Shadowed By the Younger
I suppose every story must have a villain. Not just a thing, but a person, man or woman, who is hated by the reader, or listener, or watcher. Someone who works against the hero, someone who makes him face the things he hates. Someone the hero hates.
I am Peter Wiggin, older brother of Ender Wiggin, the villain. Every story must have a villain, I repeat to myself. Every single one.
Valentine and Ender always formed a perfect little pair. I, the enemy, and them, the good guys. They were good and I was pure evil, right? Oh, of course. They didn't think, they didn't see, they thought I was the iron man who couldn't be hurt. Those little barbs hurt more than I can say.
And my temper would flair out of control, and I simply had to hurt them. I would feel a burning in my heart, in my head, even behind my eyes. I wouldn't see anything for a second as my eyes flashed from light to darkness back to light again, and I would think about what it would be like to squish the life out of their bodies. It is things like this that makes you the villain.
It's one thing to be overshadowed by an older sibling, and quite another by the younger. Ender was the apple of everyone's eye, and I? I was just the older brother. No name, except for those who knew the story, the Villain. I was angry and jealous and I still am. For no one knew how smart I was, how powerful I could be. It was then, when Ender got into Battle School but I didn't, that I decided that someday I would show them all. Someday I would.
It was nice, you know, working on Demosthenes and Locke with Valentine. Like we were a perfect little pair, like Ender and Valentine were. And then Valentine went off in her space shuttle with precious Ender and I was left, Peter Wiggin, not known as Locke yet, the only one of the three who didn't amount to anything. Ha. Someday.
Conversations with my parents were awful torture sessions. I would sit and grate my teeth as they talked down to me and thought that I, of course, didn't know anything. Conversations with me as myself were excruciating in any context. I would grate my teeth and refrain from opening my e-mail and showing them e-mails from all the important people they looked at on the vids. But I didn't, I sat there and grated my teeth and clenched my jaw. My breathing would quicken in anger and I would curl my toes and clench my hands and feel like hurting them. It wasn't someday yet.
So I pretended to be just as stupid as my peers, just as stupid as them. I played the snake in the grass. I was seemingly harmless, but no one, save few, knew the full measure of my intellect. Someday, someday…
Someday comes soon. Someday is soon, very soon, in coming, I'll show them all. I'm the hero. I am. Ender doesn't overshadow me, I'll turn around the sun, and I'll overshadow him. Watch me. Wait and see. I'll win in the end. Just wait until someday. I'll win. Someday I'll be the shadower, watch me. I'm the hero after all, can't you see?