Lightweight 1: Dreams Smashwords Edition

By Nicholas Ahlhelm

A hero is born!

Kevin Mathis awakes to new powers over gravity. The sudden arrival of these abilities complicate his teenage life even more, but alongside his friend Millie he starts to search for answers to their origins.

But he may not have much chance as his high school rival George Arnold antagonizes him while a mysterious adversary sends a deadly monster to destroy Kevin before his heroic career can even begin!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Metahuman Press
• Release date: Dec 6, 2013
• ISBN: 9781311778000

Nicholas Ahlhelm

Nicholas Ahlhelm produces new super powered fiction, often in a serialized format like you see here with Lightweight. He lives in Eastern Iowa where he wishes the winters were just a bit less wintery. Learn more about his work at superpoweredfiction.com. To directly back his writing and get new serialized stories months before everyone else, support him at Patreon.com/ahlhelm.

Book preview

LIGHTWEIGHT

1: Dreams

By Nicholas Ahlhelm

Lightweight 1: Dreams Smashwords Edition, Lightweight and all related characters are copyright © 2013 Nicholas Ahlhelm.

Published by Metahuman Press.

Cover illustration by Brent Sprecher.

Lightweight logo designed by Cynthia Celeste Miller. Lightweight costume and insignia design by Brent Sprecher.

Some fonts used in production of this book were created by Blambot and are used under their Free Font License Agreement. © Nate Piekos. Blambot.com.

CONTENTS

Dreams

Bonus Pages

Letters

Character Profile: Lightweight

Backers

I floated in the air. I was on my back, a pillow beneath me, but around me was the wide open sky. The wild blue yonder, my uncle in the Air Force used to talk about.

I knew it was a dream, but in some way that I can’t even begin to explain, I also knew it wasn’t. Like it was real and a dream all at the same time.

I could feel the cold air across my skin as I laid there, my eyes closed. My body was chilled like I was sitting in front of an air conditioner, but I knew I should be much colder. I wore only the boxers I normally stripped to before bed.

I really didn’t want to, but I knew I needed to open my eyes. I knew this dream—or whatever it was—wouldn’t end until I did. I sat up gingerly. Even if this was a dream, I still couldn’t get over the fear of falling and like I said, I was on a cloud. I was a bit worried about that.

I slowly let my eyes crack open. The world rushed into my eyeballs with a blast of color. The sky was darkened and rusty colored, the kind of red sky that sailors apparently always go on about.

But it wasn’t the weird sky that really drew my attention in. It was the random objects floating around the cloud and me. A blender. A toaster oven. An old tire. A box of tattered Archie comics. A six pack of Mountain Dew. A ten speed bike. An M-16.

I looked over them with confusion as they slowly circled around me. I decided this had to be a dream. I couldn’t be flying and all these random things certainly couldn’t be making a slow rotation around my cloudy perch.

They were like a half dozen little moons all floating around me like a tiny planet.

Far below me, I could see the lights of Federation stretched out. Hundreds of them, tiny cars moving like tiny lighted insects. Five million men and women slept or did whatever people do in the middle of the night. Or they would be, if they were real.

I wanted down and out of there, but no matter how long I wished for the dream to end, it wasn’t going anywhere. Whoever said that dreams end when you tell yourself to wake up clearly never made it into this dream.

I tested the cloud again with my hands. It was soft, but supportive, not unlike the bed I wished I could reach from this dream.

Take me out of here, I thought. Just take me home.

The cloud suddenly shifted beneath me. It shot downwards. In seconds, I soared straight down, the darkened ground rushing towards me. I plummeted through the night sky, but I felt no fear. Somehow I knew I was safe. I was in control. This is what I was meant to do. It was as natural as walking. As breathing.

I