0

What specifically makes a hero? Is it the sole act of saving another person from tragedy? Can a hero justify villainy through external heroism? Can a villain redeem truly terrible acts through heroic actions? I think about these questions a lot. I think a lot of people have their own opinions on these questions, too, but to be a bit blunt I don’t think their opinions are worth listening to unless they have personal experience in the subject. Too many people talk from an outside perspective and claim the holier than thou attitude which poisons our world more than it ever should.

I think a hero’s greatest virtue lies in the strength of their core values. Stray and suddenly the shimmering hero status fades away like a blanket of ashes snatched by a stray gale. The focus required separates the great from the average. So, what do I think about the questions above? Any two-bit shmuck can be at the right place and time and be considered a hero by a few people, but they are only such by chance occurrence. These people who take the credit of luck and call it effort—they aren’t heroes. A hero doesn’t passively hide under the comfort of convenience—they tackle the front lines; throwing themselves into direct risk for the sole purpose of bringing others out of said risk...most of the time, anyway (we’ll get to that.) A hero understands how the game is played—how the mythical force behind the curtain operates all of the little bells and whistles of the world. A hero makes a choice. Thought it was anything more? Are you disappointed? You ought to be, the world doesn’t hand you favors; it hands you choices.

I’ll admit I am pretty bad at seeing patterns until they’re long established. I guess by the above definition that would make me a poor candidate for being heroic. Would the outsiders call me a hypocrite at this statement alone? I’m afraid I think so. So, I am one of those stumblers, but I guess I haven’t fully explained what makes me an exception rather than the rule. A stumbler who falls into the role of being a hero so frequently and consistently it rounds back around and becomes not-stumbling. It becomes choice through continual act of being choice less. Imagine a one-hundred person tournament of rock-paper-scissors. Now, I know you know this game, so I don’t have to waste time explaining it. A tournament designed specifically around a game of chance, and yet at the end of the tournament there is a single person who manages to beat the odds and pick the winning hand every single time.

Now, a hundred may seem big enough, but imagine a game of a thousand people—ten thousand—ten million—billion. Someone is going to end up winning every single time, sound crazy, right? Now, life isn’t perfect, and I’m not the person who wins every single time, but I’m one of the few who has made it at least to the semi-finals.

My life has been riddled with all sorts of hints that have become clearer in hindsight—that just slipped by in initial review. It’s the choices that I make that keep me up at night more often these nights. These choices that make me a hero, and the ones that made...me...

1

I was five years old when I first stumbled onto my first choice. For all intents and purposes I’m going to be referring to bigger moments of my life as these choices. While deciding what shoe to tie first is a choice I’m more than positive that laying out these minor choices past the first time would get irritating. Nobody wants to deal with the tedium of listing every single possible choice that could ever exist. Good on that point? Great. I’m glad we’re on the same page.

I was back living in New York when the first choice came up—Mom and I were there until I was fifteen. My Dad split on us, that’s all you really need to know about him. There won’t be any life changing revelations with him—he’s just a deadbeat, and don’t take my dismissal of him here as me using reverse psychology on you. He isn’t coming back into my life.

We didn’t stay in New York for too long after he left. We’d eventually find ourselves in Utah where my Mom’s family originally grew up, but that too is for a little later. Right now we’re sticking with the big apple.

This choice is the earliest back I can remember and consequently a memory I think back to often. It was still early in 1986 when the Soviet reactor blew in Chernobyl (god, talk about an awful day.) I remember it because it was the first big tragedy I’d ever seen. It was a real cold day for April—the kind where it doesn’t ever seem like it’s going to stop raining. That’s one poor thing about New York—whatever the weather we have seems amplified or prolonged. Mom was getting real tired of not being able to hang up our laundry outside to dry, so the clothes stunk the inside of the apartment to high heavens. (Plus, this was what she did when she wanted to sit back and read one of her Steinbeck novels. She always loved Grapes of Wrath.) I never got around to reading her copy, so I could only work with my imagination—that didn’t lend me any pleasing pictures.

Mom grumbled to herself often when things didn’t go as planned, but I especially remember her almost cussing herself out for the weather. As if she had any control over it. She shook her head and bundled up that week’s laundry to take down to the laundromat. We were on the third floor, so it wasn’t ever a fun time trying to pack all the clothes up in a nice and neat fashion.

