You were alone.

Against all logic and reason, you paid for a bus ticket to Killarney, never thinking of what it would cost you.

Ten Euro. With that, you could have bought three ‘meal deals’ from tesco. You were hungry, but for some reason you couldn’t eat.

Something horrible had happened to you that day, or that week, but that was nothing new really. It doesn’t matter why you were there, but you wandered into the forest by yourself.

You went off the trail. It was dumb, and in a way, it was the most sensible decision you would make that day. You could have stayed in Tralee, or dingle, whatever place you were forced to call home. You needed to escape. You needed somewhere you could be truly alone.

Truly free.

You walked for hours, the weak muscles in your legs weren’t doing anything, you simply trudged forward on the bones of your feet. You were fifteen, you’d been in fights before, but it had only served to break you back then. The only exercise you committed to was a set of twenty sacred push-ups, twenty-five if you were feeling tough.

It did nothing. You hadn’t a clue what you were doing or what you were doing wrong, you were without purpose, without guidance or grace.

And you knew it. You knew that if things kept up like this forever, that you’d simply die. There would be no tears or fanfare, like dust on the floor, you’d be brushed away without notice.

So you pushed as hard as you could, you tried to talk to people, and most importantly, you tried to be good

You were spiteful, more so than you are now. You hated every corner of the world, because it simply wasn’t fair. You were good. You were right. Why couldn’t things just go well for you?

Maybe you weren’t deserving. Maybe if you just ‘got better’... But the gradual changes made in the cage of your room would do nothing.

So you wandered in the woods.

I was there. I was a good person. You might think me egotistical, but this is all coming from your mind, from the memories of a girl you knew and forgot. If I told you anything else, it would break the Pointless Code.

I would later tell you that I was in that forest and off the trail collecting litter for a recycling drive. A couple girls I knew had tagged along with me, but I'd left them. I was never comfortable around them, our values never aligned. They were all very traditional country types, and I had moved in from Dublin two years ago. They liked me. I had a magnetic sort of personality; people loved every sarcastic edge of me.

I was kind and charitable, but I was mean when it was fun. I was never serious.

Far, far later on in our time together, moments before the end, I would tell you that I had heard the screaming.

You thought there was nothing near you, no one, you thought you were free. But I was there. For a mortal instant I thought it an animal, or more likely someone on a bad drug trip. But I felt in me the same pulse as you, I knew that I had to climb up that hill, that it was alright.

We didn’t know it was fate.

I dropped the waste bag and garbage clamps and crept up on you.

Your hair was long and greasy, a slight darkness to the red curls. Your skin was white and sickly pale, and I felt that either of the ghastly features could be healed with just a little sunshine and relaxation.

For a second I mused you as a dark reflection of myself.

I was about to leave, when you tilted your head back. Before, I'd thought you were wailing in pain or sorrow, I saw from the snarl in your face that it was pure frustration. It was nothing like my annoyance at my friends, my airy discontent with life.

My family owned a business, and I was doing great at school and in sport and in music, and everything else for that matter.

But I looked at you, in that baggy dark grey hoodie and those muddy sweatpants, and I realised what you reminded me of:

Superman issue 75 1993.

It was like you were fighting an invisible Doomsday, lashing out at it with all your might, disregarding your own life.

It was something I had not believed in.

I excepted my perfect life openly and without question, bad things would happen to me and the world, but that’s just how things were. I’d be satisfied with simple comic book stories about people fighting against it all.

I understood that there were people whose lives were ruined in colourful ways, but I never considered them honestly as people, they were problems that couldn’t be solved, not in the real world.

I knew that life was pointless. Meaningless.

But for all your suffering you fought. As I looked on hollowly.

I left then. As silently as I had approached you, I was gone again.

You were quieting after ten or so minutes of screaming, you sat there in the dirt, clutching at your head, wondering what to do.

And then you heard singing. An Irish tune in Gaelic. It wasn’t one you’d heard before, and it wasn’t one you would learn the name of. It made you sad. Your first concern was that somebody might have heard you shouting like a lunatic, your face reddened at the very thought.

