Shatters

There it sat. A glass window that I had punched through at the age of six. When my parents' eyes suddenly had a look. A look I didn't recognize at the time. A look I later realized was horror and disgust. They looked at my surprised face and glared at it. As if all the innocence I possessed was being drained from me. As if I myself was becoming inhuman as their malicious eyes traveled across my snowy skin. At first, I was confused. I wanted to ask them what was wrong. But one look at their eyes and I would pretend like everything was normal. I showed them the cool stuff I found and they clapped their hands and told me that they loved me. I believed it. Or, at least, if I didn't, I certainly tried to convince myself. I would be smiling happily at them and cuddling with them but then, I would remember those eyes. Eyes that seemed to have come out of anywhere but my parents. Red eyes dyed from hatred. I thought it was their problems clouding up their judgement. So, I told myself to be patient. They would realize their mistake and tell me they loved me with real eyes then. Not fake ones. And so, all till the age of ten, I acted as everyone else did.

But it wasn't the same. It wasn't the same at all because I would see their fathers swinging them around and their mothers, hugging them close. Then, I would ask myself why my parents never did that. When I got mad and accidentally punched the wall, it would break. Shatter, like that meaningless glass piece. And mother and father would turn those eyes on me again. They would get mad and tell me that I wasn't supposed to do that. But why did they never see my bleeding hands afterwards? They would always wear those red eyes around me but those eyes always seem to grow darker when my supernatural abilities came to play. Over time, I realized they didn't hate me. They hated my very existence. The way I was awkward and different. The fact was, I was just unwanted. Is that why I chose this path? Perhaps. Maybe. Probably. Perhaps I just wanted to show the world that I exist. Maybe I just wanted to be seen. No, none of those meaningless words that conveyed no meaning other than wishes. I NEEDED to show them my strength. I NEEDED to prove my worth. Is that what my stick of dynamite is for? For telling the people that I should have been treated differently? For telling my parents that I should have belonged? For taking revenge on my childhood? For showing the world that I should have been taken in?

Yeah, that's what I wanted. To show everyone that I didn't care anymore. If they all took me for a villain, I would make it real for them. Then, he burst through my force field and I saw a flash before my bomb became shatters. I stared in surprise at this person and wondered, for a brief moment, why he chose to help the others. Only, I didn't care about that at the moment. I cared about my tasks ahead. And he? Well, he had interfered. And so, with brute strength, I smashed at the the bug. That bug who seemed far weaker than I. He was just another human who taunted me, I guess. But I saw he wasn't human. Right in front of me, he caught it. Caught my fist and looked at me with different eyes. Eyes that seemed to show pity for me. That enraged me. It hurt because it seemed as if he was telling me I was worse off. It hurt because he seemed fine? He seemed unscarred by the past. The past that had more than scarred me. The past that had crushed me and labeled me as dangerous. Him? There, I saw a family. People who liked him. So then, why was I destined to be a villain? And more importantly, why was he treated differently? There's no answer to that question. People were just labeled different. And the moment I was born, my powers were labeled as bad. Bad that meant you were kicked out of society. Bad that meant you were not accepted by anyone. Bad that meant you would be a pile of rags by the end of your journey.

Then, he talked.

"What's wrong with you? You could have killed everyone!" he screamed at me.

I just laughed. Laughed like the world expected me to. Laughed like a maniac.

"You see them?" I asked. "Those people over there," I say, pointing as a building. "They beat me up. for no reason other than the fact that they heard about my powers."

Then, I pointed at a middle school that I had attended.

"That," I say, "Is the very place that I became this monster, ask them why I'm doing it."

He was naive beyond imagination. His cluelessness that angered me somehow.

"But," he said, "they were scared."

"And you think that justifies their actions? What If I were to say I was scared? Would you be stopping me right now?"

He froze. I saw his eyes widen and his brain go to think. But he didn't tell me an answer. And so, I savored my superiority. To judge me by my skin alone was such a devastating and destructive nature that humans possessed. I truly believed every word I said.

Not a second later, I see a fist. His fist. The fist that was supposed to turn around and help him fly away. That one. As anger coursed through me, I looked at him with my parent's eyes. But eyes couldn't stop a fist. And I felt an impact at my face. A forceful impact that knocked me back. And he stood over me.

"What is it? Did I say something wrong?"

"No, you're completely right," he says. "But, you only pointed to two places."

Another punch lands on my shoulder blade and I can only grunt as he starts pummeling me. I wanted to get up. I wanted to shout at him. Ask him why he was taking the side of others. Then, his fist stop moving and he stops so suddenly I am left to wonder whether or not someone else pulled him to a stop.

I laughed. I laughed while coughing blood. I laughed while faint bruises were growing on my body.

"Ha," I say, "aren't you going to kill me? I'm just a monster in the eyes of you, I suppose. Well, you can go ahead and finish it off."

He didn't. He pulled me up and hugged me.

"I don't want to kill you," he said, after a while. "You don't deserve it."

I don't know if it was because I was still a little off that day, but it was the first time I had hope that my glass window in my heart could be repaired.