The little kid was tugging at his cape.

“But you’re the super hero! You’re supposed to do whats right and save the day!”

He had finally had enough. He spun around so quickly to face the kid that the boy lost his balance and fell face forward in the mud. He didn’t notice the mud, though. All he saw was the kid’s look of disappointment, and it looked so much like his own face in the mirror every morning that he couldn’t take it.

“Fine kid! you wanna be the hero, here! be the hero,” at this he ripped off the cape the kid had given him, and threw it down in the mud beside him. The kid just stared. “Being the hero isn’t anything to be proud of, you know. Everybody’s so damned confident in you winning every time they forget that I’m just a regular person like anybody else! And you know that big Hero’s Dilemma that you always dreamed about? Well stop that, because it’s the worst one of all. Save the woman you love or a car full of innocent people- its a fucked up situation. Well guess what- when it came to be my turn, I chose the girl, and I saw ten people look at me with disappointment right before their car fell off the cliff. Thats 20 eyes that’ll never see another birthday or Christmas, and there’s at least ten families here in this city who absolutely hate me.

And then the girl doesn’t think she’s worth saving after all, not for the price paid, and she kills herself anyways. Sometimes we make the wrong choices, and there isn’t a thing you can do about it.” He took a deep breath. He could still hear the kid’s scream, and he could still see the look of disappointment on the dead girl’s eyes. They we’re staring right at him. He broke consciousness and looked at the kid, still in the mud, holding the cape as high off the ground so it wouldn’t get dirty. He felt dirty. This kid might’ve been the one last person who believed in him, and he was throwing that away, but he couldn’t stop. This kid had to learn that life isn’t always like it is in the comic books. The Lone Ranger doesn’t always win. “And you know what the worst part is, kid? Its that I never die, and I never forget. Every night I live the same dream over and over, and it never changes. The same people always die, and the girl always dies.