A thin man dressed in all black ran across the crowded streets; the panicked and confused people parted to make way for him. A woman with a child in a stroller was in the way, unable to move fast enough to dodge his speed.
He pushed the stroller to the side; he had a purse on him. To the dismay and anger of the surrounding crowd, a woman chased after him, way further behind an elderly woman.
"Stop! That man stole my purse," the elderly woman shouted as she grasped her chest and heaved. The man, now quite a distance away, seemed to have escaped.
Until
Zoom!
As if thunder had struck the street where all were, a flash of colors went towards the man in black, and the man fell, a harsh fall at that, face first onto the pavement.
Another person was atop him, his blonde hair his most standout feature, his foot extended outwards; it was obvious who made the would-be thief trip.
The crowd looked on with awe at the man. The elderly woman caught up and went towards the thief and blonde man; you'd think she would thank the man who caught her thief; instead, she was quite confused.
"Haven't I seen you on TV before?" she said, and this piqued the crowd's interest. A few took a closer step.
"I know you!"
"It's Accelerator!"
"Accelerator? Isn't that an anime character?"
"The superhero, you dumbass!"
---
The crowd went aflame with noises, even more so than previously. Seeing as the situation was resolved, I decided to wander away to what I was previously doing, heading home.
You might be wondering, dear watchers, readers, loners, and losers: what has just transpired? Well, a superhero has just taken down a would-be thief, obviously. Just like straight out of a comic or show. But this time, it's in real life—or, well, my life.
My life constitutes whatever media you're listening (?) to me from. A book, comic, or TV show. Yeah, I know I'm in some form of entertainment media; I kinda just assumed whenever the superheroes came around.
Yep, they didn't always exist. Some time when I was around 8, people randomly got superpowers—not everyone, just a lot—and they did whatever most do with superpowers: became heroes, villains, etc.
I talked about being in some sort of entertainment media, our world governed by some writer, animators, some corpo, or something, to my friends, and they all called me crazy, but I'm 100% certain we are.
It's not that far-fetched; simulation theory is popular, and that's almost the same as my thoughts. That rich guy, Kylon Kusk, said he thinks it's likely, and that other smart guy, uhhh, Dylan TheGrass Mikeson, too.
That's just my thoughts anyway. Looking over at the billboard, a blue girl in very revealing clothes—I mean literally underwear—was advertised. The woman obviously was a superhero. I don't know why superheroes decided that being in underwear while saving people was the thing to do. Thank God it's not all of them, just a decent chunk of 'em.
Everything has to do with something superheroes these days. My vphone was advertised by guess who? Yeah, it was Vortex, the guy that can suck things. Heh, not really; he can control water.
BUT STILL, everything has to be superheroes even when they're not related! Like, what does water or Vortex have to do with vphones??? They were advertising it to be water-resistant too!
There's legit corpos like talent agencies for superheroes these days. Sigh. Anyways, I do protest too much.
My name is Arya, Arya Withers. And no, I'm not a woman; don't ask why my parents decided to name me something so feminine.
So, yeah, people with superpowers appeared over a decade ago, and things have quite strangely mostly stayed the same. There were some innovations by superheroes, like a guy who had the power to grow things quicker, so there are way fewer people starving now. A guy who could create wool got rich off it, etc., and of course, the entertainment media blew up; a lot of actors are now people with powers and have specific shows tailored for them.
And of course, the villains—who doesn't love villains? Well, everyone, everyone loves a villain when they're behind a screen or text on a page, not when they're trying to kill, rob, rape, or damage you in reality.
You can empathize with a vampire who killed thousands through the screen when he cries about his parents not loving him; it's hard to do it in reality, though. Like, no one cares if your dad beat you too hard when you were a kid; you just killed someone!
We appreciate peace, order, and security in our empire! So, no villains suck and always will. Unless they're behind the screen. Love, Yanakin Plainwalker from the movie Earth Wars.
---
As I approach closer to my current residence, I pass by a building on fire. It was my bank! Christ Jesus! Hopefully, the government has my back; probably not, but still.
I had to get past the building to reach my house. Why was it on fire anyway? I pulled out my phone and started calling 191 for a fire. Not sure why, but my phone started rapidly heating up.
"191, what's your emergency?"
"There's a fire at my bank..."
And the phone screen started melting, and weird sounds started coming out of it. I dropped it on the floor due to its heat.
"Ummm, can you hear me, 191 guy?"
...
"I'll take that as a no... Augh."
Well, fuck. Did no one else call the police or fire department? What about the employees inside?
"The police can't help you here," a voice said from within the burning building.
"Umm, you good, dude? You're inside a burning building."
He stepped out of the burning building, and he was completely on fire, the smell of ash radiating off him; somehow his clothes stayed intact, and he was carrying a bag with him.
I just stood there in shock; dude was completely on fire. He just waddled out of there like nothing happened.
The fire surrounding him slowly dissipated, revealing his red hair, Caucasian features, and decently toned arms.
"Sorry, dude, but I can't let no witnesses survive, you know, criminal supervillain and all," he said before I could even say anything.
How rude, and a waste to society.
"No, you!" I said loudly, and the fire extending out of him towards me suddenly came to a halt.
"What the fuck!" he yelled out as the fire that had come to a halt quickly returned towards him, outside of his control. I'm guessing he's supposed to have fire immunity? Well, it won't help him here.
His own flames quickly consumed him; his once confident tone now just a scream of agony. Eventually, his screams stopped, and what remained was just ash.
Also, the buildings were still on fire.
Oh, yeah, and if you're wondering, my superpower is 'No, You.' I can just reject something, and it'll return to sender. Pretty cool, right?