I admired you even then, but I was never afraid to point out your weakness, that abashed nature that I hope you will keep in check from now on.

You came up behind me, your feet fell on the twigs and branches far heavier than mine. I knew you were there for a good while. Eventually, I turned to you when it was clear you weren’t going to introduce yourself. I finished the song, and then I asked you:

“Are you a hero?”

There was sarcasm in my voice, just slight enough to go over your head in the moment.

“No miss,” is what you said, stupidly, “I- uh- I- uhm, well, you, I... you,”

Not a true word came out of your mouth. I’d have laughed normally, but I still didn’t know what you were, so I kept quiet.

“Wh-what about you,” your sentence finally formed, “are you- a...” You were going to ask if I was a fairy tale creature, but you stopped yourself. It would have been a joke, but you weren’t in the mood for that.

“A-are you a hero?” You didn’t understand what I'd meant by the question, yet you still asked.

“No,” I replied, “women can’t be heroes. When was the last time you picked up a super girl comic? Or she-hulk? Or spider-woman?”

I slumped forward on the stone I was sitting on, “In the real world, the people who hit hardest win everything. In the real world, there is no man v woman boxing because the man would win. It’s the world that’s the problem, not sexism. There is no hope of winning.”

You seemed to redden at that, and I was beginning to grow tired of you already.

Then with a wide mouth you said, “I’ve read the ‘sensational she hulk’ run, and I thought it was great!” You breathed heavily, your knees shaking from the miles walked.

I looked at you, if only for a moment, “Yeah, well, the real world doesn’t have a forth wall to break, you know?”

You smiled. It was so clear and so bright, that the dirty parts of you seemed to blend away with the forest.

“I read an article that said there are an infinite number of dimensions layered over our own. They theorised that when worm holes are developed people’ll be able to tunnel through that barrier between-”

I smiled at you, but it wasn’t the same, “Interesting. That sort of thing is only speculative. It can’t- won’t happen. At least not in our lifetime. So, what are we supposed to do?”

Your mood sank, as you remembered whatever reason you had for going to that place. I had taken it all half seriously any way, slight melancholy was sort of my thing at the time.

“We can try, can’t we?”

I looked to you, with your paste-coloured skin and your sunken eyes. The smile, Emmett. You felt it on your face, but that’s all. If only I could begin to describe it to you.

I said to you, “We can be a superhero?”

I phrased it like a question, but everything was beginning to make sense. My string had been properly strung.

“We?” you’d ask.

I stood and approached. At the time, you were actually quite tall for your age, and broader than your bony features would imply. It could work. You could do it. Just not alone

“You’ll be the mind and body; I’ll be the other external force, the soul of it.” Neither of us understood what that covenant meant.

You were rightfully confused, as I explained, “I know people, they’ll train you and bring you up to the standard.”

You still didn’t say anything, as I approached.

“What’s the matter? Are you content living out your pointless life? Whatever. I had you figured for a fighter, but if you want to roll over and fall to the wayside like every other civilian, that’s fine too.”

“It just means you’ll be scum forever.”

I said something that mattered to you, by shear accident.

I had pressured you more than enough. You practically bowed down to me, at least that’s how you remember it. How you should remember it.

It’s only half my fault, half yours.

It erased after a while. Well, I guess that’s part my fault, part yours. You didn’t have to end up like this you know. You could have felt loved. But you had to go and...

...Make you under...

...right...

Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

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The thing that wasn’t there was fading, and with it went the supplanted memories. They were thoughts and feelings from my perspective, but they certainly weren’t my own. It was like someone was living my life out in their own alien dream.

It was fading, as something important was being returned to me. I was fading mentally, forgetting whatever had broken my spirit earlier.

Her features were fading, becoming a distortion in spaces vaguely person shaped.

It reminded me of how I had seen J-on on Valentines, though more ghostly than grand.

