eyed at the bare sticks before she glanced back down. The thick branch tumbles to the ground as she quickly discards it. "Yeah, I'm fine - I dunno what that was."

Soon after, Martha manages to call over her husband to move the eyesore, and made up a quick lie about how the thing was always loose. Clara's friend, who believed anything told to her from Martha, nodded along eagerly. Thank the lord. 

Sometimes Clara does use her powers for fun, though. A powersome little quirk of her daughter was that she was still a child. A child who had the powers of some god that seemed to grow every year. When she was younger, she could barely pick up the cows. Now she found enjoyment in picking them up and carrying them around like luggage. Thankfully their daugther didn't lack empathy, but she certainly did lack awareness at certain times. There's been many times that Martha has had to find herself down at the barn, watching in bundled worry and amusement as her daughter squealed and ran from the angry goats. Don't mess with those, Martha had always insisted. Oh, how her daughter loved to pretend to listen, and then let her impulsiveness take hold. Silly little girl. 

Martha and Jonathan had been drinking in the kitchen following those events, listening to the radio host drag on about an event they were planning on taking Clara to next week. Some local festival with an inflated bouncy house and as much cotton candy as their sweet-toothed daughter could possibly want. Martha had finished her tea before Jonathan was done with his larger cup of coffee, and had gone to run her dish through the sink. The window before her was void of any children. At least, until Clara's head popped down into view instead of up. As if she was hanging upside down from above.

"Hi Mama," Clara sings out. Her form hovers a bit, and her fingers dig into the side of the house. "I can climb now!"

Jonathan chokes on his coffee behind her. Martha, who isn't even surprised anymore, just smiles at Clara. Clara grins back, wide and toothy. Martha thinks she's had so many near-heart attacks raising this girl that she just can't be surprised by anything anymore. When Martha was younger, she used to jump and shriek at the silliest little things in a haunted house. If she went now, she doubted even the worst of a clown could get her.

"I can see that," Martha says. She pushes the tap water faucet closed, running her hands through a towel to the side as she watches Clara dangle. "When did you learn how to do that?"

"A few minutes ago. Wanted to try and climb up the house, and bam, here I am!" Clara waves her left arm, the right one firmly clutched onto the windowstill. 

"That's great! I'm proud of you - we both are," Martha says, reaching through the open window to pinch her cheek. "But I think it's about time we had a talk regarding your... abilities and your safety."

It's about time to have this talk. Especially if her daughter has taken it upon herself to start finding forms of entertainment by crawling along the side of their house like a human spider.

"I agree," Jonathan speaks up, moving to stand from the kitchen table. "Clara, can you come inside? We need to have a family meeting."

"Am... Am I in trouble?" Clara asks, her voice straining.

"Oh, hun, no, no," Jonathan is beside Martha for a moment, looking over at Clara like she was his entire world. "Of course not. You can't control it, I would - we would never ground you for having abilities like this."

"We're just worried," Martha cuts in. "About your safety, darling. You're still young. You can draw unwanted attention if you go around doing these things in public. We want you to be safe. What if the government hears of a special girl named Clara that can run faster than they can, or can move our pickup truck with her bare hands? Honey, what do you think they'd do? They would come and take you away. We don't want that."

They talked a lot that night. After Clara came down from the wall and walked in through the front door (not through the window, Martha had insisted. She may be incredibly gifted but she could still have manners), the three of them sat down on the couch and had a discussion about her abilities. Clara was special - they were all certain about that. Clara had abilities no other human being (if she even counted as human, Martha's inner mind pointed out cautiously) could ever possibly hope to replicate. If she went around parading such abilities, she would be taken away. And Martha sometimes lay awake at night, terrified of people in suits breaking down their doors and dragging away her sweet little girl. Jonathan, too, by the way, his face strained with worry as they told Clara about their worries.

Stay safe, they begged her insistently. Keep her abilities on the farm, stay safe and hidden. When she was older, she could make her own judgment on when to use her abilities. But now, as a hyperactive child on the verge of becoming a teenager with far too much energy to spare? Stay low. That's all they could ask from her.

They send Clara off to bed with a popsicle, bedtime kisses, and "I love you" hanging in the air, warm and gooey. Clara smiles back at her parents with enough affection to rival their own, before turning to gently walk upstairs.

And Martha knows she never regrets their decision. Not for a second.