Nemesis

I grew up with comic books. They were my escape and the geek culture was my family.
I was an orphan, living in the System - foster homes, juvie halls, all that. But that's not what my story is about.
When I turned 16, I found out that I'm a superhero.
I have to say, it was a little shocking at first. I don't live in a world with the likes of Spiderman, or the X-men, or anything like that. I live in the real world.
The first time I did my thing, it took me a while to figure out what was going on. When I told the man who I'd caught raping my friend to "just die", he did. Instant heart attack.
My friend thanked me for saving her.
"It's nothing," I said. "Forget about it."
The next day, I asked how she was doing. She had no idea what I was talking about.
After a while, I found that I could control when my words would invade another's mind and make them do what I wanted. I left the System and never looked back.

I began to travel the world. Being a dark-haired Italian gave me an advantage in blending in with almost any culture. I just had to dress the part.
I was pretty sure that I wouldn't have too much time before I found my nemesis. All superheroes have one - the bad guy to do battle with. That's what superheroes do.
I started in Asia, boarding planes, buses and trains with no way to pay, but I told the ticket-takers that they'd already punched my ticket and that was that.
I found myself drawn to the ghettos and the slums of the world, searching for my nemesis, hoping to draw him or her out of the shadows with the temptation of having a "worthy adversary".
But no one came.
Finally, I came to the conclusion that my nemesis didn't know of his or her powers. They didn't know they had a role to fulfill.
So I started hunting them down.

In the comics, the bad guy is usually someone of wealth or power or both. They are a person who uses their position and abilities to take more power, grow more wealth, and abuse people along the way.
I sought out those people.
I invaded child-brothels in Thailand and Singapore, demanding that the men engaged in the horrors there "suffer and die".


They did.
I demanded that kidnappers of orphaned children in India tell me who they sold their kids to. I devestated the pedophile populations throughout southern asia.
I went to Brazil and killed an entire crime family.
I handed over a dozen men and women involved in immigrant slavery in the eastern United States to the authorities, and I forced a corrupt judge to give them maximum sentences before he died of a brain aneurysm.

After a full decade of bloodshed, I stopped.
I looked around, waiting for my nemesis.
Nothing.
I searched for signs that my work had been successful in slowing the horrors that humankind was bequeathing itself.
Nothing.
I wept with the blood on my hands and in my mind. I knew I wouldn't stop. I couldn't stop.

And I understood.
Finally, I got what the world was telling me. I had my nemesis.