It was here when my cartoons were interrupted by the news station—channel five in our area. I can’t remember what I’d been watching—something mindless no doubt. I watched just about everything and absorbed so little of it. Now that I’m thinking back more on it, Flintstones might have been showing reruns that morning. I stopped caring about what was on when Ted Koppel of ABC News cut into view. I remembered him so clearly because I used to call him “Ted Koppow”. I think I just had problems pronouncing my l’s. Mom used to leave his programs running when she went off to work—she ate it up like bread and butter.

So, little me was a bit confused when the station turned over since obviously Mom didn’t change it since I had the remote right by my side. My little eyes searched frantically for the button that would explain what had happened, but no matter what I pressed Ted Koppow’s face stared back at me. He was the golden-brown haired anchor of Nightline after all. By the time my focus left the remote there was a pretty yellow picture on the TV. It was this large circular basin that looked to be emptying a red liquid with a large red X over it. I was just starting to read and understand letters so I could tell that it was an X, although I hadn’t yet learned the significance that the letter usually brought.

“Momma!” I called. There was text below the picture that had words I didn’t understand before. “Moomma!” I called louder.

My mother appeared in the door frame, “What is it, Will?”

“Ted Koppow says there’s a noo-ee-clur reec-shun!” The footage on the screen cut to the aftermath of the reactor explosion. It just blew my mind...forgive the pun. The camera panned across the buildings—tiny things now that looked like they’d been trampled on by Godzilla. The only time I’d ever seen something like that was in...well, in cartoons! But that was so obviously fake I didn’t ever have the opportunity to think about it. Here...here it was and undeniably real life!

The camera then changed to an inside view of the remains of the reactor—it was completely barren inside with broken heaps of scrap metal and a heavy layer of dust hanging in the air. Never before had I seen something so...destructive. When I saw that wreckage my mind instantly took me to another place. I wasn’t in my small suburban home in New York anymore. I was at the site of the Chernobyl explosion. I couldn’t believe my eyes...because they weren’t my eyes. I was looking through someone else’s completely. I was in control of their eyes, their body, and everything else you could possibly imagine.

So, the first thing I noticed was that there were other people around me doing the things they normally did on days like today—some walked, some looked, others fixed. Most of them just walked around with little plans in their head. None of them were there mentally; you had to be somewhere else to enjoy this kind of work.

My first thought was to warn people that there was going to be an explosion because I knew that it was going to come somehow. I knew that the place hadn’t yet because people were still here, I knew immediately that what I was seeing was something that happened before I saw it on the television with Ted Koppow. I couldn’t speak out of the mouth I was controlling. It was odd, but the body I was inside didn’t know how to speak English. Granted, I barely knew how to speak English, so what resulted was a mess of gobbledygook that nobody could understand.

So warning people was out of the question. It only took me a minute to realize this, but even if I knew that the explosion was going to happen I didn’t know how long it would be until that point. It certainly felt close, but even if I were just a wee bit older I don’t think I’d be able to suss out that time until it happened.

I had the choice to be a hero. I could have found some way to convince the others that they needed to leave and as quickly as possible, but when my first idea didn’t come up with any success I...I didn’t try again. I was five years old, let me remind you, but I chose that instead I wanted to see the explosion live.

Somehow I had it in my mind that even if the explosion went off I would still be safe back in New York. I was right, but I had no idea that I would be until it happened. I guess you could call it instinct. So, I decided then and there that I would risk my life—and certainly the person I was controlling—to see it close and personal. I was at least half sure that if it happened I’d be sent back to my mind in the future. I mean, if it didn’t no skin off my bones, right? It was then that something in my gut told me that the explosion was going to happen in a minute and a half’s time. I knew I had to hurry.

I took the body over toward the reactor—the body’s memories led me there without any problem at all, but this was when I started to hear the guy’s thoughts inside. They sounded a lot like my thoughts. Or...how I think. I left his body—I didn’t think it’d be that easy to be honest, but there I floated like a fire in the moonlight looking at a Russian man who I first understood felt...resignation over his fate. The reactor went into meltdown and the man died. I wish I could provide more detail than that...but honestly it was just that simple.

