(Sep 29, 2022. written as a test of speed writing. i wrote this very quickly. i didnt edit at all)
Blood pooled between the dead bodies. Creating a lake of red. It glistened in the dying sun. The fire of it crested off the ridges of and small ripples of blood.
The hero stood shakily on a peak of bodies. He trembled and his face was stark white. Blood smothered his skin, dripping down to his feet, into his eyes, his mouth. He stared wide eyed at the destruction, the absolute horrible loss of life around him. He stared, jaw agape. He did this. This was a hero. But he didn't feel like one.
How could a hero do this.
He didn't feel like a hero. Heroes don't kill thousands of people. They just don't, it doesn't matter if they are saving lives by doing it. It's just wrong.
He stood there for what seemed like hours, the blazing sun set in the sky, the subtle moans of dying enemies subdued to an eerie silence. Flies swarmed to the masses of bodies, vultures swept down and gnawed at the meaty flesh. And through it all, the hero stood still. He didn't want to move, he couldn't. No matter how hard he possibly tried, he just couldn't. What was wrong with him.
He stood there for hours, until his shaking subdued and the blood on his skin crusted. Night fell, pitching the world into utter darkness. Turning the heroes horror into absolute, pure terror, amplified in the night.
The hero had to move.
With all the effort in his body he inched his foot forward. It was complete agony. His mind ached with the constant horror of what he had done. It ached with the constant, mind numbing fact that he had done this. That all he had to do was look around him and he would fin the rewards of his efforts. His body was torture, after hours of constant, light speed movement. He could barely make an effort to blink his eyes.
But he knew one thing for sure. He had to leave this area. He couldn't even look at the ground without a sharp, bloody knife shanking deep into his hart.
He took torturous step after torturous step. His legs searing with an endless, unimaginable pain. But still, it was nothing on the level of his heart. His heart bled, it poured blood. That blood was him. He was slowly losing himself. Second after second, minute after minute, hour after hour. He was losing his soul, this place was draining him. The dead bodies, their empty eyes, bloated, bloody bodies, he couldn't take it. A hand was clenching his heart, it was shoved through his chest, and it slowly squeezing his heart, it is agony. But it is agony for one reason.
He knows the hand is his.
He did this. He did this to himself . And he did this to these people. A thousand lives snuffed out in a moment, like a candle with a single breath. The power that the hero was capable was too scary too think about. The amount of responsibility was torture. He couldn't take it any longer. The worst thought was that one day, he might just snap. He might just break. He might just kill everyone. Everyone he had every loved, everyone he had ever known. In an instant, he would end everything that makes him him. The power he had was insufferably enticing. It whispered into his ears, egging him to do it. Telling him that he needs to. It tells him that one day, soon, he will break. One day he will kill them. One day it will happen.
And no one would be able to stop him.
It terrifies him to his soul. It is unstoppable, it eats away at his flesh, better than any sword could. It drives him to tears in the night. It sends him running from his loved ones. He doesn't want to hurt them. He doesn't want to be close to them, he would only hurt them. He was always gone from them. Never home. Never available. Always off saving the world. He hated it. And he hated that he hated it. He had to love it. Because if he didn't one day he would snap. He knew it.
He dragged his feet across the piles of bodies. Through the blood, soaking through his torn shoes, through his socks. Wrinkling his feet and staining them red.
He trudged along, for what seemed like hours across thousands, millions, billions of dead bodies. Their eyes stared upwards they guts open. Blood dried on their bodies, pooling besides them, soaking into the dirt. Vultures peck at them, tearing flesh away and taking off into flight. Rats gnaw at their insides. Flies swarm the air, a black mass. Sending the pitch black sky into a abyss of shifting anti-stars of dark black hole flies.
He walked for years. He walked forever. His body seared with an incomparable fire.
He walked past a higher portion of land, or rather, a large pile of bodies. He walked away from it, avoiding the eyes. Until he heard a sound.
Shuffling feet.
The hero spun around, and there it was. A body charging straight at him. But no, it wasn't dead, there were no wounds. He was alive and he was sprinting straight at the hero with a sword in hand.
The hero reacted instinctively, he sheared his sword out of its sheath. He dashed straight at the man. He saw an intense, frantic fear as the hero bolted at what must have seemed like the speed of light.
The man never stood a chance, he tried to raise his sword to block, but he was too slow. Not just too slow, but far too slow. So cataclysmically behind in speed that not once--in a billion, trillion, quadrillion time-lines--would this man ever win. No one could ever match the hero. The man yelped in fear, right before the heroes blade met his flesh.
No one could ever stand a chance.