The lights over head had gone out, and there was still a slight shake in the building. I couldn’t remember what I was doing, but a part of me was holding onto the hope that the people living here were getting out, that they’d felt the tremors.

A warped voice heard me, “Do you really believe he’d let that happen? He’s probably blocked the exits.”

As the thought entered my mind, I could make out the features of her face again, from her black lips down to the freckles on her nose.

“Of course.”

She wasn’t satisfied with her current presence, so she thought about how to anchor herself.

“It was your fault, Emmett. Your dad wouldn’t have killed himself had you never existed. The world would have been a better place without scum like you.”

The vibrant red colour returned to her hair, and even in the dark I could see every detail of her. She was wearing a black leather jackt and cotton hood. She was attempting a smile, though there was nothing true or honest about it. Her eyes were dark and smoky.

“That is your truth, Emmett.”

The ‘truth’ didn’t matter,it felt real enough to me. Real enough to sustain the illusion of her.

I quivered a gaze. “I’m guessing you’re Sam?”

“No, you aren’t guessing. You know who I am. You used it in those blog posts your obsessed with.”

She continued the story, “You and I got up to heaps of trouble, no more than you would on your own, but it was so fulfilling. You honestly believed that it was all working. You believed Bailey was your friend, when she was mine. She should have forgotten about me too, but she was not meddled with in the same way as you. And she kept her love for me.”

“You were beaten and broken, and in time your body would harden, though, your heart would never follow. We were a year into training you, and we had talked about so much...”

She stopped. “That is all better to be forgotten. Scattered pieces remain, you remember Bailey coming out, but the truth has been warped. You had been on the other side of a closed door when she confessed her feelings to me. You were shocked when I simply laughed her off. She was heartbroken and became stronger because of it. She moved north soon after word got out.”

“You were always so resolute. Even before your soul was destroyed, you were near impossible to break. I realised that despite your suffering, you would never be inspired to become the man I needed. You would never be a hero.”

“A year after that and a year before now, I realised we were just teenagers having dumb childish fun. I never thought of you romantically, but I began to imagine we’d settle down with each other, that we’d let the world wash over us. We’d probably set up or work for some charity organisation and loosely base ourselves around those old stories of true heroes.”

“We were at Inch beach, coming from dingle. You know it now as the place where you met Feoli, and Adonis. It was a place that meant something to us. I’d heard that there was an military training course, and I thought if it was good enough for them, then you should run through the dunes too.”

“I would tell you everything. My fears and my loves, all while you panted after finishing a run. Once a week we would sit at the edge of the water and feel sorry for ourselves. Together. You and I both knew we would never, ever, be happy. So, we stewed in our sorrow, let it become us.”

“To us, it was the hoping that hurt more.”

“You stood up, said today you were going to push yourself. Another run. You waved, and ran to the dunes, scrambling up the side with little cause for concern.”

“To me, that was enough. That one man would fight against it all. It was stupid, pointless, but for fuck sake, it was endearing.”

“You’d forgotten your water bottle, so I walked after you. I spied you from the top of a dune and called to you. To save me the trouble of catching up, you ran across the sand to me, going off track.”

“Once again, fate had us strung.”

“You fell Emmett. The ten-thousand-year-old sands that had seen all of Irish history, that had been there when the fey creatures of legend were branded with silver, when the Fomorians were pushed to the west sea, the conquering and death of Cu Chulainn-”

“They parted for you in that moment. And I simply followed.”

“I was inspired by you when I ran to that sink hole. I could have phoned the Garde, but I didn’t. A hero wouldn’t.”

“Obviously, that wasn’t the smart or self-preserving thing to do, but I still clawed at the ground as you seeped through. You struggled against it, and that was the out-right wrong thing to do.”

“You should have gone limp, been calm and rigid, you should have just went with it. But that is not your nature.”

“It gave away all at once; for a blinding moment we were lost in a solid mass between the world and it’s shadow. Eventually, even that broke away, and we fell fast and hard.”

