“Transparent Man”

PROMPT - GLASS; WORD COUNT: 802 (excluding title)

Now they see him, now they don’t. He’s the transparent man, the last of his kind. He cannot be seen in the mirror, sometimes even in life, therefore leads to him treated as a taboo subject in his religious country as he might be related to demons of some sort although he also believes the aforementioned religious beliefs. His brethren were shattered to pieces while the remaining became transparent… for the rest of their lives. They do not know that this transparent man is only a fellow human, too. He only has a difference, that being his transparency power, which in his opinion, separates him from the other humans and makes him automatically better. Currently at his local high school, the transparent man is in 11th grade. As he sits in the state of a daydream, all of the professor’s words float over his head. He is then sent to the principal’s office due to his behavior. “Kade, pare ko, you can’t keep this ignorant attitude of yours forever. You have to learn to adapt to us… humans.” The principal says, trying to reprimand the transparent man, actually named Kade, in a friendly manner. “But sir, don’t you think my abilities make me better than the others? Well, I think so!” Kade retorts, apparently with a massive ego. After Kade made his response, the principal… gives up? He simply dismisses Kade as it is currently 6pm, the normal class dismissal time. As he walks home, he wonders why he is so disliked around the school, excluding the principal. He knows damn well that the principal doesn’t like students who keep coming back to his office. His thoughts are disrupted, though, as he realizes he’s arrived at his house. As he unlocks the door, he’s constantly reminded to “adapt with other humans”, as said by the principal. His ego is apparently very affected, which to some will be good, but to him, it’s the other way around. “I wish I could see what it would be like to be a normal person for once…” his thoughts echoed as for the first time in years, his perspective, usually blinded by pride, is now longing for change. He looks around, either zoned out, or looking for something to do, but suddenly… “Hello there!” says a deep, yet enthusiastic voice. Kade, however, doesn’t know if it came from a person or his imagination, but tries to test the waters, anyway. “Hey, what do you want, uh… whoever you are!?” Kade blurts out in fear . The unknown voice replies “By any chance, would you like a bit of change in your life?”. Hearing this, Kade’s enthusiasm jolts up as he says “Yes! Of course! I would love that!!”. The voice seems amused by this reaction, saying “I can give you exactly that! What aspect of your life would you want to be changed, exactly?”. Kade tried to calm himself down, yet fails as he knows that opportunities like this only come once a lifetime and he then says “Can you make me normal?” with a hint of desperation in his voice. The unknown voice, or rather, figure proceeds to hand him a bag of crystals to ingest. Kade gladly accepts it yet asks the shadowy and unknown figure a final question before he or it departs, “What are these for, will they make me normal?”. He looks around as he notices no response, only to find out that the figure was gone, faded away from reality. Kade tries to eat the crystals in some way… or just by putting it in his mouth. After a few minutes of sitting on the couch, scrolling on his phone, he feels something, something he doesn’t understand. He shakily goes to the mirror and sees himself. He notices a specific feeling at the back of his mind, he’s probably felt this before, hasn’t he? He shrugs it off and enjoys his normal life for a few days, he goes to school while ingesting the crystals while the thought of him feeling like he ingested the crystals before still lingered, yet slowly but surely intensifies. He wakes up one morning to his mother’s voice, a voice he's not heard in years.

“Kade?”

“Mother?”

“LAY OFF THE METH, IT’S TIME FOR SCHOOL, DAMMIT!”

“What the fu-“

As Kade wakes up, half-lidded, he sees his mother glaring at him while he lays on the bed. Apparently, he was very delusional. He was never transparent, yet he was never really… normal, anyway. “No wonder!” Kade thinks, having a Eureka moment. “I’ve been so high that I’ve been forgetting everything in my life and changing stuff up…” Kade’s sudden realization sends him to despair, knowing that he should’ve stopped when it was easy to. A lot of his life was fabricated in his drug-induced stupor.