Unfortunately I didn’t get to see more than that because as soon as I felt his heart stop beating I blinked and was back in my body only hours later back in New York. The footage was now showing the remains of the man beside the reactor. He wasn’t there when I was originally watching the program, so my curiosity must have corrected him there in my time. I have no idea where he was or what he was doing when I was originally watching it. I didn’t care. I was five.

My mother had just dropped what she was doing and made her way into the living room, “What are you talking—” She looked at the television and her jaw dropped open. She was looking at the headline, but I found something more interesting than the explosion. I saw a way to enter someone else’s body and interact within the environment. I had changed the footage in front of my eyes. It didn’t change for Mom because she only came in after it changed, but it seems like it didn’t change for anyone else either. I’ve tried asking other people since then if they remember when there wasn’t a body found beside the reactor, but everyone seemed to remember there always being a body. There were no remains before, but then there were, but there never were according to reality.

Of course, this initial experience made me feel like a superhero. I had this magical ability that nobody else seemed to have. It made me feel like all the superheroes on TV. The thing was...I couldn’t make it happen again for a long time. And like any five year old when something’s out of my view for long enough I forgot all about it. It wasn’t until I was six when there was another experience like this. This time I was in Germany six hours before on that cold March day. It was eight-thirty when it happened and I woke up in the body of a soldier on the brink of two-thirty in the morning. The soldier’s name was Karl Arrson—I made it a point to dig at the man’s memories until I could find out about him. He was stationed at JHQ Rheindahlen—a British Army Headquarters that’s located over in Mönchengladbach. Sound like a mouthful? That’s because it is, but don’t worry, the base stopped being used in 2013. The poor soul I inhabited probably would have preferred it being closed down much earlier for he might have been spared. Sadly, it’s not up to him if barracks are closed or not. Not up to me, either.

Karl was middle aged and was graying far faster than he would have liked. That was the first thing I realized when I was inside him. The second was that there was an immediate sense of strangeness—much stranger than the Russian. Someone who was grossly overweight was something my body was never prepared to handle. It was like...like driving a car that you’ve never driven before. I couldn’t make that analogy back then, but looking back on it now that’s exactly what it felt like. I was piloting a body that was so foreign to me.

The man had a nice looking wife who sat on top of him in the bedroom where they were both making vicious love to one another. Her name was Emily and she was making all of these sounds and begging that I—Karl—call her name and yank on her hair. These were things that I shouldn’t have understood until I was much, much older than six years old, but for those times I was older, and I did understand what sexual desire was. Because Karl understood. Mom wouldn’t have liked that, but I was enjoying the tension that was hardening in my—his penis.

My mind cleared instantly as I remembered that I was here for a reason and out of the corner of my eye I saw the car that hurtled toward the window of the bedroom. I was too late to save Emily. I couldn’t speak to her—Karl knew more English than the last guy, but still not enough for me to communicate properly.

I was sent back to my little seat in Mrs. Bonton’s first grade class and had begun to cry incessantly. The other kids started to laugh, because what kids don’t at that point? They all laughed at dear little Willy Wallace who was erupting tears in the middle of class. Mom had to come pick me up—she scolded me for disrupting class and for her having to leave work early.

She was a court clerk. More than anything she wanted to quit, but them’s the breaks. She always said that to herself quietly, inside her mind. I started to hear her thoughts and rarely was there anything happy. Always stressed. Them’s the breaks. No dinner tonight. Them’s the breaks.

I was seven when I saved my first life. By then I was batting a zero-two average (to be fair on Karl’s account there wasn’t much that I could have done). I was at my birthday party of all places—February 4th, 1988—it was the same date as a fire at the First Interstate Tower in Los Angeles. I became a maintenance worker moving up toward the twelfth floor. My eyes adjusted to the low elevator light quickly.

The newspapers recorded this man—Stanley Jenkins—as the only casualty of the fire. The thing is...Stanley didn’t die that day. As soon as I felt in control over his body I side-stepped out of the blaze that spouted out into the elevator. I couldn’t save his right arm—that was going to have to be amputated, but I managed to avoid the initial spill. It was just enough time for the elevator doors to close and bring me down to the eleventh floor.

