[BitPR²] Character Registry (2024)

Ever since he was kid, Mikael often saw weird dreams. Dreams where he could fly and had inhuman strenght. This was perfectly normal, he was said. The landscapes and peoples he saw in his dreams did not in any way correspond to those he saw in the waking world, but they were always consistent with each other. Sometimes, he mused whether his spirit really wandered to some other land, where it held a secret life of its own each night. Sometimes, he saw visions of a vast desert, or of someone standing before a vast gate, as if preparing to lift it up. He never attached any significance to these dreams. After all, dreams are just dreams.

As a kid, Mikael wasn't that remarkable. He had what could be called a happy childhood - his father loved his mother, his mother had a steady job as a daycarer, and he had a lot of friends. At school, he was fairly good, sometimes top of his class, even. He had an interest in a broad variety of subjects, and some of these caused others to mock him and call him a "nerd", "geek" or "weird" - he was weak and small back then, so he shrugged it off, even though it often made him angry. He believed in giving people another chance, and often tried, and sometimes succeeded, in making friends with those who teased him.

In his adolescence, things took a downward turn, but nothing too awful. His mother decided she didn't want to do her old job anymore, and ended in a spiral of short-term, low-paying jobs. His father started to bend under the pressure of his own work and the troubles of his mother, and took up drinking. Elementary school ended, and Mikael somewhat unexpectedly moved to a vocational institute to study as a welder - with his grades and academic interest, everyone assumed he would've move to a gymnasium. The institute was bit of a jump into cold water - none of his best friends from elementary school followed him but many of his bullies did. Many of his friends had been girls, but now his class had none. He closed off somewhat, only befriending his teachers, but barely managing to keep cordial relations to his classmates, whom he considered "intellectually inferior" - this thought made him feel guilty, because he thought it arrogant and maybe even unfounded, even if it was partly true. Still, he was the best of his class and graduated with excellent grades. He got a good job from a local company and was full of hope for a bright future when he signed into the service of Finnish Defense Forces.

His stay in FDF was very exciting, at first. The thought of military discipline and honor appealed to the young man. He seemed to be pretty alone in that regard, however, with most of his peers considering military a "necessary evil" and mostly an useless break to their education. He was hopeful of being chosen to be trained as a Commissioned Officer - maybe he'd even pursue career as such! On the other hand, he was first time in years in a situation where he was no longer clearly the best. This poked a hole in his ego. Eventually he became "just" an NCO, which was a minor setback, but worse was to come. Towards the end of his year-long stay, he became increasingly disapproving of how his peers considered it fine to abuse their new position, while dodging their responsibilities. He tried to fight against it, but when others disregarded him, he stopped - he was pretty alone with his idealism, and it was starting to alienate him from his comrades. The pressure was too much. He also realized that the staff were ignorant, or even silently approving, of some of the conscripts' misdemeanors. He came to the conclusion that the "military discipline" was a poor joke at best, the organization of FDF was obsolete and could never work properly as long as the conscripts would have such negative attitude towards each other. He silently abandoned any dreams of a military career and returned home. Unfortunately, his old workplace no longer had need for him, so he had to resign in but a few months.

In addition, while he'd been gone, his father's drinking had developed into full-blown alcoholism, and his pressures at work culminated to a total burnout. This, accompanied with troubles of making ends meet, had made her mom furious at her employers. Her endless nagging did not improve her husband's mood. She also began pecking her son about moving to an apartment of his own and getting a job. All Mikael could say was that he was "trying to".

It turned out he had to try for a long while. Factories were being shut down left and right, or so everyone told him. He found himself in a similar spiral of short-term jobs as his mother, just as he had feared. Not having anything to build his life on, he could not decide where to move - all the while his mother kept piling the pressure on him, even starting to make him pay bills for the house. Mikael might have been more tolerant of this, if it had not been such a transparent attempt to drive him away from home. This drove a wedge between them - his mother ordered him to pay increasingly more things, and when he started complaining that she should not spend as much on frivolities, she became furious at him. Mikael's father, already exhausted due to his job, could not tolerate their arguing, and increasingly often trifle issues turned into three-way shouting contests where Mikael and his mom were blaming each other about everything, and his father was crying for them to stop.

Finally, Mikael found a place of his own, but his relations with mother had been irrevocably poisoned. After he got last of his things hauled to his apartment, he decided to cut ties with his parents for a year. He stayed in contact with his brother, though, who was most supporting.

Mikael now faced a new challenge. Now 22, he was starting to dream of getting kids. Yet, he'd not even had a girlfriend up to this age. He'd not minded his inexperience before, but now it started to embarrass him. Still, he took to dating with enthusiasm and hopeful attitude. He met a lot of new people, but... he didn't seem to click with anyone. Or rather, he met a lot of women who he thought would be right for him - but they did not return his feelings. "You're a nice guy, but...", "I just want to be friends", "Sorry but I just don't feel the same towards you", "I'm in love with someone else" - these phrases became all too familiar to him.

