Sometimes I’m in the car with them, you know, on the way down. Even then, in my dreams, I never die. I just see their bodies thrown everywhere, broken on the seats, all staring at me. I’m in the car with the girl, as it slowly sinks in the lake, and she never stops staring at me, not even when the water reaches the top of her head, and and not even when her lungs fill up. I try every night to save them both, and I never do. Live with that, and see if you still want to be a hero”.

The kid got up from the mud, and looked at the man standing there. Without a cape, he looked like a gymnast. A drunk, unkempt, foul-mouthed gymnast who hadn’t showered for days. He deliberately folded up the cape. “My mom made this for me,” he said. “She made it, because I told her more than anything, I wanted to be like my hero and save the world. She gave it to me, and said all I need to do to save the world is do the right thing, always. Even if I’m the only one who stands up for what’s right, and everybody is telling me to sit down, then I’ll be the only one standing. This is the last thing I have of her, after everything else burned up. And you just tore it off, like it was nothing more than silk and cotton. Keep the damn cape. It means nothing now.”

The folded up cape fell back into the mud, where the rain pushed it further, slowly burying it. The kid watched it as it covered with mud. When he looked back up, his eyes we’re on the brink of tears. “You’re right. We all make mistakes. You made your mistake six years ago. I made mine the day I decided you were my hero. I don’t need you.” He turned around, heading back to the warehouse, the rain filling in his footsteps as he walked away.

“Where are you going, kid!?”

“I’m going back to try to save that family.”

“You’ll get killed!”

Here, the kid turned around. He didn’t have to yell, the man had super hearing, after all. “Killed? Probably. But at least I tried. And thats more than can be said for the Man Who Doesn’t Die. The kid turned back around, and started running for the warehouse.

The hero watched him run, and flew up into the sky to see when he would chicken out. At any moment, he expected to see the kid run back the other way, but he didn’t. He ran right into the warehouse. The hero watched from five-hundred feet up as the kid drew his gun and ran blindly in. It only took a split second to realize that this was really happening. He flew down to the warehouse, but not before the interior lit up in bright flashes, the staccato bursts reaching him after the lights. He saw through the large windows the kid fly face first into the ground, large black wet holes in his back growing, and he could see his chest barely moving up and down. A second outburst of gunfire stilled him, and the kid unclenched his fist, and let a little electronic trinket fall from it. He didn’t have to be up close to see what it was. It was the communicator device he gave the kid after his mom died in the fire. If he ever needed help, he told him, just push this button.