Everyone in your world has a superpower, except, seemingly, for you. One day, you set out on your hero’s journey only to discover that you in fact truly do not have a superpower.
In a world of supers, the most extraordinary is the normal one
"Frank! Welcome back! How was vacation? Did you end up finding any new powers?" my boss asked as I passed through the door. I sighed lengthily.
I stared at him and felt the bags weigh heavier under my eyes. I thought I hated my job before, but walking through the doors and seeing his face again really sealed how much I loathed every inch of this office. This place could burn down with everyone inside and the only sleep I'd lose would be over the desk toys lost.
"No, I... I don't have any powers," I said.
"You sure? Maybe it's something like mine, not too flashy," he offered. He had the ability to calculate values at inhuman speeds. We used to call him the Human Calculator, but not even a calculator could run numbers as fast as he did.
"No, I'm certain there's nothing," I said airily. It was hard to sound like I cared to talk to him. I sauntered by and went to my cubicle.
"Hey, Frank! Welcome back," my cubicle neighbor said. Henry. I hated Henry. He had the ability to detach parts of his body. Right now, he was raising his hands over the cubicle wall with his hands, like some sort of monster.
"Henry," I said, with finality to the acknowledgment. He continued, missing all hints of subtlety.
"I heard you went to Geri City to find your power. Did you do the Spirit Climb and ask the monk at the top what your power was?" he asked excitedly.
I didn't answer.
"Hey Frank, did ya hear me, I--"
"Yeah, I did the Spirit Climb," I snapped.
"That's cool," he said, bobbing his eyes in his hands. "What did the monk say?"
"He..." I sighed, wishing I could end the conversation.
"Hey Frank, what did the monk--"
"Nothing! He didn't tell me anything!" I yelled. Henry didn't even flinch. Evidently, he was used to being yelled at.
"Well, maybe you could try--"
"Look, Henry, I have a lot to catch up on," I said, making sure I didn't offer to talk later.
"Ok cool, we can talk later," he said, pulling his hands and eyes back down and popping them back into place.
I stared at my monitor blankly. I wasn't special. I had no powers. I was destined for nothing in this world. I got up to get some water.
"Where ya going, Frank?" Henry asked, rolling his chair out of his cubicle to watch me. I didn't answer him. I passed the nearest water cooler and walked to the one on other end of the office so that he wouldn't take any invitation to talk to me. I poured the water and stared into it wistfully.
"Hey," a maternal voice said next to me. If I could feel anything, maybe I would have been startled at her being there so suddenly.
"Hmm," I responded, drinking from the cup.
"Frank, you matter to me. You know that, right?"
I should have known it was HR. She had the ability to feel emotions. She either felt my loathing for her or my lack of ambition for anything and it was making her feel sentimental or motherly.
"Sure," I said.
"You're lying," she said, offended.
"So are you," I replied, walking back to my desk. She frowned but didn't try to follow me.
I sat back down at my desk and set my hands in my palms.
You have the most unique power I have ever seen, the monk had told me.
I felt a tear run down my eye, then turned on my computer.
"Unique?" I had asked excitedly. Perhaps the last time I felt any excitement.
You have no special ability. Your power is to live as humans used to live, without any supernatural strength, intuition or perception. You have nothing he said, astonished. I was the only one he had ever met to have nothing special.
I began typing numbers into my Excel sheet, filling them in hopes that it might fill the empty void it me. With every clack of the keyboard, I heard the monk speak his final words to me.
You have nothing
Thanks for reading! Little more depressing than usual, but you can't have extravagant heroes unless you have mundane people in the background