As soon as I stepped out the fire above singed the cables and sent the whole wreck down to the basement. If I’d taken just another second I would have fallen down with it. Just then the rescue team burst through the door and found Stanley as I surrendered control back to him. He was brought down to the ground and treated for his wounds. Let me tell you from experience a burn as hot as what he went through gets so bad you don’t feel any pain. It just kills all nerves around the area. Absolutely awful.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

I was back at my party within seconds. Having feeling return to my arm was a terrifying experience—I got so scared I threw my fist into the cake. Mom got real mad at me because she’d spent a significant portion of the day getting it just right (baking was never her best skill). I was too busy reaching for my arm to care…I still sometimes feel the pain of that burn like a phantom.

Stanley was a very important lesson, though. I learned that I had a real power—the ability to interact with the people I visited; it was also here I realized that I wasn’t crazy. Once is happenstance—possibly a dream. Twice is a fluke, but three times...three times is a pattern.

This pattern continued when the fall started to rush in and the trees turned golden-brown. November 11th was the day—god I remember waking up that morning feeling just absolutely chipper. School was awesome that day and I remember just as I was getting out of school and hopping onto the creaky old bus when suddenly everything around me just clicked and I was somewhere different. There were sounds ringing constantly that faded to a low hum behind my ears. That was when I became Jacoby Havert, a journalist working in the Bronx. I was huddled up behind my desk waiting for the next explosion to come. Jacoby was paranoid all his life that terrorists would bring his life to a close in the most fearsome fashion, and on November 11th his fears were almost realized.

It was the Firebombing of the Bronx—there were no casualties, but it was the first time I got to experience actual bombs firsthand without being immediately thrust back into my life. The first bomb was set off before I entered Jacoby, but the second was what I can think of when I look back on it. I’d seen enough cartoons by this point in my life to get a general version of a stock bomb sound in my head. The terrible truth is that the real deal is nothing like the cartoons. It felt like the air around my ears was sucked out by a vacuum. It was a sound so loud and it shook the whole building I started to think I might have actually died. My ears rang so long that even an hour after I went back to my own body it persisted.

Jacoby was terrified. I don’t blame him, but I could feel his throat after how hard he was screaming. I don’t ever want to feel that again. Thankfully Jacoby survived the bombing—I’m sure the assailant was more than disappointed that no casualties were caught up in the firebombing.

If I try really hard I can still imagine that ringing. This was the first time I entered someone else’s life and nobody died during the time I was there. It was also the first time that twice in one year I was sucked into the life of someone else. It wouldn’t be until the new year of 1990 when I would be called back into another body.

2

New Years is a special holiday for me in the sense that it is the only holiday save for my birthday where I had one of my episodes. Quite a special connection then when right at the stroke of midnight of the new year my mind was sent halfway across the world.

I was a young Muslim. Dominick Abdul was twenty-three and on his way toward the holy city Mecca for the Hajj—a pilgrimage that members of his faith must make at least once in their life. Dom had set out just after what the Americans would be celebrating as Independence Day after fighting with his parents—his father had been a lousy Muslim by the virtue of his reluctance of visiting the city. This had been the crux of the argument that had sent Dom packing with nothing more than his schoolbooks and a fresh change of clothes. He hitchhiked his way to the outskirts of the village of Mina.

It surprised him to see just how many people were making the pilgrimage—there were what could have been a thousand people filling out of the pedestrian tunnel leading to the innermost parts of Mecca. Dom knew that thousands of Muslims come each year, but it still surprised him to see all the bodies in one place. Still a bit heated—both literally and figuratively—he made his way into the crowd until the sun disappeared above him through the tunnel. He made it as far as he could until the people ahead started resisting against him—one gruff man even knocked him on his rear end and yelled at him. Dom chose not to make the crowd hate him anymore than he already had and decided to wait his turn.

He was about halfway through the tunnel—good progress for only just arriving. The whole length of the beast was at least five hundred meters if not more. But still...he could taste the warm Mecca air just on the other side of the tunnel. He snuck past the man who had yelled at him before and his eyes opened wide as I entered his body.

