Shattered glass came pouring in from the hole in the wall where a window used to be. The culprit, Luso Town’s resident hero, stood in front of the broken window, dusting the glass shards off his hair and costume, before glancing around the room. There were a few photos of the home’s owner hanging on the wall a few metres away from him, graduation pictures, outings with friends and family, bits and pieces of what I assume is an ordinary person’s happy life.
Unfortunately for the blue suited super charger, the cheerful young man in those photos isn’t me, which he probably noticed as his attention left them and finally drifted across the room to where I stood.
Curiant has always had really nice eyes, so it was quite amusing to see those confused purple eyes widen with shock and perhaps a tinge of fear as he realised the owner of the home was trembling terribly in my arms, with multiple daggers hovering around us, aimed at his neck and chest. The man had been quite easy to catch, perhaps he was exhausted after a busy day or maybe it was just a careless mistake on his part but a thin man sleeping on a nice sofa with his house door unlocked was much easier to handle than an anxious family of five with some self defence tools or the Judo-loving couple from a week ago.
"Hey Darum, it's been a while right? Haven’t seen you in a long time so can we just chat? Why don’t you just toss that powerless human here right now...and we all just walk away?" He laughed a bit as he spoke, probably trying to ease the quivering man I held captive with an obvious lie and a friendly smile. It was well known in town that we fought less than a week ago over the family of five I had persecuted. The altercation caused quite a mess, most of the land’s scorched and the wreckage from buildings and cars are still scattered around the main street not far from here.
For some reason, the unreliable questions seemed to work, as ridiculous as they were, and the powerless man actually felt calm enough to struggle. His relaxation was short lived, he tensed again the moment I moved the hovering daggers to rest against the skin of his neck. A slight touch was all it took for blood to flow, decorating his pale sweat-stained skin. As I did this, two gasps could be heard, the first from the man I was toying with, and the other from the hero with sparks running all over his body who stood across the room, frowning with his fists clenched as he watched the scene unfold before him.
"I won’t let him go,” I paused, and the man opposite started to fidget, there were more sparks moving around him and they were getting bigger and faster.
He’s getting impatient.
Curiant’s a short tempered guy, despite his calm and somewhat gentle appearance he was impatient, explosive and often behaved like he controlled fire instead of lightning, so I expected him to rush forward and attempt to force the man out of my grasp.
“But I can give you his corpse.”
As expected, he ran towards us flinging two lightning bolts at each of my arms and another at my head. Electric current travelling at the speed of light happens to be fast, incredibly fast, but a thought moves a little quicker and I happen to think very well.
When the lightning hit, Curiant stumbled backwards with an ashen face as the weakest person in the room made the first sound we’d heard from him since our entry into his home. It was a strange, loud, piercing scream, similar to a dying pig’s cry. The sound, irritating as it was, came to an end when I used my dagger to slit the throat of the now bald, burnt and twitching man in tattered clothing. The cut was quite deep but he was still breathing, and there might have been room for treatment and recovery, if I hadn’t plunged the other hovering daggers through his limbs and chest seconds later.
Silence reigned for a moment and we watched the dead man bleed on his own carpet, before I picked his charred blood stained body and threw him towards my opponent. Fast as the lightening he controlled, Curiant caught him and slumped on his messy sofa, before shooting me the most rage filled look I had ever seen on his usually cheerful face.
"What exactly is wrong with you? Why the hell do you keep murdering people?! Don’t you feel bad for them? The family members left behind? The friends they had? Cant you see how messed up this is?!" He shouted, eyebrows creased and small white sparks popping out of his hair as he glared at me. I kept silent, staring blankly at his enraged face.
We stood, looking at each other with different expressions until he turned to the floor and decided to speak again.
"Why can’t you just let them go? They didn’t do anything to us." Unlike the words he screamed out before, these were whispered softly, and echoed a little in the blood stained room.
I received another glance, though the anger in it had faded and a rather somber, defeated expression faced me through teary eyes.
Honestly, I thought I would laugh the day this happened, I had told myself it was only a matter of time before Curiant would fall. A day would come when he would kneel, defeated and crying beneath me. But as I looked at the usually smiling, goal driven hero, now using trembling hands to hold the man I killed, I found that my gaze refused to fall away and my chest started to ache. I found myself wanting to answer his questions, but there are too many things to say and nothing that seems to fit.
Should I say I was angry because they were all looking so happy?
Can I say it was satisfying seeing pain or the fear of death I once had in another’s eyes?
Why can ordinary people live so well? Why did everyone else seem to grow normally and some even thrived while we were suffering?
Why did the ‘special’ ones have to go through so much torture before?
The one who should understand my actions most, the only other person to survive those twisted researchers two years ago, turned against me less than a day after we escaped.
Arguing for the people?
Fighting for the ordinary?
Why should I join his idiotic sacrifice for people who benefited from our ‘special’ bloodshed?
It’s ridiculous!
Does he want my pity?
Understanding??
Why doesn’t he understand me?!!
A lot of scattered thoughts danced around in my head but the only response I could give him was a sneer, followed by a short but dry laugh.
Giving a final glance to the finally defeated hero, my lips twitched into what I hope was a smirk - though it felt more like a grimace, before snapping my fingers and teleporting away.
