March 17th, 1999

My mom told me that writing this down would help. It's still… Unbelievable. It's hard to even consider it.

But it's not like my parents could pull a prank like this. Not even Kanako-chan could, and she's an expert.

I guess I should start out, I dunno… From the beginning.

My name is Keitaro Urashima. I'm 20 years old. 19 years ago, I was adopted by my parents, Matsuo and Satsuki Urashima, after I was left at their front porch after the infamous January 5th Meteor Shower, when my little town of Fuyuoka, Japan, was bombarded by a swarm of strange, alien rocks.

My parents had been trying to have children for a long time, but unfortunately, my mother was barren. They were very Western-style, which was looked down on in our little town of mostly traditional Japanese. My parents considered me a gift from the stars above, and told me so.

When I was five years old, after making the promise to one day go to Tokyo University with a girl, my one true love (sort of), I was playing at the same park, the same sandbox. Some other kids were nearby. We started playing a game of catch with a ball, when an older child took it from Kanako-chan, my little adopted sister. She began to cry, and I tried to get it back, but the older child just laughed and held it away. He hit me, making me stumble. And I shoved him.

He literally sailed up and crashed into the branches of a sakura tree, and began to scream and sob.

From that point on, my parents kept me and Kanako under a very careful watch. The incident in the park was passed off as nothing more than a children's story.

But it was only the start of the bizarre path my life would take.

I could lift my parent's car up over my head before I was six. I actually amused my sister by tossing her up onto the roof of our two-story home while she held a pillow to land on. I could outrun motorcycles going at their full speed. I could hear and see things I shouldn't have been able to, like the heartbeats of my parents from a room away. And I never, ever once got sick, cut, bruised, or burned.

My parents forbade me from using these "gifts", they called them, in public or in view of anyone besides family. If anyone else found out, I would be taken away from them and we'd never see each other again. And I kept wondering, why, why, why?

Why can't I be normal?

Other boys don't get sick around the green meteor rocks. Other boys don't get hit by cars and not have a scratch on them. Other boys don't have to pretend that they're average and get average grades, when they can remember nearly everything they read, and do so at a college level when they're still in second grade.

I started to think my parents thought I was a freak. That they were ashamed of me.

And why wouldn't they be? Not only was I a freak, but a failure, and they wanted me to stay that way.

I hated having to dance with boys at the school events. I hated not being able to play sports. I hated being the school outcast.

I tried to kill myself, when I was 16. I went to an overlook, above the town, and jumped from fifty, maybe sixty meters above the ground.

I landed, face first. I wasn't even in pain from the fall. I looked down at my untouched hands and wept, because there was no escape for me. From being an embarrassment to my family.

From being me.

March 20th, 1999

Sorry about the delay, journal. Entry exams. Didn't go so hot. I'll talk about it later.

Continuing…

When I was 19, my parents found out about my second suicide attempt in time to keep me from a bus smashing into me, while I carried a piece of meteor rock. I was in agony from the pain of the rock, but I though that maybe, just maybe, it could weaken me enough that the bus would kill me.

My father shoved me out of the way just in time. He then smacked me, took the rock from me, threw it into a river and came back, furious. I began to sob angrily.

I asked him what was wrong with me. Why was I a freak? Why was I such an embarrassment to him and mom?

He took me aside and promised me that, no matter what I was, he was proud of me, because I was his son. And he took me home.

It was this night he told me the truth. Mom took me out to our little tool shed by the house. Dad got a crowbar, and went to a covered crate that had been kept in the corner of the little building for as long as I could remember. The lid came off noisily, the wood and nails that held it together coming apart.

I didn't notice the crate any more.

All my attention was on the strange, little craft in the crate, a mix of white, green and black. I think my jaw literally hit the floor.

"What, is that?" I asked hoarsely. My mother took a deep breath.

"When the meteors began to fall, Keitaro, we were driving from the store to home. One crashed right by the road and flipped the car over. We got out, and walked through the smoke and dust it kicked up, to see what had landed." She fell silent. My father coughed.

"We, uh… We found this, in the crater," he indicated the ship. "And, well, when we got close to it, the hatch opened and, well…"

"There you were," my mother whispered, smiling gently. "Crying and squirming a little. You were wrapped in some blankets…" She went over to the little ship and the hatch opened. She pulled out some blue and red sheets. I shook my head, backing away slightly.

"It's… This can't be… I'm… I'm not…"

"Son," sighed my father. "We love you. The only reason we have been so hard on you was because… Because we wanted you to have a normal life. Without the press or scientists or… or anything like that."

I shook my head. "I'm… I'm an alien." I sat down shakily on the floor, as my mother knelt next to me and hugged me.

"You're our son, Keitaro. And we love you." She sighed as my father came over, holding a strange little device of silver metal. He handed it to me.

"This, and a couple other things were in the ship," he shrugged. "I've been trying to figure out what any of them do… What the writing says, but they are literally like nothing else on Earth." I looked down at the device, the strange writing on it like nothing I'd ever seen before. I ran my hands over it, and sighed.

"So… What do we do now?"

March 21st, 1999

Weird stuff has been happening in Fuyuoka ever since the meteor shower. Lots of two-headed goats, babies born green-skinned, and what Kanako, my childhood friends Haitani Masyuki and Shirai Kimiaki began to refer to as 'The Freaks of the Week' club.

It ranged from salesmen with mind control powers, to resurrected demons, to bug people and fat sucking vampires.

And behind it all? The meteor rocks. To me, they just made me want to barf, as though they were wasting me away. The green ones, anyway. And, lucky me, they weren't the only flavors. Gold took away my powers, which, as you could imagine, was sometimes a blessing, sometimes a curse. Good thing it was rare. The red variety made me… Well… Someone I never, ever want to be again. Black was just… Weird. Let's just say I got more in touch with my feminine side with that one.

Somehow, I got the impression that the rocks and I were connected. Maybe they were the last chunks of my homeworld that followed my ship to Earth. I don't know. All I know is that, along with making my life harder, they also made things harder for everyone else.

Secondary school is bad enough without killer zombies and pyrokinetic psychos on the loose. And don't get me started on studying for the Tokyo University entry exams in prep school.

I'd blame my failures to get into the most prestigious university in Japan on poor study habits, which is KIND OF true. Considering that my friends, or sister, or parents, kept getting into trouble with the latest Freak of the Week, I didn't have a lot of time to spare for hitting the books. Throwing them into the Pacific when I failed the test for the second time, yes, but not studying them.

Sometimes I wish I was just normal. Just another human, living my life without any huge secrets or abilities that could shape the future of the world.

And yet, I do realize that, without my powers, a lot of people would be dead, lost, or worse. And, well… X-Ray vision is a nice thing to have. Especially when your sister is REALLY hot…

Ack. Ack. Ack. Bad thoughts! Bad!

May 5th, 1999

Been a while since I wrote in here. I'm going to Hinata Springs, to work for my grandma at her hot springs hotel. My parents want me to go out and see the world. I wanted to keep trying for Toudai.

I have so much more potential than going to some disgustingly-preppy university, they say. That I was meant for far greater things than keeping a childhood promise. And they said they wouldn't give me anymore money towards Toudai.

And now, I'm going to try for a third time. And I keep asking myself, if my parents are right. If I am destined for greater things.

And, I guess I'm going to find out. On my own.

May 6th, 1999

These women are INSANE.

TBC…