This was the first time there had been such a large time gap between the person I entered and myself—Dominick was currently five months before my time. It was also the first time I’d seen so much context of his life through his memory. I instantly knew what the Hajj was and why I was waiting in the crowd. What I knew then couldn’t prepare me for what happened, however.

What Dom didn’t realize was that going through the tunnel wasn’t the only way into Mecca—there were people that were crowded on top of the tunnel as well. The sides of the raised portions were fenced off to prevent any accidents...but nobody seemed to prepare if something were to happen to those very safeguards.

Normally those fences are meant to keep in the fifty or so people that are usually taking the higher route across the tunnel—not typically are they meant to cordon the three hundred and twenty-seven people currently standing in pack-form. Needless to say the fence gave way. The bodies began to drop and the first thud echoed throughout the tunnel.

The crowd at large ignored the sound until the second hit the ground. Then the third dropped. Five more behind and then the stilled silence turned into a tense fear that immediately erupted into panic. People began running back the way they’d come from, and Dom was caught up in the chaos—trying to keep up with the crowd’s pace. He regretted cutting in line—now all the people he’d pushed aside had been doubly insistent he stay where he was.

Dom tried to keep pace, but a rough shove from an older woman behind him sent him tumbling over the middle aged man ahead of him. They both hit the earth hard. They only felt pain for a second as the rushing stampede broke their spines, cutting off their connection to life effortlessly. In the blink of an eye Dominick Abdul was dead, and I was spit out to enjoy New Years with my mom.

Things got quiet around my mind just after that. I was in my own head for six months after the stampede. I kept having dreams about all different kinds of accidents, although I have a strong feeling these were fictional...they weren’t actual events I was seeing up close and personal. By the time the winter let up its tight grip on spring I was starting to have a lot of dreams about different kinds of train collisions. Big ones, small ones, fast ones, slow ones. They pervaded my dreams enough so that when I woke up for real inside Amtrak #66—The Night Owl—I felt an instant lurching in my gut.

Toni Matterson was on the road back to Boston to spend Christmas with her family. She was standing six months after I had been—the differences in the time was starting to get longer and longer with each new face.

The strong odor of flowers overwhelmed me. Toni Matterson was twenty years old and on her way to see her family for the first time in eight years. Her parents were the nicest bunch of people one could meet. Her father had the firmest handshake that would guarantee a good time in his presence. Toni remembered her mother loved lilacs—they always worked in the garden out in the front of their home together. She tried endlessly to hold onto these memories as if they were physical trackers she could use. Toni was an only child so her parents doted on her often—there was no competition for the love in the family. Unfortunately, outside of the family was another thing entirely.

When Toni was twelve she was kidnapped from a school trip to Six Flags. It was a huge amusement park filled with all kinds of rides and attractions that entranced Toni the second she heard about it. Her mother was wary about the whole trip. She was always worried about something. Her father said that once. “It’s how I’m still alive, what with my general disregard for everything not right in front of me,” he made sure to add. She was worried about everything, but it turns out she had every reason to be worried about this trip.

Toni was taken just after the clock hit noon in the park. She separated from the group to use the restroom. She passed by the gargantuan pirate ship ride and slowed in amazement as the bow of the ship swung high up into the air—the people sitting at the back of the ship were directly facing the ground. It gave her heart a second-hand flutter just staring at it.

Time was crazy. If she stayed just a minute longer staring at the ship things would have been totally different for her. I wish I could have changed this moment, but that wasn’t where I was sent, so I am helpless to remember. Toni pushed the door open and recoiled from the smell of the bathroom. It was grimier than she expected. With all the people that used this bathroom hourly she couldn’t be too surprised. The stall closest to the entrance was closed, so Toni stepped into the furthest stall and closed it shut. She drew down her jeans and sat on the toilet, when suddenly everything inside of her tensed. Something...wasn’t right.

There was the tiniest of sounds coming from the stall next to her; it sounded like a heavy breathing. That was the last thing Toni remembered about that day—everything else had happened so fast it all got held back deep inside herself.

