The Hero Woke Up With A Start, Tears Streaming Down Their Face As Their Book Went Flying. They Rubbed

The hero woke up with a start, tears streaming down their face as their book went flying. They rubbed their palms against their cheeks angrily, but it did nothing to stop the flow.

Across the room, the villain coughed.

The Hero’s gaze snapped to them, and they regarded the hero calmly.

“Bad dream?”

The hero looked away, embarrassment coloring their cheeks.

“No.”

The villain sighed.

“Good dream, then?”

The hero said nothing, and the villain nodded in understanding.

“I see. Would you like to tell me about it?”

They studied every inch of their room, the silence fidgeting between them like an anxious child, before the words fought their way out.

“I—we, saved the world.”

The villain hummed. “Ah.”

The hero sniffed and tugged the blankets higher on their lap. The book lay forgotten on the floor.

“I can understand the tears, then,” they said sympathetically. The hero let out an unamused laugh.

“No, you can’t.”

“Just because I do not empathize does not mean I cannot understand,” the villain tipped their head. “You have many regrets. That much is clear. It is written upon every move you make. So do not preach understanding, Hero, when I know how you work.”

The hero stiffened.

“I hate you.”

“You hate yourself more,” the villain said conversationally, and the hero’s chest welled with pain.

The silence roiled.

“Yes,” they agreed quietly. “I do.”

The villain tapped their hand once against the door frame.

“I’ll leave you to your dreaming, then, Hero.”

Hero.

Nothing more than a bit of mockery, now.

Their eyes met, the villain’s gaze burning into them, before they turned from the door of the hero’s cell.

They paused. “You cannot change the past, fallen one,” they said softly. And then they were gone.

The hero lay back, and closed their eyes.

Maybe if they tried hard enough, they could bring their dreams into reality. Maybe they could save everyone—could be the hero everyone had worshiped them as. Could rewrite the ending and bring their friends back to life. Could make it so they ended up in a pedestal and not in a cage. So many maybes. The hero dreamed of all of them, constantly. It never really made a difference.

In their cell designed by the villain who had beaten them irrevocably, the hero fell asleep, and outside, the world burned.

Unsaved.

“Oh my god—“

“Not quite, love” The antagonist smirked. “If you ask nicely, however, I may be inclined to play along.”

“You’re—“

“A villain, yes.”

The protagonist tried to stop their hands from shaking as the antagonist looked them up and down.

“Why are you in my neighborhood bodega?” The protagonist said finally, and the villain quirked a brow.

“Even famous people need to eat,” the antagonist tucked their hands into their exquisitely tailored suit.

The bag of chips in the protagonists grip crinkled, and the villain inspected them.

“Not the healthiest choice.”

They gave an unamused laugh. “The cheapest.”

The antagonist’s eyes ran over their face, as if taking in their slightly gaunt cheeks.

“Heroism doesn’t pay well, it seems.”

The protagonist looked them up and down.

“Villainy does, it seems.”

At that, the antagonist chuckled, eyes glimmering like they had finally found something to peak their interest.

Behind them, the check out counter beeped and spit out a receipt, which the antagonist promptly crumpled and threw away.

“I’ll be watching,” they said with a nonchalance that did not match the threat of stalking, and disappeared out the sliding doors.

The protagonist stood in front of the machine, slightly awe struck and slightly afraid, until a clerk sidled up to them.

“Old friend?” The clerk asked.

The protagonist glanced over at them, then back towards the door.

“Not quite,” they answered.

They paid for their chips and left, hands pink with cold by the time they got to their apartment.

Attached to their door was an cream colored envelope full of money, and a note in elegant handwriting that simply said “Buy yourself more groceries. Your fridge is a tragedy.”

The protagonist never quite got rid of the antagonist after that.

“If you keep forcing me into these life or death situations I’m going to think you’re trying to woo me.”

The villain stopped.

“This is a hostage situation.”

“Yes, and you’re doing absolutely magnificent, but if you wanted my attention you could have just asked—“

“I kidnapped you.”

The hero smiled roguishly.

“Darling, I thrive on chaos. And since you aren’t actively hurting anyone, well,” they winked. “I see no reason to escape.”

The villain blinked.

“I’m not trying to woo you—“

“Sure you aren’t, babe,” the hero drawled, and the villain flushed at the idiocy of all of it. “In the meantime, why don’t you tell me all about your genius plans, and I’ll sit here and admire that pretty blush of yours.”

The villain flushed harder and tightened the ropes as the hero laughed and lounged back into the chair.

The city was quiet that night.

But the hero kept it safe—no matter their unusual methods.