For the record, he really did befriend some of them - having lost trace of his former best friends, it was a welcome change. But it was also painful; his feelings for them didn't die even though it'd been made clear they were unrequited. "Don't worry, it'll pass", they said. "You'll find someone else. You're a nice guy!" But as he looked around, he saw that "niceness" meant jack and squat. Many of the men who'd been, frankly, pricks in army or at school had girlfriends or were even married! He could not comprehend it. What was he doing wrong?

He watched medics walk to the car that had crashed into his. It had been squeezed flat. He could tell from their faces that whatever they saw was not pretty. He watched as the firemen came and sawed the car into pieces to recover whoever had been inside. He watched how puzzled they were when they found his car, its side torn open, with no-one inside.

He watched how a woman holding a girl to her chest rose from the other car and cried at the firemen. No-one seemed to hear her. Then, out of nowhere, a black form came. It took the woman and the girl away.

Filled with dread, Mikael rose and walked into the forest. He walked and walked, until exhaustion took the better of him and he collapsed in the snow.

A few days later, he returned to work. Despite having slept out in the open with barely clothes on his back, there wasn't a single frostbite on him. He'd only fetched new outfit from home and returned to everyday life. His work buddies looked like they saw a ghost. They pointed to an article in yesterday's newspaper, told how they'd feared he'd been one of the deceased. Mikael was not amused.

From there on, he started seeing oddly transparent people around places like hospitals, cemeteries, abandoned houses. He saw more of the black forms, and each time they became more distinct. Each time, he felt a chill go through his body, and fled the scene as quickly and unassumingly as possible.

He stopped dreaming, save for the vision of the gate. The vision became more distinct now - he could see it was him who was trying to lift the gate. One night, he succeeded, and was blinded by bright light. Then the visions stopped. For first time in his life, Mikael saw ordinary dreams - trifle, meaningless affairs of having wild sex with women he could never have, or finding himself naked at work.

He started missing his dreaming life and friends. On the flipside, his waking life started feeling more like a dream, and a bad one at that.

At the gym, he started experimenting. He put more weight on than he thought he would never be able to lift, but despite it feeling like his arms would pop out of their sockets, he could always lift everything he piled on himself. Soon, he hit the limits of available weights and machinery. At work, when no-one was looking, he grabbed a bar of iron and bend it with his bare hands. He carefully tried cutting himself with a knife, and found out the blade broke sooner than his skin. He realized he no longer had any idea what he was capable of, and he became afraid.

While walking, he felt strangely light. He remembered the surreal feel of his past dreams where he could fly - one day, he focused on it and jumped. He found himself standing on the top of a nearby tree. That was one of the few occasions that year when he felt truly happy.

He started hearing whispers, coming from nearby items. He couldn't comprehend most of them, but those he'd owned for a long time made sense. He grabbed hold of an old juniper bow made by his father, and it turned into a real hunting bow. He swung a kitchen knife, and it turned into a machete that could cut 1 millimeter thick steel. He decided not to try what would happen if he "listened to the voice of" actual weapons.

Mikael had become a superman. That was the only way he could make sense of it. But there was no Lex Luthor to oppose him, nor a Justice League to support him. He was alone with his abilities... as the only person on earth, as far as he knew.

Or could there be others? Who were those black-clad people he saw every so often? In myth, such people had existed for aeons - now that he provenly had these powers, maybe he should reconsider whether to believe in them?

He pondered of what to do with his powers - should he become a masked vigilante, like those in the comics? Should he go to the Great Randi and get the 1 million prize, to live as a rich man? Should he break into a bank instead?

No matter what he thought of, the longer he mused on the consequences, the less he wanted to anything. He decided to continue his life like before, but it lost its luster. When his boss came to complain to him about slipping schedules, Mikael barely heard he was speaking as he was busy thinking of how easy it would be to fling the man out of the window. On a date, Mikael could only think of how easily he could crush the bones of the petite woman. Or how she would think him crazy if he told her what he could do, or whether she'd believe her eyes if he showed it to her. That time, he just up and left without even paying. He never met her again. Out in town, people seemed to fade to the concrete, becoming nothing but a grey mass slowly trickling through the city.

He called his best friend and longest-lasting crush and told her to meet him at a frozen lake. She paled when she him pick up a boulder twice his size and throw it on the ice. She fainted when she saw him fly. Mikael carried her home and nursed her until she woke up. He asked her what he should do, but she was in denial anything had ever happened. His heart was broken.

Next morning, he send her a note telling to go to the lake. He also send a message that he would not go to work that day. He also send a farewell message to everyone whose number he had, before crushing his phone with his bare hands and setting his apartment on fire.

He'd had enough. He was not a human any longer. He would find a place of his own, away from the trifle affairs of society. The laws of humans did not include him, and no new laws would be made for him.

But there is no wilderness any more. No place untainted by presence of man. So he still walks among people, feigning the outside habits of humanity, smiling and being kind to others. Not because anyone tells him to (he tells himself), but because he wants to. Though lately, he's not really wanted to. Maybe he will find someone else like him, in some other place or country. Only time will tell.

If you meet him, he'll be cordial, helpful even. If you ask him for his name, he might introduce himself as "Nemo", "Sín Nombre" or "Niemand Nihil". These are all just little things to fool those who aren't linguistically gifted - learned persons will notice these are all various ways of saying "Nameless", "Nobody", "Zero" or "Nothing".