The Naïveté of the Hero

We lived in a superpowered society where the strong ruled over the weak. It all started when people began to manifest their powers, causing chaos to ensue. Within this chaos, three categories of people were formed. The weak, the strong who abused the weak, and the strong who protected them.

We fell into the latter.

We had always seen ourselves as heroic figures. People would smile and thank us for our deeds, and we would be written about in the newspapers as the embodiment of righteousness, for our intentions were pure and just. That got us thinking, what were we? Were we the embodiment of righteousness as the newspapers had said? After pondering for long nights, we came to the conclusion that yes, we were the righteous heroes who would always try their best to come save the day.

So then why… Why had things turned out this way?

"NO! Stop!"

His back was turned towards me, but I could clearly see the dark red stain spreading across his chest.

"HAHAHAH!"

That laugh… it made me sick… I felt like nauseous and weak.

"You should've run while I was still being merciful."

The man dressed in all black, whose energy beam had just pierced the chest of my friend, stood there giggling like a maniac as purple flames danced around his body. A wide grin spread across his face as he dramatically tipped his hat and bowed towards us.

His legs soon gave out, as I watched from across the bloody battlefield of torn down buildings and severed limbs of people I never got to know. His torso and head followed his legs to the ground, and I felt my body tense up. This isn't it. It can't be. He'll get up. He will.

Someone grabbed my arm from behind, snapping me out of my daze. "We have to go, now!"

"Wait! What about him?!" I shouted as I struggled to free myself from their grip.

"It's too late, we have to go. NOW!"

As I was pulled away and dragged towards a beat up jeep, I took one last look at his limp body on the ground and felt a stabbing pain in my chest.

I'm sorry, everyone.

As I sat there, still, in the back of the jeep, I kept thinking about the conclusion that we had come to. We were the heroes, right? We were the good guys, right? If we were, then why didn't we get our happy ending like the good guys always do in the stories? Where did we go wrong?

Maybe it wasn't us, but instead our naïveté. It was the foolish belief that everything would be okay just because our intentions were good. We dreamt of a peaceful world. We wanted to liberate innocent people from this world of chaos. We wanted to be the heroes, and we wanted our happy ending. Together, we would make it work.

That's how we thought it would be. I guess we were always chasing after a lie.