Chapter Text
The building collapses behind me in a mess of ash, fire, and screams. I don’t flinch. I don’t run.
I just let it happen.
And that’s always been the problem.
The world feels distant to me—like I’m watching it through fogged glass. I’m never fully present, not when the chaos breaks out. Maybe because I’m always surrounded by it.
Maybe because I’m always the cause.
Even now. This terrorist attack?
My doing.
Chunks of concrete crash into the street, burying people alive. Blood slicks the pavement. The air is thick with smoke, sirens, and the screams of desperate families clawing through debris.
Do I feel guilty?
No.
Because I can’t.
That’s the problem.
I’m not allowed to feel anything.
I’m standing in the middle of it all. Unaffected. Haunting.
The winds whip past me, carrying smoke and heat, but I don’t move. Around me, the world is burning. And yet I’m still. Small sparks ride the air like fireflies, floating lazily through the smoke. It’s strangely beautiful. Strangely calming. Fire and me have a strange connection. I don’t have an opinion towards it since I’m not allowed. But our history runs deep. Fire is like a childhood friend you never really got along with. Familiar, sometimes likeable, but mostly unwelcome. Or at least that’s what I think normal people would liken it too. But I wouldn’t really know.
A distant whir cuts through the smoke. I glace up at where the smoke makes the night sky a bright yellow. A helicopter. The first sign that “heroes” are coming.
Of course they are. And just a little late as always. Heroes are just a fancy title they apply to themselves, but really, they’re just janitors for when the world has already swallowed everyone whole.
That’s a sign that I should probably go back to my headquarters… but I don’t entirely want too yet. It’s not like any of the heroes know who I am or that I did this. So, I stay, watching as they rush towards the chaos.
I know all the regular heroes by now — faces memorised, names etched into wanted lists, security briefings, and nightmares. But today a particular hero catches my eye.
I don’t think I’ve seen him before.
He’s moving quickly, lifting beams, pulling people from the rubble. Precise. Controlled. Kind. Efficiently returning a little girl stuck in debris back to her parents. I must be burning holes in the back of his head with how hard I’m staring, because suddenly —
He turns around and looks right at me.
His eyes narrow.
“Hey, what do you think you’re doing standing there like that!” he shouts from across the wreckage, “get out of there, you’ll get burnt or crushed in the debris.”
I should answer. Should move.
But I don’t.
I’m trembling.
It doesn’t make sense. The fire rages around me — the air is molten. I should be burning, not freezing.
So why am I shaking like this?
No.
It can’t be.
It can’t be him.