The Superhero: Visible Man - Short Story

I want to tell you the story of a superhero, who could see through the walls, used this power to unmask mobsters and thieves. He wasn't a known superhero since he never let himself be seen but it was very helpful; Of course; they never noticed it until it was no more. Like everything in life you only realize what you had until you lose it. Nor was he a common superhero, of those who grow up with the law under his wing or that helping others was a fact of upbringing; rather, his life was full of crime and horror from the very beginning. It's one of those superheroes that when you listen to their story you can be sure that it will end up being the villain of the story. But this story is a demonstration of how you were, the upbringing or the social environment are no reason to harm a noble heart.

His story began with having a father, that was a mobster by profession and his mother prostituted for fun; they never paid attention to him. His father never saw him, only when he came to use his mother at night, or beat him the next morning when he disappeared again for the next month; on the side of his mother, he didn't receive much love either as she saw him as the worst mistake of his life, this thought caused the woman to remove the possibilities of another pregnancy of the table.

He had friends, but none with a good heart, all addicts or murderers who had grown up in the same neighborhoods where his mother used to get his men and they never had the heart that he had. This boy who had never wanted to hurt anyone, life took him to situations that he could not escape that they would say would darken his heart but a light of hope would illuminate his soul.

18 years of life in a house alone, he learned to live by himself, to be his own father and his own mother, his own best friend, his own family. During his teenage years and maturity he committed more crimes than he would like to admit, some because of social pressure, others because of the need and they would say, Why couldn't get a job? He had it, from very early to very late trying to avoid that life, but work for a boy without any education was limited to possibilities where what was earned was not enough for many more than perhaps one meal a day.

He did not deny it, rather, it was something that he himself always admitted and told when he told his story, on several occasions he had tried to commit suicide, he tried everything, but apparently he had a kind of guardian angel that protected him, because for whatever reason These efforts were frustrated by something or by someone. From pills to how desperate it is to jump into the subway, on each of the occasions he was still alive and whole.

The love he had lost all his life arrived to him when he was 19 years old when he unexpectedly met a girl who really liked who he was, someone kind, sweet, delicate who had just had very bad luck in life. She offered to help him and support him in everything he needed, that's how he came out of that dangerous life he had until that moment.

5 years of something wonderful that ended as suddenly as it was that the other person left you for someone else without any apparent explanation. He returned to the years of confinement, sadness, and loneliness. When you live a life like that, it rarely comes out of you, when you have such a negative thought of yourself, you cannot overcome without help, and as all those feelings returned, the thoughts of ending your life too. This time he planned something a little more extreme so that nothing could stop him, and decided to throw himself into a radioactive tank that had a factory abandoned to the outskirts of the city, closed precisely by leaks of radioactivity that made the work there impossible.

He thought about it a lot, although he was already affected by the reactivity only for being there. He Did it. Was submerged for more time than any normal person should endure under the water, besides that it was not water but radioactive material that had to decompose his body after the first drop. But he didn't feel anything, absolutely nothing. He went out swimming as if it were a swimming pool, and so, drenched in radioactive material, he began to walk, not understanding what had happened.

A million possibilities passed through his mind, the first one, that in reality, the tank was another compound that did not harm the human body, an idea that he discarded because all his clothes had been consumed leaving him naked, it also passed through the mind of the actually having an angel,or that he had a mystical vision on earth that he had to fulfill before he died.

He took one of the suits that were still in that place and went with only that to his house. He took a bath where the contact with the water and the material that was still on his skin, melted the tiles. His head was confused, everything was confused. He must have died that night. Why couldn't he? Without thinking much more, he went to a hospital where he asked for all possible tests.

He was waiting on a stretcher for the nurses to return when the wall on his right began to fade, giving way to the view behind. He thought his eyesight was playing tricks on him. But every time he opened his eyes again, what was behind the walls was becoming clearer and clearer, he could see the nurses who had attended him before having a conversation he could not hear. He approached that wall feeling with his hand and realized that was still there, he hit his ear to the now invisible wall trying to hear what the women were saying

—It is impossible that he is still alive Amanda, Mr. Kowalski has the radioactivity levels so high that should be dead and even disintegrated—

—The exams must be wrong Sofia, the man is in complete health and all other evidence shows that

Amanda nodded doubtfully, not knowing very well what to do in those cases. Kowalski fled the hospital without waiting for the nurses to do more tests. When he got back to his house, he sat down in the small single bed that he had in that small apartment with brown walls, where there was only space for that bed, a kitchen, and a bathroom. He spends a lot of time thinking, analyzing what had happened both in the radioactive base and in the hospital. The most logical thing was that he was going crazy, that in fact if the material had affected him and now he was dying of madness.

The next week was a scare adventure where the walls disappeared giving way to images behind them. The boy had never felt healthier and sane despite the fact that these incidents occurred more and more often. Less than a month had passed when he had already frustrated two robberies of neighbors who were in bad steps.

That's how he started his superhero life, without wanting it, without looking for it. At first, it was an only, social help, he left the tips anonymously in the police, but after a year of doing it and now being involved with gangsters decided to start signing with a pseudonym - Visible Man - Certainly nothing original. That gave a meaning to his life, he could get a better job, try to study. He felt complete with the little things that his life now had.

He had to move continuously and made enemies who had discovered that someone gave clues to the police, each time they took better care of themselves and even then their ability could go beyond any possible wall, of all the thinkable materials. There was nothing that seemed to stop this superhero who was now helping the police anonymously, the mobsters believed in ruin.

Until one day he disappeared, no one really knows what happened to him. Some think that radioactivity eventually consumed it and died. Others say that he finally got another love and left his life dangerous for her. The craziest ones say that after discovering these thugs, he liked that life and everything he could get and started using that power to help them and earn money. In short, there will always be stories of all kinds and whether dead, in love and evil, it was helpful to prove that your life does not dictate who you will be, only you do it. So ... do not give up and keep fighting against the darkness in you.