The Sister of a Superhero

She could hear the tap-tap-tapping of a pencil from across the room. It reverberated inside her skull. Along with the ticking of the clock, the tapping of their teacher's computer keys, and her neighbor's leg bouncing up and down. The nervous heartbeats of her classmates beat like a drum. 

The history test was long and arduous, but she had finally turned it in. Now there was nothing to distract her from the constant noise assaulting her ears. Their annoying teacher had already tried to take her noise cancelling headphones this period, she didn't want him to follow through on his threats. Yet the constant pounding in her skull was abject torture. 

Thankfully the ever ticking clock was inching closer towards the bell. Oh, the bell. How it hurt her ears yet signified the end of the excruciating school day. At least outside of its walls she could keep her glorious headphones on. The sudden shrill sound of the bell scared her out of her wits even though she was expecting it. 

Slinging her bookbag over her shoulder, she snapped on her headphones and rushed towards the door. History was her last class and the hallways were already so loud that she could hear the crowd, albeit muffled, through her headphones. She had to shove through them all to make it down the flights of stairs that led to the main school entrance. 

Breathing in the fresh air that reeked of car fumes, she jogged towards the nearby subway entrance. The occasional car horn or shout of a pedestrian managed to slip through the ‘soundproof’ headphones. She flinched every time. Her ears still ached from that horrible bell. 

She almost stumbled as she quickly started to descend the stairs towards her ride home. She couldn’t miss it again. Last time she was stuck in the closed space and had headphones with dead batteries. That wasn’t a great day. She slid her metrocard through the turnstile as she slipped through. The train whistled as it approached from the subway tunnel. People started to approach the track. 

Her eyes strayed to the metal rails, as always, but she kept her feet firmly planted where they were until the train pulled smoothly into place. She let the flood push her into the subway car and the door slid shut behind her. The unspoken rules dictated that no one should make eye contact with anyone, and she was grateful for that. Dealing with people was never really her thing. 

The ride passed without incident, but the real problems showed up when she emerged into the sunlight. She got an unwanted front row seat to a hero-villain firefight, quite literally. Apparently her brother and his supposed arch-nemesis were going at it again. She had no idea why he thought she couldn’t see through their charade. Then again, the rest of the city seemed to. 

But she knew her brother, and there were no real secrets between them. She could see, quite easily, that he was pulling his punches on the villain he was infatuated with. The other wasn’t doing the same. She sighed, knowing that she would have to patch him up tonight. 

She eventually made it back to their shared apartment and flopped down on her bed. It wasn’t huge, but not as small as it could’ve been. A hero salary was enough, for now. Her eyebrows creased as she tried not to think about her future, college loans, job prospects. Her frown deepened as she couldn’t shove the thoughts out like she normally could. 

She carefully eased off her headphones and sighed in relief. The clamping around her ears wasn’t exactly pleasant. She carefully padded across the kitchen and grabbed a glass before reaching into the fridge and getting the jug of orange juice. 

She turned around with both of them in her hands and her eyes widened in shock. What looked like a scarlet comet was hurtling towards their apartment. She dropped both the orange juice and her glass and regretted it immediately. 

She barely repressed a scream at the piercing sound of glass shattering. White hot pain stabbed into her eardrums. Her palms were pressed into her ears and her eyes were screwed tightly shut as she crouched on the ground for an indeterminate amount of time. 

She finally managed to stand up, gingerly opening her eyes and releasing her palms. She winced as her shoes crunched on the broken glass. Her ears still pulsed in pain. Sometime during her brief recovery the comet had vanished. It was probably her brother messing with her or something. Or some new wicked plot that was foiled. She didn’t know, and couldn’t bring herself to care. She just wanted to relax in silence for once. 

She clamped her headphones on firmly and sprawled into her spinny desk chair. The thing about silence is that it could be soothing and lull her mind into laziness, but for someone who is used to constantly hearing everything around her it felt alien. It seemed like everything was going to creep up on her. She cracked her eyelids open and surveyed the room. 

The bed was still messy and unmade as always, and her closet stood half open on the other side of the room. The desk beside her was a jumbled pile of papers. There wasn’t much else in the room. She liked it that way. Not too many shadowy corners to get anxious about.

She spun the chair in dizzying circles. That happened very easily because of her enhanced ears. She knew the chair was creaking underneath her but the silence was blissful. But all fun had to come to an end as she slowed to a stop. She took off the headphones almost reverently. Her brother would be back soon and she still had to clean up the-yup, there he was. Too late. At least he remembered not to barge in and not potentially damage her ears.

She ambled out to the living room, still dressed in her school uniform albeit being a bit rumpled. Apologies were about to come falling out of her mouth until she caught sight of him. His hair was everywhere, lips swollen and he had a dopey smile on his face. She suddenly knew exactly what that fireball was earlier.

He looked up and gave her a sheepish grin.