But I know what happened. I can see those deepest parts of herself she repressed. In the stall next to her was a man with a crooked grin. He had been vigorously masturbating. As soon as the door opened he paused; the thrill of the risk of getting caught was too much fun to stop. He had been thinking of his niece originally when he stepped into the bathroom, but as soon as he caught a glimpse of Toni through the crack of the bathroom stall’s door all thoughts of his niece faded. He saw her blonde hair and grabbed his dick tighter. Don’t you dare open this stall little bitch it’ll be the last thing you see. “Thankfully, she didn’t see me,” he thought, but then a terrible idea floated into his head. The stall door beside him closed and he let go of his penis—the tip dripping sticky semen into the toilet bowl.

He zipped up his pants and opened the stall door, walking slowly to Toni’s. She was terrified inside, something had been wrong, terribly wrong. The door opened and she saw the smile. It was all she let herself remember of the man. It stretched across his whole face and flashed all of his crooked yellow teeth. She couldn’t say a word, the only thing that went through her mind is you shouldn’t be in here. He took a step closer to her and in an instant his hands were around her throat. Her air was escaping, and she didn’t even know why today was the day she was going to die.

He wasn’t going to kill her—no, he knew how strong of a grip he’d need to do that, but he certainly wasn’t going to leave her awake. When her lifeblood started filling in her eyes he lightened his grip, and her head dangled forward in his hands. He let go fully and her body slumped over onto her legs. He hiked her up and drew her pants up. He was insatiably tempted to have his way with her now, but that would be ridiculously stupid where just anyone could walk in and find them. No, he needed to be smart.

He picked her up in his arms and instantly his demeanor changed. He became the person his acquaintances knew him as—Gregory Thomas, fifth grade math teacher and general nice guy. Although, that would be ex-fifth grade math teacher, now. He was laid off just last month when the budget couldn’t support his tenure. He held her in a fatherly sort of way, and left out of the bathroom.

Luckily, the path leading west from the bathrooms led directly to the park’s exit. Nobody had seen them leave the bathroom together—that would have been the hardest to explain of everything, and only one person voiced any concern that he passed on the way out. He came prepared—she was his daughter who had suffered heat exhaustion. It was an unnaturally hot day outside, so combined with his believably nice and caring demeanor he wasn’t questioned further. He made it outside and could hardly believe his luck. He made it out to his car and locked her up in the trunk. What happened for the next eight years…

Toni didn’t like to think about it. She’d managed to escape after eight long years...the stupid motherfucker got too complacent. He didn’t bind her together as tight as he normally did, and he stopped locking the back door every single day. There were times he just plain forgot. He had long forgotten the fear of getting caught—he never believed she would actually escape after he had had her for so long. I escaped, and I’m going home.

She didn’t just escape, though. Her right hand clenched...she remembered the red spilling all across the carpet. The weight of it in her hand. How swift it slashed. He wasn’t going to be a problem for anyone else. Now she just wanted to be done with it all...but a deep part of her liked the cutting. She was starved of sanity for so long she was scared a part inside her grew to like it. Stop it. You’re free. Nothing can—

There was an enormous sound as glass shattered and she was thrown against the ground, the walls caving in around her. Everything went black. At 8:23 am a Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority train slammed head first into The Night Owl. It had been going over twice the regulated speed limit and when the train-heads collided they jackknifed both ends out off the track. Toni woke up about fifteen minutes later with a gash on her forehead from where she hit the floor and a cut on her arm from the broken window. She eyed the shard next to her and felt that hunger deep inside her begin to swell. She shook violently as she reached out for it. I realized what I had to do, and I slammed her hand to the ground. She let out a whipped sort of sound and rest her head down, the trance broken. She started to cry. There was a knocking sound as the door of her bunk was ripped open.

“We’ve got a survivor here!” A man in emergency services clothes yells to others out of sight. And that was it. I was gone, out of Toni Matterson’s life. I had a bad feeling that if I didn’t intervene she would have sent that shard of glass right through her own heart.

3

Several of these stories are already lost to my memory. The rate that I entered others’s minds only increased as I grew older. When I was nine I experienced the phenomenon three times. Four when I was both ten and eleven. It kept growing and growing...

