A busy street. Some people were hurrying to their mysterious destination, some others hanging around with friends, and the rest walking around lazily, daydreaming window-shoppers.
In that last category, Mr and Mrs David, telling each other hollow jokes and anecdotes of their lives that still made them chuckle softly.
And Alessa was watching, alone, the almost infinite crowd. She was so silent, she didn’t emit a sound whenever someone pushed her because she was on the way without doing as much as acknowledging her presence.
She was invisible. Owner of no quirk that made her interesting in some way. Well, she did like cheesy movies, but that was hardly an interesting fact. Actually, she wouldn’t be normal if she didn’t have at least one hobby that didn’t appeal to everyone, so that was okay, plus she would be oblivious of a large part of pop culture if she avoided cheesy movies.
She was average. Dull. Normal.

“That’s what you wanted after all, isn’t it?” said aunt Elsa, who turned out to be standing right beside Alessa, but not even looking at her. She hadn’t seen the woman since her childhood, but she hadn’t changed a bit. Long, sophisticated, silky blonde hair. Frigid eyes. Pouty mouth. She was standing right beside her, looking at nothing in particular, and she was as if it would kill her to make at least eye contact. In fact, it was almost like Elsa was completely alone, and she were talking to someone who wasn’t really there, a long-gone relative or a late friend.
“Yeah” replied Alessa, not really looking at her either. Her parents were going away without her.
“Please, don’t tell me that makes you feel sad. Don’t start whining now.” mumbled the annoyed woman.
“I’m not sad, not at all” replied Alessa. It’s true: that was what she’d expected all along. She’d been fully aware of the consequences from the beginning. She had not only expected, but also wanted this.
“You’re average. There is a bit of everybody in you. And there’s a bit of you in everybody” commented the cold woman, “but all of these parts are interchangeable with anything else. So that doesn’t mean much.” The girl nodded slowly. “If there's nothing unique about you, that means nobody has got any interest in you.”
“It’s better if I don’t attract attention” stated the schoolgirl, as a matter of fact. She was not sad about the outcome, but she wasn’t happy, either. The one outweighed the other, in a perfectly neutral situation.
“Of course. That is important, so that you attract nor the love, nor the hate of anybody. They might not care much about you, but at least, they don’t hate you.”
“There’s a chance people will hate me if they see something special in me.” The both of them, still standing like statues, around a neverending crowd of nobodies.
“Also, but that’s evident, they will like you a bit at first, because you’re so devoted to the well-being of everybody else. You’re such a pushover. You’re such a good sidekick. But in the long term… scratch that, in the middle term, you’re already forgotten in the favour of someone less reliable, but more quirky.”
She didn’t really know what to answer. She was a bit jealous of such people who stole her spotlight, but it would never feel right if she just reclaimed it.

The blonde kept going. “You’ve always looked for validation, but in such an easy way. As long as it is not disapprobation, you’ll take it.”
“You hate me, and I know my grandparents hate me, too. I’m doing my best to be like everyone else. I’m doing my best to not do anything wrong.” The brunette’s voice was rising slightly in intonation, trying to defend herself in a half-assed way.
“You’re not supposed to be here. You are an error. You are someone else’s error, and you can’t even bother to justify your existence. Rest assured nobody else hates you. But when someone else will replace you, the rest of the world will still find themselves a bit happier.” Her voice was still monotonous and frigid.
A short, painful silence. It was hard to find an argument when the rest of the world appeared perfectly happy without noticing her presence.
“You’re trying too hard.”
“I didn’t do… anything wrong” replied faintly her niece.
“You did, and what you did wrong is that you shouldn’t be here. And that makes you special.” She said the word as if it were synonymous with “plagued” – and in Alessa’s subconscious, it certainly was.
“I don’t have anything special” eventually cried the girl, tired of arguing with someone who kept talking she was in a different dimension, talking to the horizon, watching the sunset over the sea, conversing with a ghost.
Then, suddenly, Elsa’s attitude changed. Her shoulder moved slightly, she rose her hands in surprise, and actually looked at the girl at her left. “Oh.”, she said. “Oh, I see. I see, now.”
Alessa looked back at her. Elsa looked like she just had an epiphany. For an instant, she appeared comprehensive of the situation. “Of course you’re special. Dear, dear, you should have told me that ages ago. You know what, if you don’t know you have something, then obviously, you don’t need it.”
That being said, her hand could suddenly be found in Alessa’s stomach. From it, she ripped out a strange-shaped object: everytime she thought she could see the outlines and texture clearly, it would become an uncertain mass again. And that was all she had that was special.
But Elsa didn’t stop there, despite the bloody gaping hole. She reached at another spot to take out something else, this time, some organ. The girl’s body had a brief spasm. “You don’t know what that is either. You’re a very, very bad wannabe nurse, do you know that?” asked Elsa with the same tone a dentist would ask a kid about their cavities, before throwing the organ away as if it were a piece of garbage. Then, her hand went forward again like a knife in hot butter. And again. Very soon, Alessa’s upper body was a half-empty fleshy mass. And nobody had ever batted an eye, not even her parents, pointing at a window not too far away, obviously interested by a piece of jewellery, or a puppy, or a suit, or whatever.
But her aunt wasn’t done yet.
A knife appeared in her right hand, and she proceeded to start cutting open the girl’s skull, while holding her with her bloody left hand (though it wasn’t of much use, as the student wasn’t doing anything but standing there like a doll).
When she was almost done, unlike the other times, Elsa asked an honest question, expecting a honest answer.
“So, do you believe in something?”
“I don’t believe in God” answered Alessa, very tired, very jaded by it all.
The woman shook her head. “If you’re not acknowledging your soul, that means you don’t need it.”
Then, she finished scalping the girl and reached for the inside of her skull.

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There was an afraid scream. The girl in her bed held tightly the top of her skull in place with both hands, as if it could fall off at any instant.