Super Jaded (18/23)

Chapter 18: Ruin

A dry, miserable wind awoke me from my slumber. Ugh, why did it have to wake me up?

I was perfectly content with sleeping the day away. Sure, it was somewhat uncomfortable sleeping on ruined skyscrapers and I didn’t exactly need to sleep, but I really didn’t want to do anything but lie down and think of nothing nowadays.

Without Fern… what was even the point?

I rubbed cracked, tear-stained and swollen eyes, fighting the salty crust that was now a permanent guest upon my face these days.

The bitterness that had once brewed in my stomach was gone, but it hadn’t been replaced with anything. I felt nothing.

I closed my eyes once more, knowing it would be a futile gesture. Whatever. I had all the time in the world to learn how to sleep all day.

My mind immediately drifted to Fern. Even though I had been trying my hardest to forget about her, I couldn’t. I was committed to staying away from civilization, but that didn’t stop me from sneakily flying into our old apartment a few days ago and stealing a photo off of our bedside table. A photo of better times. A photo when she and I were happy.

That was the first time I had been to space, exiting the upper atmosphere just to avoid Fern’s detection on the trip there. Despite how beautiful the vastness of space was supposed to be, all my attention was focused inward, squarely on the stupid little ball I couldn’t seem to escape from.

I’d live on the fucking moon if I figured out how to breathe in space at this point. Forget breathing, maybe I’d just fly as far as I could into space, just to see how far I’d get. One good inhale could go a long way, I figured that out through deep-sea diving. I had spent three days under the water just cataloging some new species, desiring to help out some scientists.

God, I was so naïve back then.

I’d be doing the world a favor by leaving it, but for some reason I just couldn’t bring myself to go through with it. I was their precious little darling until they decided they didn’t need me anymore, why the fuck was I even bothering to stick around?

You’re a fucking coward, that’s why. My consciousness came in. Thanks, consciousness.

“You’re not a coward. You’re a strong, beautiful woman,” Fern said. Or, at least, Fern would have said if she were here. “A beautiful, superpowered woman with a beautiful, superpowered ass.”

I found my traitorous lips curling into a grin. It was true then and it was true now: it was impossible not to smile when Fern was around, even in spirit.

I sat up from my bed of rubble and floated around the ruined city. After being struck with a nuclear reactor leak, the entire area in a 500 mile radius had been abandoned and deemed unsafe for the average human. Perfect place for me, I thought to myself.

The radiation had no effect on me. It couldn’t burn my skin. Even my white blood cells were too strong to be affected by such pathetic waves. Like all other human-based technologies, I was simply above the effects and the consequences resulted from it.

My naked form floated over to the nearest skyscraper that was still intact.

Positioning my body at one of its four concrete corners, about halfway up the structure, I began to rub my body sensually alongside its rugged exterior.

“Mmm… nghhh… Fern…” I moaned to myself.

I was pathetic.

My unstoppable fingers and toes tore into the stone as my breathing quickened, the intensity of it boiling the air around me. I had always held back during sex. I had to. The last thing I wanted to do was reduce my partner into something unrecognizable. But now I could go all out if I wanted too.

Smooth, sinuous muscles rammed the cold, unforgiving piece of modern infrastructure. But its rough exterior was what I craved. Designed to withstand hurricanes and tsunamis, its resistance was appreciated, yet diminishing. My body bullied the structural integrity of the building from mere foreplay.

I picked up the pace. I knew there wouldn’t be much time left before the entire building collapsed and I’d be left another skyscraper short.

My ragged breathing increased as my ferocious hips bucked again and again. My breasts left twin semisphere imprints as I hugged the gravely surface desperately, trying to replicate the feeling of Fern’s once-delicate body.

I screamed. Powerfully, yet dispassionate. I felt no connection, I was doing this just to do it.

Despite this, the sound was loud enough for everyone in the next province over to hear me. My destructive orgasm sent a spider web of cracks through the metal and stone, effortlessly demolishing the entire structure in a single session.

Only my hands and feet, which had been thoroughly entombed within the concrete, held together a large chunk of matter that could even resemble the building that once was. But as soon as I removed myself, it too crumbled to dust.

Needless to say, I was running out of buildings.

My breathing slowed, with only a look of shame left on my face. With my sexual desire partially clensed, I was finally left with nothing.

I was partially considering flying down to ground zero of the reactor leak and shove my face into the large mass of spilled corium just to see if I would feel something from the blistering roentgens.

I didn’t feel like flying back down to the ground, so I just… fell. The wind rippled through my dusty hair as I ragdolled to the floor, picking up speed until I collided into the ground without even trying to halt my momentum. The sheer force of my meteoring body demolished three nearby buildings, with them all collapsing on top of me.

I wasn’t sure how much time I spent under the rubble. I could’ve left whenever I wanted, but what was the point? I was no better out there than I was down here. At least here I could be alone in my shameful loneliness.

But then I couldn’t even have that.

A massive explosion decimated all the rubble around me, yet my body remained unscathed. My eyes squinted as the overhead sun beamed into my vision with the same urgency as a parent opening a curtain to let light into a basement-dweller’s room.

“Hold it right where you are, Nina!” came a man’s voice from a megaphone. “You are surrounded!”

I grunted in annoyance. “You don’t have to shout. I’m right here.”

My eyes did a cursory glance around the area. Soldiers in hazmat suits started approaching from every angle visible to me. A long, tepid sigh slipped from my pursed lips. They must’ve been fools to think this encounter was going to end in their favor.

