He Dreams of Ending You

“Your existence,” he remarks, brandishing his sword and thrusting it at your neck, “is a blemish on society.”

Your existence — one of self-imposed confinement, one where you taught yourself to call the darkness home — is a blemish. 

“A hindrance,” he adds, poking the blade into your flesh and grinning at the bead of blood it beckons. His pupils are dilated, and he seems far away — absorbed in the grandeur that being a hero permits him. If you stare at his eyes long enough, you feel you might fall into his fantasy, where even the broken bodies beneath his feet sing his praises.

Your mother is one of those corpses. Your grandmother, too. He’s made a habit of killing those close to you, framing it as the ‘eradication of dark magic’. Evil runs through your veins — it’s one of his catchphrases, a way he likes to justify murder. It’s easier when there’s a familial link, a legacy of otherness. The public buy into it more.

Carefully, you ease yourself backwards. Why should it be your fate to fall today? 

But the hero is impatient, and his weapon mourns the loss of its victim’s touch. He moves closer: “Not so fast! I’ve been tasked with your disposal…”

What for? You’ve committed no crime, other than difference. You answered their fear with isolation, took on the label of outcast, and only met with others who were similarly discarded. 

Your innocence is negligible. A hero requires villains to retain his title.