other people

Never let them see you waver, my mother once told me, my shirt clenched tight in her fist. The world will eat you right up. You hear me, Liam? Weakness is for other people. Be strong, or you’ll be dead by the time you’re twenty.

I shake my head slightly at the memory as I move through the room of corpses, rolling my wrists.

I’m twenty now, and I’m too far from dead for my own liking.

Mother always thought I was a soft boy, too soft for my own good. Perhaps that’s why she always hated me so much. Perhaps that was why she hit me, or screamed herself hoarse until I cried, or injected me with so many vials of Pluton every night that my body would convulse in my goddamn cradle.

She shouldn’t have been surprised when I grew strong enough to grasp her neck in my hands and squeeze, watching until the life left her eyes. I was thirteen, then.

I never chose to have this strength. She cursed me with it.

What else is there to do with power like this than to utilize it?

“Spare me,” a voice croaks out behind me, and I stop in my tracks and turn. A man is crawling towards me on all fours. “Please—”

I simply smile down at him.

“You’re brave,” I say. “Be proud, and die strong.”

“Please,” he croaks out. His hand reaches out, closing around my ankle. “Don’t—”

I don’t let him get out another word before I bring my heavy boot down on his head, right between his eyes.

A crack resounds throughout the empty alleyway, the scream dying halfway in the man’s throat.

“Job’s done,” I say, half to myself, and I leave him like that.

Weakness is for other people.

-

Guys, no joke—I am about to be so annoying about this challenge with the amount of submission I’ll probably make. These are the fantasies I live in basically all day. I love superhero and supervillain origin stories. I literally had almost this exact prompt in mind for my next unofficial challenge, but alas 😂♥️

Thanks so much for reading!