Disclaimer: Heroes and its characters are owned by its respective creators. Author Note as of August 2009
"Hiro? Where have you been?"
"I went to face my father's killer."
"Well, did you find him?...Did you kill him?"
"He can never hurt anyone ever again."
BURIED
My fist pounded on the coffin as I screamed, yelling myself hoarse as my lungs burned. Within seconds, they shriveled up, becoming dead and useless in my chest only to be resurrected cell by cell. Each time, it became more painful than the last. Death wouldn't take me, so mother earth embraced me into her bosom with the vengeance that only a bitch could. An immortal, a god, trapped in a coffin unable to escape. I bucked against the wood in vain, feral growls escaping my throat as I thought of the one who trapped me in this god forsaken place. All to save the world; a world which I had seen for over three hundred years, suffering by its own hand; the same world that needed to be cleansed. After all, a god cleansed away the land when he was unhappy – and so would I. It was natural.
I scratched at the coffin lid, ripping my fingernails off until they bled, only stopping to allow them to heal before continuing again. After countless days in that confined coffin, constricted so tight my body began to ache; I could hardly turn my hips, move my legs an inch. There were long moments of terror, where closing my eyes and breathing slowly would keep the insanity at bay. If there was a deity, I prayed to them to rescue me from my damnation, from my hell hole. Unlike my body, my spirit was entirely broken. My wails were met only with their echo while my curses strangled in my throat as the air was used up entirely in the box. The wood, the fresh pine scent and the earthy smell of dirt, soon gave way to the wet rot and excrement, an unbearable stench for even me. It didn't take long to adjust to dying, the sacred cycle of death and rebirth became all too normal for me, and I was unfazed when my lungs died and the unnatural thirst I developed. The splinters under my fingernails were pushed out quickly, only to allow me to dig into the coffin lid again, even though deep down, I knew it all in vain.
It was easy to lose hope, and soon I grew tired and I gave up moving entirely. I succumbed to the fate that carp Hiro had thrust upon me: to say buried until the end of days. Time passes incredibly slowly without a system of measurement, and soon it becomes inconsequential. For the first time in three hundred years I began to hate my gift, my godsend, oh how it is a curse. One can't even begin to imagine the things that enter the mind when buried in the darkness, unable to escape, unable to age or die. It's fitting, I suppose, and one of the carp's more intelligent ideas – so much more brilliant than his father. They kept me locked in a steel room for thirty years, allowing me to brood and foolish enough to think they had contained me. I was only waiting, and I'm only waiting now, biding my time until the moment presents itself like Peter. Peter, Peter, Peter. The boy who so wanted to be a hero but has only ever managed to be a villain. Revenge is the only thing that can keep me going while everything else begins to appear pointless and mundane as I lay in my rotting prison. There would revenge; there would be suffering for each time I died and one pint of blood for every second I lay entrapped in my tomb. So much blood it would create rivers, fill oceans and cover everything as far as the eye could see painting it red. There would be indiscriminate killing and blood.
I was in a constant state of limbo; never alive save for seconds before death only to be resurrected. It was then, in one of the few seconds of solace when I heard it. The most beautiful sound in existence, something so amazing I could have cried: moving earth. It was with a new found urgency and determination that I raged insane like hellfire, thrashing and crawling as I fought against the rotting wood. I was raging like a hell hound released from Lucifer's hold. The sound kept growing closer and louder in my ears, threatening to erupt it pushed me forward out of my prison, my own personal purgatory. Yes, this was purgatory, but this was my escape calling, my heaven. I had done my time in here, in this godforsaken place.
Then the noise ceased and the earth around me stilled.
I shook in frustration, digging upward with more frenzy than before, insane and unleashed. It was mere hours before I had a carved a hole in the rot wood wide enough to escape; two more until I broke the surface and took a breath. As I crawled out of my grave, I took a large breath, filling my lungs to their limit with the crisp, cool air while grass fell through my hand. It was dusk and that sight nearly brought me to my knees, the grass was a deep green, moist from an earlier soft shower. As I blinked against the harshness of the fading twilight, the realization of my location hit and I couldn't stop the laugh that bubbled in my chest. The carp's sense of justice was just too much. I was in Japan, again.
"So, you're the famous Adam Monroe? I rather expected more."
He was on the tombstone that marked my grave, arms crossed and clad all in black. He was a pale, thin framed man with stubble on his face and heavy bags under his eyes. He was nothing remarkable, almost normal in appearance but the glint in his eyes told me otherwise. He was like me. I couldn't help but stare, he knew me, knew how to find me and was the one who moved the dirt – the shovel at his feet proved that and yet…He reminded me of someone Peter had described to me so long ago. Now, this man was a face I couldn't place, a name I couldn't remember and everything I should have remembered was hazy except for the carp. Peter. Revenge. How long had I been entombed? How long has it been at all?
"What day is it?" As I spoke, my voice cracked and I was half surprised my throat didn't bleed. I sounded different as I spoke, but I suppose everything must after lack of us. As my eyes narrowed on the man, he couldn't help but offer a slow, small smile which reminded me strongly of what I saw in the mirror. Like a hunter.
"The first of August, 2008, Adam."
He sounded smug, incredibly so as he answered, as if he knew a joke I didn't. Even his voice reminded me of a predator as my name rolled off his tongue smooth like honey with an edge of poison. I knew him, or at least of him. Like a missing puzzle pieces I concentrated hard on placing the picture together and suddenly, I knew. Peter had told me of him.
"He tried to kill Claire, my family, Mohinder – he's stolen and killed so many before Adam. He was meant to be the bomb, not me. It was supposed to be Sylar who lost control. Not Me. Adam you have to believe me."
"Sylar."
My voice didn't hold a question as I spoke to him, I knew who he was, he knew I knew what he had done though he still smiled. My eyes narrowed as I watched him. Sylar. The same Sylar who was meant to be the bomb. Sylar who tried to kill the cheerleader. The bomb. I swallowed the bile that had gathered in my throat as I stared at him as he lazily made his way toward, filling my grave as he went. Quickly I realized I was wrong, this Sylar, he was anything less than ordinary, he wasn't a wiry thing without backbone or purpose. He was someone like me in different ways that were all the same, and in a way I could use. A simple, elegant tool like everyone else served to be. As he stepped in front of me, the glint was much more prevalent, much more predatory to the point where it could have been intimidating. A hunter. Suddenly he licked his lips and tossed a simple bag into my arms that I was forced to catch quickly. Clothes. It was nice to know he didn't expect me to wonder the world in rotten clothes. He didn't wait for me to speak as he began walking away, stopping nearly a few feet away before looking over his shoulder and speaking his ominious words carelessly.
"I have a proposition for you Adam, one you shouldn't refuse."