It was deep night. The rain drummed against the roof, knocking politely on the tiles; it was the soundtrack of a moment of silence, only interrupted by the rude presence of little noises: the faraway call of the wind, soft breaths, the scratching of a pen against a white page. The heated environment, already cluttered with a surprising amount of objects, was welcoming and foreign at the same time, as your own room in a newly bought house could be.
Holed up in one of their dwellings, two supers (along with a certain number of furry animals) faced the consequences of the day that had just gone by.
The older man was at the desk, illuminated by the honeyed light of a tripod table lamp. The other one watched out of the window for a handful of seconds before getting closer and letting himself fall on the free chair at his side.
Despite "holed up" being the first term that came to his mind, the two weren't hiding at all. The entire nation knew of their existence, and hungrily searched for new informations about them, about their deeds, their past, waited with bated breath for their next move. It was the natural course of events in the end, when it came to people that were as poweful as they were...
There were two types of power. The first was an apparent, clear kind of power, that didn't need to hide, but on the contrary gained strength from being flaunted; it originated from physical strength, fame, money, social status.
And then there was that secret and subtle power that, like a shadow, could exist only until it wasn't exposed openly to the light. To master it, one had to pay the price of always acting in the shadows, but it allowed them to operate extraordinary acts and even miracles: to change people's minds, to plant idea seeds and make them bloom.
He was used to find himself with a great deal of power between his hands since he was a child, but this... it was new and it was a lot, it was blatant, and so intoxicating to be vaguely unpleasant, like being drunk. This was what the man with dark curls and stormy eyes was pondering upon, and on what it meant to deal with all that power, when part of the shadows that had allowed him to act were dissipated.
«What's a superhero? What makes it so?» He suddenly asked, as if they were in the middle of a conversation. His voice seemed even sharper and warmer than it already was after that silent pause between them «They never really tell you at the academy. There's just this... hovering feeling, that you should simply know it, that it should be right and obvious, but everyone really means something different when they say it. How can you be a superhero without even knowing what that means?»
«Every label has its own blurred outlines. Do you wish to talk about it?» his intelocutor gently invited him.
The older man was writing something in an elegant handwriting, the round glasses perched on the bridge of his nose. He set the pen aside, near the open notebook, turning to give the other attention.
«I'd like to understand what am I, or at least, what I'm not... please»
«Alright then» the man tapped on the desk with a hand, a little echo of the rain pouring outside «A superhero, to be such, must certainly have super powers, superhuman skills and abilities that are difficult to replicate for others»
«But how does exactly a superhero behave?» insisted the first
«They have high moral values, and they should be able to embody the concept of goodness. But let's leave it at that: they're still people, and everyone of them will inevitably behave differently from the others. You'll have to never let a name limit you, never»
«I was thinking of something in particular, to be honest. To kill a bad person, to hurt them even if they never personally hurt you... can a superhero do that?»
VOCÊ ESTÁ LENDO
Bloodhound - The man without silence
Ficção Científica[English version] Sheldon is born in an alternate world, where all humans have a unique power from birth - a power that can be as useless as growing nose hair on command or as destructive as summoning flames out of nowhere - and his gift is more uni...
