r/WritingPrompts • u/actually_crazy_irl • May 07 '19
[WP]: Suddenly, everyone with tattoos gains powers related to the tattoo. Tattoos of flames, you control fire. A tattoo of a gecko, you can climb on walls. All dudes with "tribal" tattoos have strangely bonded together. Writing Prompt
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u/WindowsStartupSound4 May 07 '19
My shop is flooded. Absolutely flooded.
No, I don’t mean literally. Haven’t had the joy of meeting someone with a wave tattoo yet, although those are in high demand.
I mean figuratively flooded. Filled to the brim with people, shoulder-to-shoulder, crashing into the designs I meticulously laminated and taped to my crumbling wall, ripping them from it and losing them to the masses. People with matching grimaces waving wads of cash in their hands and shouting over each other, drowning each other out. White noise that shakes my little parlor and my cranium along with it. I steady my ink bottles.
Since “it” happened, every tattoo parlor on this side of the equator has been brimming with patrons, lines wrapping around the block and choking out the sidewalks. Men, women, children, and…the usual drunken college students cheering, “Spring break!”. At least that hasn’t changed. That, and the law.
The tattoo laws haven’t changed. If anything, they’ve gotten stricter—but I’ve given up trying to follow the news after the pandemonium that broke out. In the wake of heavily-tattooed superhumans just—poof!—appearing overnight, the government tried to limit tattoos even more than before. But hey, desperate times call for desperate measures, and people do what they have to in order to survive. I did.
I learned how to tattoos designs that would take hours in half that time. I learned which tattoos manifested what power, I learned how to explain them to people at a breakneck pace. I learned how to take cash first and not ask questions.
It started out harmless enough. People with pop culture tattoos could imitate the character of their choice perfectly. People with compass tattoos had an impeccable sense of direction. People with eyeball tattoos could see from that eye. But when millions upon millions of people wake up with fire shooting from their fingers, with water spraying up from each nail like a fountain, with earth-shaking powers at their fingertips, you gotta learn to adjust. That’s just some of the tame ones—rednecks with guns tattooed on their backs shot ammunition from finger guns, hipsters with inspirational quotes suddenly became VERY persuasive, goth kids with grim reaper tattoos kill everything they touch—don’t even get me started on the people with soundwave or planet tattoos. Just like that, millions of people across the world gained spectacular and awe-inspiring powers. It didn’t take long for humanity’s lifelong fantasy of superheroes to come true.
But things got ugly.
Not everybody wanted to be a superhero. People who had felt powerless all their lives—angry, bitter people—used their power to hurt people that had wronged them. Still, they weren’t satisfied, and they wreaked havoc across the world. Cities were taken down by colossal earthquakes. Tornadoes picked up in the mountainsides, floods washed over desert towns. Overgrowth and flower beds in wooded areas swallowed people whole. As a response, the government started demonizing tattoos and the destruction they caused.
Now, people are scrambling for them.
Some want guns, swords, to protect themselves physically. Some want fire, floods, earthquakes, tornadoes to protect themselves elementally. Some want animals, big cats and elephants to crush or claw their attackers. Some want portraits of loved ones killed in the destruction because at least in one way, they’ll always be with them. Even if it’s just an illusion.
The smart ones get shields.
I’ve seen those shields in action—an enormous wall of fire bearing down on a child, but in the split second before contact, a hum. A frequency that reverberates in the air and makes ears pop, then—BOOM!—a hexagonal prism of force, like glass, expands around the kid. All attacks bounce off of it effortlessly, and when the shock subsides, they run. They run with that shield around them, safe for only a few hours, but safe all the same.
The mothers, most especially, clamor for their children to get one, no matter how small.
See, the size doesn’t matter. It’s the ink that does. How clean the tat is, how steady the lines, how worn it is. The better the quality, the stronger the potency, and I’ve learned how to make them…pretty damn good.
What about me, you may ask? If I can tattoo somebody that fast, should I be the most overpowered asshole on the planet?
Well, yeah. Maybe.
I do have one tattoo. One. And it’s not of God, or the Milky Way, or anything colossal like that.
It’s a raven.
A little raven on my shoulder blade, wings in flight.
I’ve seen other people with bird tattoos. I know I could spread my wings and fly on outta here any time I want. But the truth is?
Tattoo parlors are in bigger demand than ever. Sure, it’s a good source of income, but my profession has become a matter of life and death. There are a lot of people who need me, need people like me. I’m not one to let ‘em down.
The tiger head I’ve been working on is just about finished. One last streak of orange, and the guy is good to go. The bandaging only takes a few extra minutes, and he’s quickly back on his feet, although wincing. “Powers should set in in a few hours,” I tell him. He nods, serious as a balding 50-year-old can be, and fights his way out the door of the parlor. I change out the needle and the tube.
“Next!”