It was a true existential paradox.

She put the pen to her lip; no amount of focus seemed to lessen it and its intensity. How does one have an ego when one is invisible? Yet, to really get to the point, how does one maintain their sense of self while simultaneously attempting to conform to societal norms—while also trying to configure ones differences into the mix? Especially strange quirks like she had. Most people couldn't turn invisible or manipulate space, this was an easy fact. So at what point was she to draw the metaphorical line?

She had been raised all her life to be herself—yet she wanted only to know conformity and normality. Strangely, as time passed and major events transpired this view changed. Now she felt an odd mental schism appearing inside her. It was depressing to say the least, an emotional torrent of failed comprehension and confusion.

"If society wants me to fit in. . .how do I be myself—if by very nature I don't fit in?"

Theoretically she could answer herself with 'use personal quirks only when necessary.' Yet that didn't really work, she could see many situations to use her abilities. Yet, if she tried to half of the time, she would be ostracized and picked on. How does one attain normality if it is technically out of metaphorical reach?

For a long time now, she had managed just fine. However, as time passed and she grew she began to wonder why it is that she was granted such powers yet unable to truly use them to their full potential. Why have them then? Why not just be an average person without mutations? It didn't add up. If universally, objectively, she was supposed to live as herself the best she could, then how could she fall to peace with reality if it didn't want her to? No, reality—society was clearly mistaken then.

"Society is what's telling me not to be whole, universally I'm not being true. . ."

This wasn't right. Glancing over at her alarm clock, it was 4 in the morning. She had to make sure she wasn't being too obnoxious as she thought out loud. She couldn't help but think and think. She was in high school now, a junior—how was she not supposed to wonder about these things? Initially she loved her abilities, as she grew she began to hate them—now she was beginning to revert back to her original feeling set, yet her parents still strictly look down on her using them. Coincidentally her younger brother was going through her phase she was going through at his age.

"It isn't fair, they got to be heroes. . .how can they muffle us, how can they shush me like that? This is fucked. . ."

She began scribbling more doodles into her notebook. She rarely ever actually wrote anything down, she simply wanted to have something to illustrate anything that didn't quite manifest in words. It helped a lot. She was depressed a lot, although she had gotten a lot better than a couple years back. Still, she hated a lot of things that her parents made her do, that society made her do. She didn't have to follow them. She smiled as she thought about taking over her school, how easy it would be.

Free will must be warped if the conditions had put her in such a state that she didn't have free will without consequences that were usually less than favorable. How could destiny have laid out such a fixed path? It didn't have to be like this—no, thinking on the destinies seemed to portray a rather grim future. No, she had other ideas in mind, she wanted to hone her power, to shape it. Villains had been disappearing for years now, there was no more madmen out there who truly wanted to use their power to take over the world.

To take over the world.

Violet froze for a moment. She had been filled with a glee that she hadn't felt in some time. The idea of taking over the world—not as Violet, but as a villain. The battle would be intense; she would have to face her parents and the other heroes, even if she died the finale would be something that would bring a life back into her.

As quickly as the thought came she brushed it away, that was madness. Was she so desperate for existential fulfillment? Perhaps, life had become so dry. She couldn't stand the girls or the guys at her school, all of them seemed so hollow, so fake. The world seemed to be a negative image that she traversed to act as if she were alive. No, alive wasn't good enough, complete. She felt alone and incomplete, dented, that's what it came down to. Yet, speaking to others didn't seem to get her anywhere. At what point was she to find solace?

She sat there for a moment, spacing out at the quiet scene of the night immersed backyard. She couldn't go back to sleep so easily—in fact she seemed to have developed a case of insomnia. She always seemed to feel restless, anxious for something she didn't quite understand. Perhaps she thought the world had more for her in the future, yet that was seemingly a wish. Sometimes she just wanted to die, but not out of sorrow—but to see what awaited her in the netherrealm. What lay in the future for her? She just wanted to know where she was going.

She drew another skull, then a cat. "How did the fates decide such a twisted puzzle. . ." she whispered.

Objectively the world moved on without her, desired her to melt into it, and wished for her to completely be enslaved under its values and ideas. Subjectively though, she had no such desire. She wanted to decide what to do, she wanted to use her powers as see fit, she wanted to be herself. Her ego was being ripped in half; did the other heroes go through the same thing? They all seem so content, so confident this is how it should be.

"Fucked, it's all fucked."

She began to feel faint. She put her pen down and rested her head on her notebook. She watched the trees dance in the breezes, the stars appear, disappear, and reappear behind the clouds. She couldn't stop wondering about the future and her fate. How could she keep going with such a mental torrent? Maybe she was making it harder than it was supposed to be.

"Who knows. . ." she said, closing her eyes.

She awaited the next day, awaited an answer, awaited peace. Whether or not any of them would come, that seemed to be the real question. As she sunk into herself she began to cycle through all the usual questions—the meaning of life, the perpetuation of existence. . .etc. They were all such useless questions, yet they still demanded answers, like her. She was like them, she was just a question craving answers.

What is being invisible? What is it really? Technically it's having form without externality being able to perceive you. Perception is an equivalent to understanding isn't it? So in one way or another she is like the unanswerable questions, having form but no understanding to complete her. She wondered if she was destined to a bleak future of missing answers. The thought scared her, but the meanings of her existential qualms were something she was sure most people had pursued—especially fellow heroes.

Finally sleep had whisked her away. Her notebook below her full of desperate and angst ridden drawings and doodles, her mind still plagued with warped questions that lacked answers. Whatever the future held, it could only dream for completion. Just as the rest of us dream of completion and actualization; after all these are what our dreams are made of.