Fresh Ink: An Anthology

Syrita is a 17-year-old girl living in Los Angeles. The world’s only superhero, X, has decided that humanity is no longer worth saving and that he’ll stop helping unless one person can convince him otherwise. The US president chooses Syrita because she was the first person whose life X ever saved.

Two years earlier, while Syrita was crossing the street, a fleeing car in a high-speed chase was about to hit her. However, X flew down and picked her up, plucking her from danger and also sparking a media frenzy around his identity and where his abilities came from. In particular, Syrita notes that the media has always been obsessed with his race, as people claim he’s Black due to the dark skin around his eyes. Others argue that he’s “post-racial,” while others argue that it doesn’t matter. Ultimately, X spent the next two years saving humanity around the world from multiple disasters, until he slowly stopped.

In the present, Syrita sits with X in his apartment to convince him to continue his superhero work. She’s shocked at how human everything in the apartment is, and it’s in the part of Los Angeles that her mother would have called a “ghetto.” X assumes that the president has chosen her to come because she’s also Black. She’s confused as to why they’re talking about skin color instead of the end of humanity, but then he explains why he chose to give up being a superhero. While in civilian clothes, he was shot by police officers. As Syrita explains it, “[H]e got shot by the cops for being black on a street” (181).

The two also discuss Syrita, who is from a wealthy family. Being saved by X changed her outlook somewhat, and she elected to use her wealth to help people, like by volunteering at the soup kitchen. She considers how she views the shooting of Black civilians by cops; she typically attempts to avoid watching coverage of it or thinking about it. She notes that she leaves the details intentionally “fuzzy” in her mind because “if cops are just killing black men without cause, then how can we all be okay with that?” (182).

X takes Syrita and flies with her out of his apartment window and to the top of the tallest building in the area. He shows her the city’s layout, telling her that everything is the same from up here at first, and it’s hard to tell the color of people’s skin or the neighborhoods they live in. However, after watching, it becomes easy to tell who is who by the cars they drive, the state of their neighborhoods, the number of grocery stores, and other clues; people of color inhabit most of the impoverished neighborhoods.

Syrita tries to convince him that his being shot isn’t worth destroying humanity. She considers saying that maybe it was an accident, that the cops were only doing their jobs, or that X somehow deserved it based on something that he did; however, she knows that’s untrue. Just like the other shootings that occur regularly, his shooting wasn’t “justified” by anything besides racism.

X removes his mask, and Syrita is stunned by his beauty and how human he is. He reveals to her that after his brother and uncle were shot, his mom wished for him to always be protected, and he woke up the next morning as a superhero.

Syrita remembers all the arguments she brought with her to convince X, about how humans are truly good; how even though they wage war, they also help; and how they’re a young race that is still trying to learn and grow. However, in the face of X’s experiences and his humanity, she realizes that “his anger is justified and she can’t ask him to set it aside” (187). Instead, she considers how he has thus far used his superpowers for good instead of destruction because of his “humanity.” She then walks to the edge of the roof and lets herself fall.