“I was concussed, only coming to a few minutes later. The stone there was hard and wet, glistening under the hole we’d made above. You noticed better than I did-”

These memories were resisting. They had to be crammed into my head.

“Listen to it Emmett! You need more. More truth. A part of you was glad to see those people die weren’t you? The pollutant girl’s friends. What does she have left? The calm and quiet life with you- with all the dumb fun we once enjoyed, or her master, death, and the harsh reality of the pointless. You have been given her, like some gift. You’ve benefitted from this. Admit that you let those people die!”

“No!” I gasped, feeling the weight on my shoulders once more, reality and dream- they were colliding in the shadow of Her.

It was painful, the shear thought that I would ever wish those people dead, when all I wanted was Saoirse-

“You soon realised that place was no mere cavern. The hole was designed with an artistry unbefitting it’s years. Three rings encircled it jagged and round, of mismatching length but perfectly fitting and perfectly eroded to allow us through at that moment. Stone supports stabbed out from it, lifting the stone-iron ceiling that shielded that place from the outside world, kept the pleasant beach in place.”

“It was constructed like a church, pillars and artworks decorated two sides, where the others stretched on darkly. You could still hear the ocean, dark and brushing. Eventually, you understood it wasn’t the ocean you knew. There was a second sea and beach formed from the dark skies of rain above your miserable country.”

“Ireland.”

“When I woke, you were keeping calm and reliable, when all you wanted to do was cry. You couldn’t walk, though that wasn’t what watered your eyes.

“I thought I lost you, is what you said to me, as I looked through pouring blood.”

“I pointed at your legs, and you said it was fine, that it would all be ok. But my phone wouldn’t get a reception, not under the dome.”

“I was the one who could stand, so I was the one who had to explore that place. One direction was pitch black and the other was a black sea, deep and breathing.”

“I sat with you for a moment, and again we talked, until I noticed you were on top of something. It was written in the latin alphabet, but in Gaelic. It didn’t make any sense, there was no possible way that it could have been written here, you were awake enough to know as much.”

“You couldn’t read it, but I could. You watched my eyes trace over the carved script and saw how my expression changed. Concern, turning to hard thought and wonder, and then that empty smile. I acted as impulsive as that day in the forest. I lifted you as best I could, bringing you to a good spot.”

“Where you could see but not interfere.”

“You asked what I was doing, and I told you:”

“I’m giving the world hope. I know who I really am now, it was a message for me. The true me. My brothers live out mortal experiences, low and base. Apparently, ‘Irmisul’ and ‘Balor’, they become the world and a person, respectively. Looks like I'm born a person, and I must become a god.”

“I smiled thinking it over. I believed it easily with this cave around it, as well as the cave in my head.”

“It seems ironic. You’d be far better for this. You’re the ‘non-entity’, and yet somehow, I've ended up here. Guess it makes sense. A god of opposites who is the is not the god of opposites! I laughed.”

“Then I had only one more thing to say-”

“Yeah, ironic. That instead of believing in God, your God believes in you.”

“Then I walked into the water. You called after me, quiet and confused at first, but soon you screamed, and cried and broke your fingernails dragging against the floor. You got into the water, but you couldn’t swim with your legs, never mind without.”

“You were drowning with me, but you had held your breath before crawling in, I hadn’t.”

“It was impossible for you to save me.”

The figure came closer, the memories came a little easier now.

The thought of what she was saying was making it easier for me to see her.

“You woke up in your room, with hardly a memory of what had happened. You knew the feeling, but not what had happened. When you left your room, you went looking for me. You remember how it felt when they told you I'd taken my own life. It wasn’t simply the ignorance effect, no, my new nature had altered reality. I didn’t die in a fantastical sacrifice for the future. I died in the comfort of my home, that was the truth now.”

“You knew it was wrong, but you couldn’t argue against reality. It fit with what you’d already been taught. People would rather die than live with you.”

She stopped speaking, and I still tried to understand, “That- that’s how it happened? That’s my origin?”