Fictional Character Tag Game

Thank you to the lovely @jay-avian for the tag (here)! I hope college gets a bit more bearable soon ❤️

1. Do this uquiz and this picrew

2. Three random facts about you

1. Recently my friends have taken to calling me The Reckoner

2. I’m really good at screaming bloody murder and I have become a local cryptid because I have done so in the middle of the night a lot (I am innocent) and I also tend to be good at making a variety of strange noises

3. I have a tendency for saving wild and injured birds, and it has happened so many times my family jokes I’m a “bird magnet”

3. Seven Comfort Movies

1. Spider-Man into the Spider-Verse

2. The Witch

3. Ten things I hate about you

4. How to lose a guy in ten days

5. The Other Woman

6. Legally Blonde

7. Criminal Minds (not a movie)

Bonus. Lilo and Stitch

Show me your true selves (if you feel like it) @oh-no-another-idea @imaginativemind29new @clairelsonao3

“You’re a super villain.”

“And you’re gorgeous.”

“What?”

“Oh, sorry love, I thought we were stating facts.”

“You—“

“Called you gorgeous? Yes.”

“No—that’s not what I—god, you collapsed the bridge this morning.”

“Ah yes. I did that too. In more pressing matters, do you have a preference towards wine?”

“I don’t—“

“I’ll pick, then.”

“All those people—“

“Were unfortunate casualties. Look. Stop trying to call for help under the tablecloth, I can see you. Look at me. I am a villain, yes, but I would give you the world. A hero? They would give you up for the world. Do you really want to love someone who will never put you first?”

“…no.”

“Excellent. Now, do you like pasta?”

“Um. Yes?”

The super villain smiled.

In the end, loving them was easier than the civilian had thought.

When the zombie apocalypse started, you felt only a sense of sour humor. Like on those nights when you wished you could sleep and never wake up, some cosmic entity heard you, and was taking a kind of sick vengeance.

Your friends laughed and stole liquor out of locked cabinets and took shots in the name of doom.

You went home and turned the tv all the way up and locked every single door twice. It wasn’t enough.

Don’t approach someone if they appear sick, they said. Avoid them and dial 911.

After a week they disabled emergency service lines.

Stay indoors. Only go out when necessary. Keep your distance from one another, they said.

Online, people called it a hoax.

But that footage they showed on the news, people emptied out and filled with some creature that knew only hunger, that snarled and lunged for those around them without hesitation…something in you knew without doubt that it wasn’t fake.

The government gave blinding smiles and sent every army they had. They promised everything would be fine.

Nothing would ever be fine again.

Bullets did nothing. No matter how wounded, those humans that were empty and vicious dragged themself with bloody nails after anything that pumped blood. Those soldiers died and came back, killing their friends and family and comrades.

The government stopped going on tv.

With all your precautions, with every warning you gave your friends who didn’t give a shit anymore, who took this as a sign to give up, with every tip you got from the news, it didn’t save you in the end.

Thousands, millions were dying every day and you…

One week after the start zombie apocalypse, you saw a dog. A pitiful, sick dog that whined at you and gave you mournful eyes, and you froze.

And you stopped.

And you knelt down next to it because you with your fear and your kind heart wanted to be a vet.

Because you, with all of your precaution and all of those warnings forgot everything.

A week and a day after the zombie apocalypse started, you lost control of your own body. You were filled with something so hungry every bone in your body ached.

That’s fine, you thought. I’ll die soon anyways. The people on the news said the host always died. That there wasn’t anything left inside.

Two weeks after the zombie apocalypse starts you realize that the people on the news were wrong.

You start screaming. No one bothers to try and save you.

The creature inside of you has been dragging you across this wretched planet for a month, and you crave death with the same fervor that it craves flesh. The news people, your neighbors, your family, they flee from you.

They cannot hear you begging for them to burn every scrap of you alive.

You wish they would.

Two months after the start of the zombie apocalypse the creature inside of you has run out of things to eat. You are starving. Everything hurts. Your heart is giving out.

At some point, the creature inside you starts to consume your body.

You should be dead by now

It won’t let you die

It eats your vocal cords. Rips them apart with your fingers, tears out your tongue. Peels off your flesh.

The pain consumes every thought until your nerves fry.

You count it as a blessing.

You lose your eyes, your fingers, every piece of you soon after.

You cannot bring yourself to care.

A year after the zombie apocalypse starts, your body gives out. You lie on something that feels like asphalt. The remains of your muscles and tendons and joints and bones twitch as the creature pulls once, twice, again, but you do not move.

You feel it then, as it leaves you lying there. The utter cruelty of it as it leaves you lying on the ground, when it has been the only thing keeping you alive for eleven months.

You have been dying for over a year. You have been dead in your mind for far longer.

You regret every thought you ever had about the zombie apocalypse, about the notion of quick death and reanimation.

You regret the things you didn’t do. The things you did. You can feel your heart, finally, give out.

You wish you could see the sky one more time as you slip into the dark.

But you haven’t had your eyes for a long, long while.

And with one last breath, you die alone on an empty street, with only the uncaring creature that stripped you for parts and murdered you slowly to watch you go.