I’m thirty-nine. I sure as shit don’t feel it in my mind, but everything from the calendar to my birth certificate would show just as much. Today is January 4th, 2021. I’m living in a small apartment paid for by my late mother in Utah. She passed to lung cancer ten years ago. I barely remember most of what was happening in my own life, because that same year I was thrown into the minds of fourteen people. Of course, it’s only become even more frequent since then.

This past year has been...something else entirely. Forty-four different people. It’s gotten to be too much. I would have argued that even one was too much for most people—much less a young lad of five years old, but it was really bad when the numbers started to skyrocket when I was thirty-five. Before that I was averaging about fifteen to seventeen per year, but then thirty-five hit and it jumped up to twenty.

There’s one thing I didn’t mention—not all of these phenomenon happened over the course of a few hours. I told the shortest stories just because the longer ones had so much...so much to remember I don’t think I could have told all of them correctly. After I turned twenty I was out of myself for longer—much longer. I always returned at the moment I’d left in my own body, so that’s part of why I say I don’t really feel thirty-nine. I feel like I should be at least ten, maybe eleven years older based on how long I’ve spent in some of these other people’s consciousness.

I had just come back to myself lying awake in my bed half-naked and it took me the longest time to remember what I’d actually been doing with myself before that. You see, I’d just come back from a mental trip to Nebraska. I entered the mind of a suicidal teen. I’m not going to share his name, and I’ll explain why in a moment, but I felt his pain like it was my own and suddenly I wanted to kill myself. He was bullied a lot in school—real bad like. He got beat up, kicked, punched, spit on. One of the bullies even shoved half a broomstick up the kid’s ass til it bled. Like I said, real bad shape. I felt for him. But then I felt a deeper pains inside him; the kind that won’t let go of any emotion until its horribly corrupted—kind of like little fire ants crawling all over your brain. It took over his mental faculties and convinced him that he couldn't kill himself until he got revenge on the people who fucked him up—his parents, the bullies, anybody he had any aggression towards.

Now, I tried my best to un-fuck all the twisted mental nonsense that this kid got twisted up in his head. Obviously it wasn’t his fault he was treated like garbage, but I knew if he did something to hurt someone else that would be his fault. I tried to influence his decisions away from fatal mistakes for two weeks before I felt a strong resistance. This has happened before—where the will of the person I’m inside becomes too strong—but I saw that normal methods weren’t going to be able to fix this situation. He had to do what he had to do. Two weeks 24/7 I spent trying to fix this kid—everybody else wouldn’t give him even two seconds of consideration. I fear my interactions may have influenced him in the other direction, as I felt that the deadline for his dead-line was approaching soon. I heard everything he thought and suddenly I realized that I couldn’t save him. I wasn’t even fully in control—he was too rampant—too far gone. If I kept fighting for control I was certain I was going to be the thing that caused him to go over the edge and go on a rampage…so I had to make a choice.

We’re all presented with choices every single day of our lives. Me, I chose to hang. The parents were devastated, and swore that they could have never seen this coming, but they were only lying to the public. They knew. They were silently thankful he hung himself and didn’t shoot up his school. The kids at school didn’t give a shit. They pretended to for a day, but after that he became the new butt of the jokes that fluttered through halls underneath the adults’s notice.

Things didn’t ever get easier. I woke up half-naked in my bedroom and remembered I was going to rub one out before falling asleep. That urge was far from gone; I just sat there in my boxers just thinking about what my life had really been like. Thirty-four years of constantly being forced to be the hero to other people I would never meet again was more than enough to drive someone mad. It was enough to make them give up on saving people altogether. It was enough to get me to look at the probabilities instead of the lives.

My name is William Wallace. I have been inside the minds of four hundred and twenty-two different people. I’ve spoken many tongues and have fought in dozens of wars—died in them, too. Today I learned something very important about the position I am in. I thought I was given this power to help people, but I’ve been shown time and time again that being heroic changes nothing. There’s always another person to save—another person to keep alive. Ending the suicidal boy’s life was saving the lives of the people in the school and of his family, but that got me thinking. Was it fair I was ending the life of a boy who was treated like garbage by everyone who knew him? What was I really saving when I protected the ones who were tormenting him?

And...the feeling of his neck breaking into the noose...I was a fool to believe I could make it all okay. I was a fool to believe that a hero’s work was ever over. I was a fool.