Peter finished cleaning up the dark apartment in outer New York. The 24-year-old bank robber was still lying on the floor next to his sofa. Unconscious.
“Well, time to wrap this up”, Peter said to himself as he picked up a pen from his pocket. He closed his eyes, looked away, and pressed down hard on the eraser on the top of the pen. It lit up the whole room.
“He won’t remember a thing”, he said happily after the light disappeared.
He flew out the window and did the same thing to everyone who knew the bank robber.
Peter had superpowers and was working on eliminating all criminality with the help of a special device that wipes out certain parts of a person’s memory. He would go in invisible into their home, knock them unconscious, wipe their memories of their criminal activity, and then do the same for all their associates.
But this day was different.
He was just about to wipe the memory of the last of the robber’s associates when he noticed an old newspaper lying on a desk.
He looked at the date. January 4th, 2128. Nine years ago.
Keeping something this old, he thought with growing curiosity, why would anyone save this?
He picked up the newspaper and started rifling through the papers.
Nothing out of the ordinary.
Then he noticed a missing page. Someone had ripped it out.
Slightly disappointed, he looked around in hopes of finding it. He was too interested to resist.
He found what he was looking for in the associate’s bedroom. On a big cork board was multiple ripped out newspaper articles linked together with yarn.
On top of everything was a name.
Peter Nyles. Peter’s full name.
His curiosity grew even more.
Peter let out a small scream when he read the title of one of the papers. He could feel his muscles becoming rigid and his skin tingle.
“Superhero Peter Nyles kills wife”, it read.
This can’t be real, he thought, pulling his hair.
He went on to read the content. He didn’t pick up many words, but a few was enough to understand what had happened nine years ago.
His memory had been wiped because he killed the woman he loved.
He screamed.
The robber’s associate had woken up and stood outside the room observing Peter.
“I see you’ve discovered what you did to my sister”, she said coldly.
She wanted revenge.
Next story will be a fantasy story :)
Picture from pixabay.com.