I had always wanted to work with children at the local Residential Treatment Center. For all my life I had lived across the street from it, seeing the orphaned kids and their struggle to find a home of their own. Having grown up with two loving parents, I wanted to give them the same opportunity, if I could.
Now that day had finally arrived. I was living my dream of helping the children of my small Midwestern town.
Handing a small toy car to a toddler no older than three, I smiled contently to Hillary Swank, my coworker at the RTC. "Thank you for vouching for me, Hillary."
She returned my smile, shaking her head. "You deserved it, Sam. We need more people here who genuinely care about these kids..."
Feeling my cheeks redden, I looked away. I was never good at accepting praise…but she was correct about the children needing someone. Finding each and every one of them a family that would care about them just as much as I did was my top priority.
Those were my thoughts when the RTC build was rocked harshly, the far wall exploding in a ball of fire that forced me to avert my eyes.
The sounds of screaming children filled my ears, demanding that I pry my eyelids open. Rising through the smoke was a man riding upon a hoverboard cast in the likeness of a goblin. His head was balding and he wore a pair of spectacles, his face covered in a well-kept beard.
"Wahahaha! Greetings children, it is I, the Green Goblin, here to usher your worthless souls to hell!" He proclaimed, menacingly hovering about the room, a pumpkin bomb clutched in his hand.
"Oh no," Hillary gasped, "So it's true!"
"What?" I questioned, turning to her. "What's true?"
"Disney recently cast retired professional wrestler Arn Anderson to play The Green Goblin in their next Spider-Man movie, but he hit his head during filming and now believes he is the Green Goblin!"
"Oh no!" I echoed.
Arn then began cackling maniacally while throwing pumpkin bombs in all directions, sending adults and children alike fleeing in a panic. Hillary grasped my hand and dragged me towards a set of metal double doors.
Bursting through them into a kitchen-like area I had never seen before, she pulled me beneath the counter and told me to keep quiet.
Arn and his hoverboard burst through the same doors only a second later, his booming voice carrying throughout the room. "You cannot hide from the Green Goblin, Sam!"
Throwing a pumpkin bomb right at us, Hillary throws me out of the way before being blasted against the wall by the resulting explosion.
"No, Hillary!" I screamed.
"Wahahah! One down, one to go!" Arn taunted.
Cowering in the corner, I watched as Arn prepared a pumpkin bomb for me. Before he could throw it, however, a beam of light shot down through a hole in the kitchen roof, a figure slowly descending from it.
When the light cleared, I clearly saw the face of a dark-skinned man with a clean-shaven head and a mustache that rivaled Arn's in its kemptness. Ripping with muscles beneath his number 72 football jersey, his face was set into a grim frown.
Arn recoiled in horror, "ARGH! Curses, it's Bob Sapp! You shall not foil my plans!"
"Your reign of terror is over, Arn!" Bob pointed to him with a scowl. "I'm here to put an end to you, permanently."
"Wahaha! You've never been good at the ground game, Bob, and you'll fair even worse against my air game!" Arn mocked.
When Bob attempted to use his patented bulrush against Arn, he simply flew above him and began hurling pumpkin bombs at him. Bob was struck by several, but mostly shrugged them off even though his jersey was destroyed, exposing his battle-scarred chest.
"Damn, it's no good," Bob swore, turning to me. "I can't get to him like that. I need your help, Sam!"
Nodding my head slowly, I stood and quickly looked to a loose wire in the wall. While Bob continued to battle with Arn, I quickly took hold of the wire and dragged it beneath the ex-superstar's hoverboard!
Jabbing it into the engine, it was suddenly engulfed in electricity, causing Arn to scream down at me. "NO! CURSE YOU SAM!"
Falling off his hoverboard, he stood only for Bob to perfectly execute his bulrush, completely demolishing his grandpa glasses with a series of heavy punches before wrapping his arms tightly around him. "No! Let me goooo!"
"No chance, Arn!" Bob replied, "When you gained your superpowers, you lost your spirit as a horseman! Now you must die!"
Leaping high up through the roof of the kitchen, Bob instantly came crashing back down in a devastating piledriver that sent Arn slamming through the floor and then the mantle of the Earth itself, a monstrous geyser of magma erupting from the hole.
Arn screamed within, his blackened and skeletal hand reaching out towards us. "You haven't seen the last of meeeee!" he swore, before disintegrating completely.
"It's done," Bob turned to me, placing his meaty hand upon my shoulder. "I appreciate the help, Sam, but I must go. There are other villains that are up way past their Sapp Time."
Bob then whistled with his fingers, and his flying Harley Davidson rumbled in the distance, soaring through the sky to land at his feet. Climbing onto it, he offered me one last wave before taking off into the horizon, for the beast was always hungry…for justice!
And that was the story of my first day working at the local RTC.