Author's Note: I was recently inspired to update this chapter. I re-read it and I was disgusted by how choppy and rushed everything was. So, I've re-written this first chapter and I hope it still carries the same message across as the original one. I added slightly more detail and dialect to hopefully give the story a wider range of emotions. Please let me know if it worked out, and what I can do to improve! I'm also thinking about continuing onward with this story as a mini-series instead of a two-shot, so comments and suggestions are appreciated!

Song used is "Hero" by Pop Evil.

Hero

I'm so sick of this. All of this. I'm so tired of trying to save someone and failing. I may be part ghost, but it's easy to forget I'm part human, too. I'm tired of never being fast enough, strong enough, good enough. I've seen enough dead bodies to last me a lifetime. I just want the bloodshed to stop. I didn't ask for this. You wanted honesty, right? I didn't fucking ask for this.

This was a mistake. I hate it when people say I was "chosen." I wasn't. It was an accident. Accidents happen. One mistake and all of a sudden I'm looked to as one big hero? For what? For allowing the deaths of hundreds of innocent people? You've got to be shitting me.

Do you ever hear what comes out of your mouth, do you ever even think of what the word "hero" means? Because if you would just take a second to shut the hell up, you would realize I'm not who you think I am. I'm not your hero.

. . .

But hell. . . I wanted to be. I wanted to be your hero. Before the world shattered and became twisted and sick, I was a normal fourteen year old boy. More accurately, I was a nobody. I guess that's why this whole experiment was so appealing to me. I was starved for attention and all I wanted was to be liked, loved even. I wanted to be the one you could count on. I wanted to be your hero. . . but being a hero isn't easy, and now it's much harder to do since I have nothing left to live for. God, listen to me rant. I sound like Vlad, only he's an arrogant bastard and I'm an arrogant bastard drowning in my own self-pity. Pathetic.

Maybe you could be different. Maybe you could be my shining light, the sunlight penetrating through my world of darkness. Could you be my antidote?

Who am I kidding? I may have saved you but the last thing I need is for you to come and thank me. I'll probably fire an ectoblast at the next person who thanks me. As if I needed you. As if I needed to be thanked for the bloodshed and death. Don't. Just don't. I don't want you to ask me how I do what I do, because honestly, I don't know. All I want is for you to leave me alone. Go back to your life of living with a family, of being happy, of being alive. Don't you understand? Don't you see? I hate you! I. . . hate you. I wish I could say those words with more conviction, but try as I might, I know it's only the anger and resentment talking. I could never hate you. I only wish I could.

I am barely breathing,

I am barely alive.

When did it all come tumbling down?

I know you're probably wondering why I'm even saying this. Why I'm so bitter. I'm not sure, exactly. I wish I could give you a better answer, but I can't. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I had to stage my own death and then invisibly watch as my friends and family grew older, built families, and died. I watched them obsessively, the way a child watches his first crush, with a mix of awe and fear.

I wish I could be with them. I wish I could fade away into non-existence, leaving my pain, fear, remorse, and regret behind. But the world is a cruel place. And love isn't always fair.

Instead, I'm stuck here, watching generation after generation of people grow up and make the same mistakes. I suppose that's why you have me now. To righten your wrongs and clean up after you. That's what you want, isn't it? You want me to save you and be your hero. Fuck it. I never really had a choice.

I can imagine you now, stumbling over your sentences, looking for the right combination of words to soothe and comfort me. You probably still believe in free will, don't you? Of course you do. You're my sunlight. You may think I'm better than I am—you may think I deserve to be loved, to be thanked, to be needed, but you'd be wrong. I don't. I don't want to save you, I don't want to love you, and I most certainly don't want to be your hero. You may think I've got some incredible sense of the greater good, but I'm not an altruistic individual. So why am I still saving you? If I'm honest, I can't just sit back and watch, else you would all be dying off like flies. Then again, even when I intervene, it just postpones the time until you die off like flies. You truly are a weak and fragile species. So easily broken. I hope you realize the only reason I'm even bothering to help you is not because I genuinely care about you, but because it gives me something to do. A purpose, I guess.

Your actions speak louder,

Then all of your thunder,

That you brought back down on me.

So, why are you still asking me? I swear, I would fly you over to the nearest building and push you off if I wasn't trying to protect you. I hate the way you look at me with those big, innocent eyes, pretending to know what I'm going through. . . just who do you think you are? I don't need your pity. I don't need you to pat my back and say, "Everything is going to be okay." Liar. We both know that's not true. So why do you say it? Sometimes I'm not sure whether you're trying to deceive me or yourself. It angers me when you pretend to know what I'm going through. When you nod your head and say, "I know, I know." No, you DON'T know. You will never know. How could you? How could you possibly know what it feels like to live in a constant blur of pain? To walk the streets and see the sunsets, and understand you have no one? To fly past the gravestones of the people you once knew and loved and feel an overwhelming and sudden tightness in your chest, a constriction that squeezes the air out of your lungs with an iron fist and all of a sudden you can't breathe, can't breathe. . .

You will never understand! Damn it! I. . . I want to go home. I'm so tired. Every day drags on and every day carries the same misery and pain. I want to end this. I. . . give up. I want to see my family again, spend time with my friends and, I can't believe I'm saying this, go to school and see my teachers again. I miss it. What I wouldn't give to be part of the living. What I wouldn't give to let go. I wish you could help me let go. . .

I can't. I won't. My time is over. This is a new generation, and now, you have me doing what I do best. Fighting, winning, killing, failing. I guess it doesn't matter what I say. I guess to you, I'll always be a hero.

I won't be - I won't be your hero.

I won't be your Superman.

Everything I did was for you,

Everything you said was a lie.

My pain - Your gain.

Who's your hero today?