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.