The hero sliced straight through the man's body. Blood spraying in a mist. It covered the world in a red haze that stung at the heroes eyes. The mans body crumpled over, the top half of him tumbling to the ground.
With a muffled thud, the man died.
The hero stared at the body, numb. Until tears began to leak from his eyes.
He had done it again.
He had killed someone again. The hero broke down into sobs. Tears pouring from his eyes. Smearing across the crusted blood on his face. He fell to his knees. He dropped his sword to the ground.
Pain, where ever he went. Pain.
Why did it have to come to this. Why did he have to kill people at every turn. He was meant to be a hero, not a villain.
He clawed at his eyes, trying to rid himself of the dead bodies. Their lifeless faces, they were permanently engraved into his eyelids.
Tears streamed down his face. His heart ached and throbbed. He didn't want to kill people. Why? Why?
He begged for the pain in his heart to end. He screamed towards the sky. Nothing happened. The dark, black expanse of pain devoured his heart charcoaling it a deep fiery black. Eating at his soul, his morals, his restraint.
He had to leave this place. It was doing things to him that he couldn't understand. He had to run.
He struggled to his feet and started running, he ignored the impossibly intense agony in his muscles. Besides, it was nothing compared to the torture his heart was in.
He ran and ran and ran. Leaping over bodies. Staring at the sky, as to not gaze into their lifeless, empty souls.
He left his sword. He didn't need it. It would only convince him to kill, it always did. It whispered and groaned in the back of his mind. The only way to peace was killing, it said. He left it behind. He would never need it again, he realized. He didn't need to be a hero any more. Because if he was, he knew he wouldn't be able to control himself. He would have to give it up. But he knew at that moment, he didn't care, it was for the better.
He walked away, the constant pain in his heart still stabbed at him, it was no better or worse than before, just a constant, throbbing, horrible pain.
He hobbled past the bodies, finally reaching the end of the pile, he stepped onto red sand. It was red for miles, tiny streams and creeks of deep red blood had formed in the crevices of the sand. The blood mixed together, the slightly different shades of red--some light, some dark--swirled together, dancing in eternal pain.
His boots splashed in the blood, staining them. He walked for miles, his mind turning numb.
He found himself at the end of the blood streams, at the edge of a desert, at a highway road, at his house.
Numb, he crashed into his bed. He couldn't move an inch more, he couldn't even gather the effort to wash the crusted blood off his body. The blood flaked off and smeared on his white bedsheets, he didn't care. If anything, it was a testament to the sins he had committed, it would be a reminder of what had happened.
He couldn't sleep, he tried closing his eyes, but the haunted faces of the dead were etched into the backs of his eyelids. Even if he could see into that darkness without the nightmares, the endless pain would still pulse through his muscles, stiffening him to a board, making it truly impossible to sleep.
He laid with his eyes open and the light on, staring at the ceiling. Hours past, more hours than he could possibly count. He subconsciously dozed off, the seconds ticking off without him recognizing their existence.
After an eternity, he slowly, stiffly sat up. He stared at the blank wall in front of him. He dragged his legs over his bed and shakily sat up. He stumbled over his feet, bumping into walls and knocking over a vase and stapler from his desk. He fumbled for the bathroom door, his trembling hand grasped it weakly, he creaked the door open.
His legs dragged across the floor, over to the shower. He slid the shower-curtains to wall and collapsed into the tub. His head exploded in pain as it collided into the wall. Completely stunned, he laid there for a moment, until he crawled over to the shower faucet and rotated it slowly.
Immediately, ice-cold water sliced into his back, he moaned as the frigid water tensed his body further. His hands frantically fumbled at the faucet, he turned it further to hot. It took a moment of agony for the water to turn hot, but in the moment the horribly alien sensation of the icicles stabbing into his back caused tears to well at his eyes.
The water shifted to a warm, calming heat. It ran over him, washing away his worries, the crusted blood on his shirt soaked through, he couldn't move his arms to take it off.
He laid there, his arm pinned underneath his body in a deathly uncomfortable position. But he couldn't move, it was impossible, he could barely even will his body to breathe.
The warm water flowed over his body, it released all of the tension and all of the pain. He closed his eyes, and for the first time, the faces weren't there. From his eyes, tears began to stream. He cried, he cried because of what he had done.
His sobs echoed in the cramped tub, his mouth pressed against its bright ceramic bottom.
For hours, he laid there, the water ran over him and soaked into his skin, the flakes of blood floated away. The deathly hollowness to his soul remained, he wished it would leave too.
His senses slowly returned to him, the empty numbness of his fingers vanished in a tingling warmth. His toes shivered in delight. As his feeling returned to him, thoughts began to rush into his brain. Each one of them full of pain.
The hero was pure pain.
This was the life of a hero.
