Antisocial Superhero

Most of the time I didn't really care.

I preferred to live quietly, let everything else go on as they want.

A lot of people know I exist, but thankfully not who I am. There was a lot of talk online last time the phone rang. People saying if I had been called first all those heroes wouldn't have died. Others are scared of me. My very existence makes them terrified.

I don't do well with people.

I prefer to keep to myself.

It's quiet. Peaceful.

And then the phone rings. Incessant. Buzzing. I can hear the silicates vibrating.

I pick up the phone, and set it down again. 'Hello', I think into the mind of the person who called.

I sense their confusion. Their fear. Their desperation. All of it and every person between myself and them.

It takes a lot of willpower for me to steer away from their base thoughts. It's their privacy. A single speck and I could see...

"What's your name?" I say out loud. It focuses my mind.

'Oh, Jacqueline, danger, help, comet, war, sun exploding, Henry's dead, invasion from planet...'

I pull myself out of her mind.

No one thinks in coherent language. It's flashes of images and feelings. But it's enough.

Instead of jumping back into this 43 year old newly widowed mother of 3's mind, I conjured a pen and paper in front of her and had them write out: 'I will help with most of those. But you'll need to deal with the invasion and the war on your own.'

Please. Please. They killed him. They're killing... everyone.

I could hear her heartbeat from this far away. Her panic. Her grief. She had watched him die.

I considered letting the silence speak. But... she had been the one to reach for the phone.

I calculated the air to displace, and disintegrated just enough so when I teleported, it wouldn't cause any disruption. Making sure to do the reverse back at my home.

She had grey hair. Standing at 5'6. She had... very sad eyes, but there was righteous anger in her.

I opened my palm and held it out to her.

"Jacqueline." Her mind was open. Her memories of Henry and her playing as children, their first night after prom, their first child, his death... it all played and I couldn't look away. Not when I was so close.

I looked past it, towards a memory that would help her understand.

"I can not be the king of statues."

I froze time before her face began to change. Before she'd cry at one of her most raw memories being thrown and twisted at her. Did I have to be so cruel? Would she have understood if I said anything else?

I pull my soul away from the splintering timelines. That way led to an infinite void.

I displaced myself again.

I was in 8 places at once.

A comet the size of Australia was about to destroy the moon. I multiplied myself over and over, taking in the mass of the comet into my soul's mass. The source of my power.

For the rest of the planet, it'd be instant. For the 3894 versions of me, it took almost two years.

I jumped clear across the universe towards a black hole that was beyond current human observation, and would be for the species entire lifespan. I added another million versions of myself into the mix. Consuming matter so dense that a single speck could power me for a year.

I used it to reinvigorate the sun.

There were tsunamis and fires and tornados. I had learned quite well when I was a child that you don't mess with the weather carelessly. Instead I moved all 2 billion would be victims to safety. Respecting the national borders, or at least trying to.

Their minds were open. I could feel and hear everything. I lived 2 billion lives in that moment.

Finally, I approached the aliens and the war hawks. They were... angry. Not with the widow's fury, but a shallow and consuming anger. Scared. Desperate. Prideful... proud of that anger. I could read their entire minds.

And inside, I knew I could strip them of their minds. Twist them. Or make them feel every torture they had ordered.

No.

No.

I am not a king.

I'm human. Human.

Right?

I stare at their faces. I learn their languages and their entire lives. I... try not to, even monsters deserve secrets.

Bht they're open to me. Like a diary lying on a bed, I can't help but see glimpses.

I could kill them. And their armies. I've done it before. An entire nation's military. Gone.

Not even a body to bury.

I don't like war. But conflict, all conflict is human.

I stare through the minds of the aliens, finding their ruling council. Reading their story like a book. Their home was destroyed, uninhabitable.

I write a plea for peace and lay it in front of each, in their native languages. Using their memories of pain to write.

I could make them listen.

But this... this is better. I hope.

I return home after the decades of work.

I can never tell what new tragedies will happen when I help. What families will do when they lose their home. Who will cannablize another.

When you have the power, everything that happens is because you allow it. Every murder, every starving orphan, every abusive spouse.

I put on my headphones.

The memories of ash falling from the sky return. Even monsters have families.

I turn the music up.

I can never tell what people will do. Even though they're all so small and delicate and pliable........

I am not a king.

I turn the music up louder.

Outside my simple apartment, the entire world was changed in an instant.

And I continued my quiet life.