“Don’t worry, we still think you can be redeemed and re-enter normal society,” the man lied. “All we need to do is test a little something out on you. Will you comply?”

“Whatever.”

That certainly confused a lot of them, but I meant what I said.

They wasted no time setting up a strange device, a weapon between an anti-aircraft cannon and a heavy machine gun. And looked like it was from the future.

“Tell the backup to stand down. This weapon’s dangerous and threat Nina is currently neutralized.”

That was a funny way of saying I had lost all hope.

The canon charged up, pointing directly at me as I lay, unmoving. The lights along its barrel brightening up brilliantly in a rainbow pattern as a strange dynamism built within it.

A bolt of lightning-like energy erupted from the device, striking me dead on with a loud “ZAP!”. As expected, nothing happened other than a slight twinge.

“Anything happen, sarge?” one of the men asked, only for another soldier to pull out a certain electronic reader and scan in my general area.

“No, sir, Captain, sir. Readings are still the same.”

“Alright then, adjust the frequencies and blast her again.”

Two more suited men approached, one inputting a sequence of numbers into a keypad within the machine and the other marking the previous failure on the clipboard.

“Initiating frequency adjustment #1”

Did I think they were gonna succeed? No. Did I particularly care if they did? No.

Without Fern, without my grandpa, without my parents… nothing mattered anymore. If my fate was to die a slow, powerless, irradiated death then so be it.

They blasted me again, still nothing.

It would take a miracle to make me give a shit now.

But then, something within my unfocused vision caught my attention. A detail so small only an enhanced superhero brain could notice it. On the handgun of the man referred to as “Captain” was a certain mark. It almost seemed to resemble a sun, only black with a dark red outline.

Where… had I seen that mark before?

“Initiating frequency adjustment #2”

I must’ve been really young when I last saw it, since the memory’s a bit hazy….

“ZAP!”

I was in the park… I think it was with my parents when they were still alive, since I could walk without any problem back then…

“Initiating frequency adjustment #3”

But why would the mark be in a public park all the way back in America? Wait…

“ZAP!”

Everyone in the park had that marking… Everyone in the park had that gun!…

“Initiating frequency adjustment #4. I think this one should do it!”

That was the last time I had seen my parents…

They fired the gun, but my laser vision was faster. Its twin beams cut straight through the crackling energy of the weapon, overpowering it and demolishing it in a glorious, fiery explosion.

The eruption killed the two tinkering men, leaving only five observable men left.

Immediately, one of the men tried to call for backup with a walkie-talkie, so I laser-visioned his hand into molten flesh, leaving the radioactive environment to handle the rest. The next man opened fire rather uselessly, possibly trying to draw attention from his comrades so they could attempt and escape. Too bad it took a mere two seconds for me to catch one of the bullets mid-flight and, with just a flick of my finger, returned to sender, taking a large chunk out of the man’s head.

The next two men hid amongst the rubble. And while their lead-lined suits would have been a good disguise, being able to see through everything except for them kind of defeated the purpose.

With a quick fly-by, they went from dead giveaways to just dead.

That left only the man who went by “Captain.”

His death would not be so swift.

I watched from a distance like a hungry predator as he scrambled over debris. Granting him the illusion of safety before I lunged. In an instant, I had him pinned to the ground, my bare form atop his completely clothed one.

“You killed my parents, didn’t you, asshole!?”

“I-I don’t know what you’re talking about! Please! Spare me, I beg of you!”

“No, you’re the Captain. That means you know something the others don’t. What’s the deal with the black sun symbol? Trust me, if you don’t tell me now, I will find out later and I won’t be so kind as to let you live, understand?”

“P-please don’t hurt me, I-I’m not sure if your parents may have been one of the assasination targets, but the Black Sun attacks whomever we are hired to target!”

“And who hired you!?”

“The government hired me!”

All of the anger in my face suddenly vanished. It was as if everything had finally clicked together and yet I should have seen it coming from a mile away. It was almost comical! In fact, I started laughing uncontrollably at the revelation. I wasn’t sure what came over me, perhaps my psyche had been damaged beyond repair now, but I certainly wasn’t sulking anymore.

My laughter echoed throughout the desolate city as I yanked the Captain up to his feet. He was confused, but I wasn’t about to answer his question.

Dragging him through the air by the back of his collar, I flew him closer and closer to the center of the reactor leak.

Bursting through one of the maintenance corridors, I spotted the prize. A large mass of primarily corium, spilling onto the floor with periodic flames setting themselves ablaze. It almost looked like a tree root, with almost a texture of bark to it.

His pleas were lost to me as I ripped the head portion off of his suit. He immediately began choking and gasping, as he was within range of some of the deadliest radiation in the world. But I wasn’t satisfied. I grabbed a fistful of his hair, pivoted forward and shoved his face directly into the toxic mass.

The Captain’s screams were muffled not only by the suffocating force of the radioactive elements, but the bubbling of his own flesh. His limbs flailed about like an inflatable tube man at a local car dealership, trying to grip onto anything that could free him from his suffering.

My visceral laughter eluded the passage of time as I held his head down. I didn’t let up. I waited until his screaming ceased and the radioactivity had boiled a majority of the skin on his head.

I took a deep breath, calming myself down. I let go of the Captain’s head, leaving his body to slowly decompose within the Chernobylite.

Maybe I was going insane, but one fact remained that proved my sanity: I knew what I had to do. I now understood every event that led me to who I am now and what I have to do.

It was time to overthrow the United States Government.