One original sci-fi story per day for all of 2023 | Created by screenwriter Timothy Michael Cooper, illustrated using A.I.

Irritator

Irritator

I'm a very special type of superhero: I irritate my enemies into defeat.

Bad jokes, puns, endlessly repeated stories, self-serving humblebrags, rants about my victimhood and the hopelessness of the world...I annoy the villains until they quit their quest, lose their power, depart earth, anything to get away. It’s a superpower I can’t turn off; literally no one wants to be around me.

Including me. How could I like being around myself when, by definition, I’m unlikable—and certainly not lovable?

But it works, so I keep going. Someone has to be the scapegoat. Someone has to save the world.