If anyone recognizes the title, yes this story will be based on my oneshot "Heroes Don't Shatter". HOWEVER! This will be radically different, and only the general concept is the same. Similar plot, different story, and this one will be written like an actual story format-wise. Enjoy!

Heroes Don't Shatter

Prologue

It's January 17th. It's three weeks today. Three weeks later-today.

Or maybe it's the 18th by now. Maybe it's late enough. Could be. That makes it three weeks and one day today.

God it must have been longer.

...

Everywhere is black. Everything is so much worse than black. It is the all-consuming kind, the kind that wraps around my whole body and presses me, drowns me in coldness, in darkness, in my own mind. It is the kind that has followed me through the expanse of the night, that shrouds everything else in cold numbness.

I should be used to it. I want to be, but I just can't.

Until I shut my eyes and hang in the choking blackness, knowing this is better, far better, than what I came out here to do. No, I want this to stay, even if I suffocate, I just don't want to see that damning glow I've seen night after night. It shoos away the darkness—it always does—and probably damns my soul a little more each time.

It's always different, a different source for each one, paler or richer or brighter or duller. I can see it in my mind. My eyes are closed but I can see it. It flickers, an almost pure white, its glow fading then growing to a steady beat.

Almost like a heartbeat.

My blood runs cold.

The flicker won't die from my mind. It's still there. I see it. And I still see it once I open my eyes again.

It is unmistakable, the pinprick of light, the darting, fluorescent spot that swells with an unhealthy glow. For a time it is just a mist of ecto-green. I can't discern it any better. I can't afford to see it as anything more. Yet still, I can't stop myself, because suddenly it's a life, its fading fluorescent smile and sparking eyes and fleshed out body. It's someone. It's anyone. Everyone.

All of them.

It sees me now, and just dives and twirls and lets out a giggle made of hundred different voices.

It's alive.

"Ghost!" My voice is cold, and it sends a shiver down my own spine. I don't want to. I know I don't.

"Yes?" It flits from side to side, its form different each time I blink. It's here. It's there. Behind me. In front. Everywhere.

"You're aware of the declaration made for Amity Park, right? I can't allow you to be here."

It eyes me with a childlike curiosity, its mouth falling open a touch in contemplation. After a moment of silent thought, its jaw shuts, mouth stretching into a distant smile. It looks past me, then up to the sky and rolls onto its back midair, floating with its legs crossed, arms resting beneath its head. The ghost won't answer.

"All ghosts have been made aware." I hate this part. I hate saying this. "If you have not, then I'm sorry, but there is no mercy I may show you." The words are hard and cruel; they rip into my conscience, but I have no choice. "Are there any last words you'd like to say?"

"You're silly…" The sound echo across the sky, carrying a light of its own in the complete darkness. So many voices. Thousands. All speaking in unison. "Aren't you the hero? You don't kill; you're far too good for that."

It twirls in midair, unlocking its legs while righting its position. A semi-transparent finger points to me, hanging suspended as if I'd missed its meaning, as if I didn't know the ghost meant me. It drops the hand, swooping to my level, a thousand eyes melded into two glowing pinpoints that fix me with a stare I can't return. "We're not infected, so why do you threaten us with death? Ask yourself that, Mister."

"I'm sorry." My voice is weak, but still cold, still so cold. "I can't ask myself that. I'll never like that answer I get."

The energy pools in my hands, arcing then collapsing in my palms as the power grows; the ectoplasm sparks, condensing to microscopic blades caught up in a whirlwind of swirling power. I can feel the drain on my body, as I ready myself to do what I know I must.

I don't want to look, but I have to; I can't wrench my gaze away. Not when I know what will happen, not when I can see it in my head.

The spirit's playful grin flickers and falls, its eyes growing in a confused, bordering on curious expression, its mouth falling open the slightest bit.

"Wait…" it ventures, a panicked spark materializing in its mesh of a thousand different eyes, fear swamping the thousands of souls, "please don't."

"I'm sorry…" I can't hear myself over the crackling bursts of power screeching in my palms.

"Don't please!" Its eyes…so damn human. "Please don't do it! Please no!" Its body shakes, shuddering in the cold breeze, before lunging away in a desperate plea for freedom. It can't escape, though. It won't. Not before I thrust my arm out, the free fingers curling around its windpipe, freezing its cry with a collar of ice, bound tightly to its neck.

The collar is phased through its throat, fused to its ectoplasmic skin, and the ghost's two panicked arms fly up to the choking restraint.

Just heavy enough to pull it down. Just sudden enough to stun it for the few moments I need.

Just long enough to strike.

The power is gone from my hand in one, damning boom. Its crackling energy dissipates in a flash of blinding light, fending off the darkness for just a few moments before it's all over, drowning out the shuddering scream I still heard in my mind. I shut my eyes to the light, or maybe that's just what I tell myself. No, I'm not shutting out the light. I'm shutting out everything.

I can't look. I can't bring myself to understand what I just did.

I swallow hard, my eyelids twitching, and without my consent I dare to crack an eye open. Stars dance in my vision, until they fizzle to nothingness, leaving my eyes to focus on the fading remnants of light coiling in on themselves. They start to dull, slowly losing the glistening shimmer in the pool of decomposed ectoplasm at my feet. They're fading away, breaking down, giving in, surrendering to the black nothing again. But in those few seconds, as the dwindling light fights for its life, I'm trapped, staring deep into the splattered mess. I can't see a single one of the thousand eyes once shining there. Instead their vibrant glowing eyes had been replaced with a foreign pair. The shine is gone in the new pair, the meshed eyes decomposed, switched for two rippling reflections. I stare at the new eyes, and they stare back: cold, green, dead eyes.

My eyes.

"I'm sorry…" I whisper, but I know it's well beyond hearing at this point. "This wasn't my choice to make."

That's a lie. The rippling reflection silently screams it.

I can only stare back, but the two softly glowing eyes won't yield.

"…I guess that's right." I whisper back. I'm not sure what I'm talking to. Maybe the ghost. Maybe the eyes. Maybe myself. "It was my choice to kill you." The eyes. The ghost. "…but it's not something I can change. I didn't ask for this. I didn't start this."

The reflection stares back silently, refusing to argue. It simply doesn't answer, fading with the light, eaten up in the darkness.

"It's true…" I say, but the reflection's gone. The light's gone. It's them or us. I can't let a single one roam free. Not now. Not with the way things are.

I shut my eyes and turn away, mumbling one last "I'm sorry" before the glow is permanently gone,

And I'm thrown back into the darkness again.