Disclaimer: see chapter 1
Redemption Gone Rogue
What happens when redemption goes wrong? A backstory for our favourite villain.
Life as a child was taxing for him. He was the older of siblings, the younger of others. His father had left, a cruel man who he was not sorry to see the back of. His mother, cruel too, but had the job of raising the children. He made himself as small as he could, as insignificant as he could to avoid the onslaught of rage and anger that came his way. School was a refuge for him, a chance for him to figure out who he really was, away from the trappings of his familial circumstance.
He was not the sharpest tool in the shed, but he quickly learnt that what he could not get by asking, he could get by taking. Who he could not rule by popularity, he would rule with an iron fist. Ruling the roost in the playground was an ego boost he sorely needed, and he quashed the annoying voice in the recess of his mind (a voice that sounded similar to his only pacifist sibling) that told him he was better than this. Not that he exercised his power often as he grew older; his reputation preceded him.
He hit adulthood quickly. That was when everything changed. Determined to get ahead in life, he let his reputation do the talking for him.
Only it did not.
No longer could he throw his weight around to get what he wanted; there was someone who was bigger, stronger, more terrifying than him. Life so far had not prepared him for this.
The soft spoken voice in his head that he thought he had banished came back, and this time, he listened. Perhaps there was some wisdom in the words that were encouraging him to be kind, not just to himself, but to others.
Initially, words and compliments stuck in his throat like bile, but he practised, and he practised and he noticed the more he did it, the easier it came. For the first time in his life, he had a circle of people that surrounded him, not because he had threatened them or they were intimidated by him, but because they wanted to be around him.
It seemed Kyrano was right. Kindness would get him further than terror would.
He reached out to the siblings he had lost contact with. All but one wanted nothing to do with him. A sad, but not unexpected realisation. Kyrano was open minded. Kyrano wanted to forge a connection with him.
It was with trepidation fluttering in his stomach that he met up with Kyrano. Kyrano held no grudge against him, against their upbringing. Swimming against the tide that was their childhood was hard for them, but Kyrano seemed to be the one who had managed to float back to shore, relatively unscathed. Kyrano had made something of himself, had even found himself a partner that would stand by his side through thick and thin, had even revealed that the two of them had created a small whisper of life. Kyrano had recently returned from studying horticulture and environmental science overseas and had recently been employed to survey a site for the construction of a uranium mine. The company was looking for miners, Kyrano had told him. A stable job with a legitimate source of income. A chance to live with family that didn't shunt him from side to side.
It seemed almost too good to be true.
He, Kyrano and Kyrano's family made the trip across the country until they reached the mine site, setting up shop in a small shack that straddled the boundary between civilisation and desolate remoteness. It was a small place, too small to hold two brothers, and a slowly expanding family, but as Kyrano and he were going to be at the mine for most of the day, it would suffice.
The bus ride to the mine site and back again provided them with plenty of bonding time. He was glad he had initially reached out to Kyrano, was glad that Kyrano had forgiven his transgressions from a misspent youth, was glad he, like a phoenix rising from the flames, was carving out a nice, stable life. He was one that no-one expected anything from and he wanted to defy those expectations. Now he knew his worth, he would aspire to greatness.
Work kept them apart. Kyrano worked above ground, ensuring that the space being cleared for the mine site did not contain any threatened flora or fauna. He was manual labour, and he spend his days constructing the mine shaft that would take the workers deep underground, and then once that was complete, operating the prospecting drill to uncover uranium ore.
The day that would change his fate was sneaking up on him.
The earthquake and resulting tsunami struck with little notice, trapping the miners beneath the ground in hot, cramped conditions with not enough water to last them all. Luck was not on his side; as the prospecting drill operator on duty, he and one other miner were further into the mine than anyone else. Rocks barricaded their way out, and the mine shaft had collapsed, Mother Nature and shonky workplace safety practices conspiring against them. From here on in, it was a waiting game for him and his companion.
There had been murmurs of a new, independent rescue organisation, one that offered a beacon of hope when conventional rescue methods failed. There was still time. Nothing but time, nothing to do but converse with the miner stuck with him.
She – that was a surprise, mining still being dominated by men – was on a rotation in the company, and it was her first day on the job.
Quite the welcome, he snorted, half amused, half frustrated.
She shrugged. There were always perils that came with any job.
They talked some more, only stopping when the dust clogged their throat. He counted the seconds passing by. The seconds turned to minutes. The minutes bled into hours. The hours morphed into days. Aftershocks rumbled through the mine, bringing down more rocks, dust and debris. It was becoming painfully obvious that no one was coming for them.
This was not what he had planned, and it was up to him to forge his way forward. With grit and determination, he crawled forward, hefting rock, uranium ore and debris out of the way. He pushed through, methodically moving backwards and forwards, working even when his muscles screamed out in pain, working beyond what they were used to. He cursed that blasted rescue agency that hadn't been able to get to them and as his hands blistered, his skin rubbed raw to the point where he could see muscle and sinew and a dull ache settled deep into his bones, he vowed vengeance against them.
Whatever it took, he would find them and make them pay for their transgression.
Eventually, when his knuckles were knobbled and twisted, he made it through to daylight. Absolutely spent, he half pulled himself out of the hole he had carved out and collapsed.