The Woman who was Wearing Shamrock frowned, “Only the part of it I can tell you. That all happened this time last year, you took six months to grow, to fall into that lonely darkness just enough to reach me. And then, with a certain event, you were made into a super hero.”

“What?” I asked.

“You’re on a need-to-know basis, Shamrock. I’m only teaching you what I must, for the future I desire. The importance of sacrifice. Think about all the good you’ve done, how many people you’ve said, the happiness you’ve brought to even your detractors. Now you know that it was worth the life of one girl.”

I argued against the word of God, “That was your decision, I tried to stop it!”

“Think idiot, if I hadn’t tried to be a hero and ran after you, if I'd simply made the logical decision, we’d both be alive right now. But so many more would have died. A hundred people might have died had you not killed the monsters that you did, if you hadn’t intervened with the Channeler, than he would have waged a warpath through the whole city, instead, only a couple good agents and one fat bureaucrat got killed.”

“None of that is the same. These people don’t have a choice, they haven’t even a clue!”

“And doesn’t that make them deserving? They’ve lived pleasant enough lives, I won’t lie, this sort of place, this apartment complex is no different from the ghetto you live in, but they’ve had their fun, their Clovers and Feolis. Let them die.”

I felt that burden, and she was fading. Though it was torture, I lifted it up. She remained as I did so, long enough so I could say one last thing to her.

“I will never drop this weight.”

The dark God looked at me, with all its inhumane will.

“Fuck, I love you,” it said.

With a sigh, it scratched it’s head.

“Guess I can cut the mythic pretences. I’ve saved you twice before you know, subtly, but still in ways that broke the Pointless Code. You remember the night you met Clover? How she blew your brains out? I boosted your power for a moment to undo the ‘opening of the door’ to that room for you specifically, though I let you keep some wounds and memories to make it a little more authentic.”

“There was that whole mess with Irminsul, that dick threw my trajectory off a bit, but because I was interfering with him and not the Pointless, it didn’t count. The second strike was something different, it doesn’t matter. Just know that this is the third. From here on out, I can’t help you, you need to be better.”

It was a lot of information, and I felt like I was missing a lot of it. The longer I live in this world the more questions I have. Eventually, I have to stop waiting to find the answers and come up with them on my own.

I felt like I had to declare myself, that I had to let her know that I was never going to lose again

I swore an oath then, “As I stand, there is no weight I will not bear or evil I will not face. And as I live, I will stand for however short a life might be. If nothing else, I will be a rock. And I will not break.”

“Then stand, against this city if you must.”

“And remember... one life... for all others.

Anathema to the hopelessness of facing such an enemy, antithetical to the darkness that drives me, I stood straight and upright. My knees rattled; my face was cold without a single drop of blood flowing through me unregulated, slowed by Belfast’s atomic servants.

There was a great rumbling as I broke free from my enforced stagnation.

I will not forget the face Sam made when the ceiling begun to bend around me.

It was a gleeful expression, and it inspired me.

At that moment, I returned to reality, standing a couple feet from the now pristine pillar. I could feel myself again, the successful damage Belfast had dealt. The pain was throbbing, but I was more tired than sore.

I ruminated on the situation for a moment.

Calm and decisive I walked to the nearest exit, a window overlooking the shadowed city. A cloud had gathered, feeding tendrils quivering towards the hotel.

My intent was set. It gave me the fuel needed to make a few changes to myself. I used SP2 to remove some of the things holding me back. I thought back on my biology lessons and remembered some stuff about lactic acid.

I couldn’t give myself more energy, but I could free my muscles from the acid and my joints from their stiffness. Lastly, I dispelled the machines from my system. They were, and then they weren’t. I could manage that much with something inside myself. I couldn’t change the world, not with my lament.

I jumped out a window, stomping into the tarmac below. My fists were clenched, square and unflinching.

There was a thought on my mind as I leaped from there over the tops of buildings.

I had a plan of action perfectly set out on my mind now, so there was no need to divert from it or rework it. It was a mantra.

And it was time to undo evil.