The rock he had been holding in his hand burst from his fingers, and rocketed at the head of the super powered mugger. It spiraled through the air, seemingly perfectly bound for his scarred face. It missed. It flew just past the thug’s head, and thudded into the alley wall, seemingly chipping the stone there.
The electric man smiled aggressively, and coils of lightning started sparking out of his hands, like live wires. Suddenly, John heard a whizzing sound, and the man fell over with a thud.
John looked at the back of the man’s head, and he noticed a small wound and bruised flesh, and he saw the rock on the ground right by it, skittering around, before slowly coming to a stop.
John quickly tried to check the man’s neck to see if he still had a pulse, but the mugger’s groans as he started awaking assured him of the mugger’s “aliveness”. John, now thoroughly drained of anger by that attack, decided running from the quickly awakening super-human was a good idea.
As John walked home, now quite a distance from the area where the incident had occurred, he pondered what had happened. ‘Was that my doing?’ He pondered to himself.
‘I didn’t throw the rock, it just flew out of my hand. And then it somehow hit him in the back of his head…’ thought John quite inquisitively.
‘Remember… remember… what happened right before the rock? I was angry, real angry. Maybe that’s the key?’ John thought to himself, before thinking to himself, ‘Well, I’ll test it out at home.’
-
John arrived at his home after the hour-long walk. On the way he had seen that same winged man, this time followed by a woman, flying with him seemingly without any form of propulsion. He waved at them, and they came down to say hi.
Apparently they were a husband and wife pair, both amateur pilots. They were also both rather nice, and told him of how shortly after the televised video occurred his wife (Who was the one recording the video) discovered her own flying powers. The then continued their flight around the city, and he continued on his walk.
John tried to then activate his powers. He got a dirty bath towel out of his cramped bathroom and tried to feel angry. He thought of his failure (Which only made him sad), and then decided to try to think of all the bad things in this world.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
And John did get angry, he did! But sadly, no matter how much he tried and how much anger he accumulated, he still could not get the towel to move on its own.
‘Maybe it only works on rocks then?’ John pondered, before exiting his apartment and finding a small rock by the road. He then entered his apartment and tried again. He again thought of the bad things in the world, and anything else that was shown to increase his anger, but sadly, nothing happened.
John was greatly impacted by this. Did he not have any special powers? Was that rock just a fluke, or another rock from nearby? John spiraled into a pit of sadness, and just like his father before him, retreated to the bottle to find some mild creature comfort.
He grabbed one of the half-empty bottles of whisky by his painting supplies, and tried to drown his sorrows. Sadly, this did not work, and only served to remind him of his other failures. Failing University. Failing his parents. Failing his daughter.
This made John spiral further and further down the pit of sadness he was in. How he could never succeed at anything. He was a bright kid when he was in school, but after high school he just didn’t want to pursue a higher education, to the disappointment of his parents. He instead wanted to continue his work in more artistic endeavors. And he succeeded! He met a wife, had a child. A wonderful little girl by the name of Amelia.
That was when disaster struck. At the age of 3, Amelia had developed cancer. Leukemia, they told him. That was when he decided to try and pursue an education in medicine. To help his little girl. To help all the children around the globe, and insure that they could never suffer of these cruel diseases.
He progressed in his university. He was always a smart person, and with the driving motivator he had, he was consistently top of the class, and he excelled in all of his courses, all to try to make sure his daughter was safe. But that was when disaster struck.
Just 3 years after Amelia was diagnosed, she suddenly worsened. Her cancer spread from her blood and bones, into other tissues. Into her brain. She lived just 3 weeks longer.
After this, John suffered greatly. His grades dropped drastically. His wonderful wife, who he was no longer able to support either emotionally or financially left him, of no fault of her own.
His art also suffered, and he came less and less to various art shows, and slowly became one of the many artists to fade ever into obscurity.
And finally, John turned to the bottle. He tried to drink all his sadness away, but it was temporary, and the pain returned stronger than ever shortly afterwards. Still, temporary relief is better than none at all, so he continued drinking.
And that’s where he found himself now, yet another failure. John’s eyes cried and cried and cried silent tears of agony. Of internal pain.
During his spiral downwards, he had hardly noticed that he had retrieved his daughter’s favorite doll, a soft, plush thing that shared her same golden locks.
With the ebb and flow of sadness, he also hardly noticed a little going missing.
That was why while his head was down to the kitchen counter, he was surprised to feel small plush hands hugging his head.