Unlocking the door, I’m greeted by an empty, pristine couch that hasn’t been fully utilised since about three years ago, scattered bric a brac Ma uses to decorate the interior, and the grandfather’s clock that ticks and ticks and ticks. The afternoon existential crisis now behind me, I absentmindedly head into my room.
Home is normally empty when I get back home, since Ma and Pa are always working till late. Ma works as a high paying public relations job somewhere I never really got the name of and is the main breadwinner of the family. Once upon a time, I could go a month or so never having a meal with her, but luckily those days are behind me. Pa, on the other hand, runs a small boba shop nearby much to his exuberance. The photo on the coffee table of the grand opening shows an ecstatic Pa with the brightest smile he’s ever had plastered on his face. Ma says it’s the fourth time he’s smiled like that, the others being at his wedding and the birth of his children.
It’s rather unconventional for the mum to be making more money than the dad and for the dad to be more involved with home affairs like cooking, but it was my parents’ choice and they seem happy about it. They are the core reason I so desperately want a love like theirs, unconventional at times but built on mutual respect and love for one another. Besides, Pa’s cooking is fantastic (I love his nasi briyani), so you won’t hear any complaints from me about the inversion of gender roles.
I opened the pantry and took out a packet of instant noodles to cook for a snack. With minimal effort, fire came shooting out of my palm to light the stove. Sure I could heat up the water without the fire hazard, but where’s the fun in that? Besides, I’ve never messed it up before. Afterwards, I do what most students here do: homework, use the Internet, nap, and then get up for dinner. And surprisingly, Ma and Pa are actually home to have it together. Though I still have some leftover young teenage angst when it comes to my parents, nowadays I cherish the time I get to spend with them.
The dinner table is not a quiet experience. Clanging cutlery will reverberate through the room as my parents interrogate me about my day or ramble about theirs. Sometimes Pa vents about a terrible customer experience they had, or Ma talks about her colleagues. At our dining table, the smell of stir-fried broccoli floated through the air, with my eyes looking at the empty Ikea chair in front of me. That was the seat of my brother, Christopher, or more affectionately called Gor.
Gor is home on the weekends, while the rest of his time is spent in his university dorm slaving away in NUS Law. With the amount of verbal arguments he and I would have as children, most of which he won, it was only fitting that he’d be the one ending up as a lawyer. I’ll never forget the argument over whether we would ride the Cylon at Universal Studios, the most thrilling ride there. It was fierce, and most of my arguments came down to ‘it would be fun!’ whilst Gor talked a big game about safety and the time in line, all to distract from the fact he was very much afraid of having his feet hang off the ride. I was intensely livid the rest of the afternoon, forced into Shrek 4-D instead of the best ride in the park. That betrayal burnt itself into my brain.
“Ah girl, you had a good day?” Pa asked as I scarfed down my plate of home cooked food.
“Yeah, nothing much happened.” I lied in between bites of fish.
Conversations normally go like this, they ask a courtesy question and then I respond with an answer that’s a sentence long and call it a day. It’s mostly out of politeness rather than genuine interest, but I can’t say I don’t appreciate it.
After all’s said and done, I clean up and head back into my room. My parents like to sleep early, my Ma thinks that it’s an important factor to ensure success and my Pa, in his simplicity, just enjoys sleeping. Which works well for me since that gives me the time to sneak out in the dead of night.
Creaking, my window opens as I slither and carefully climb out, sticking to the walls in the process. Taking a deep breath, I gander out at the world and relish in the absurdity of the situation. I’m stuck to the walls of a building, ten storeys up and enjoying the night breeze: and this is only the calm before the storm. Even months in, this still feels like a recurring dream. But it’s not. This is reality, and I love it.
‘Blaze up, Sol!’ I mentally command, causing a burning pitch blackness to impose itself on me. It begins from the back of my neck, enveloping my body in the shadow of night that shrouds my humanity with a monstrous disguise. My spine extends out to form a large tail, as if I were a lizard scaled up to human proportions. Smooth and vaguely moist skin engulfs my regular human one, my eyes replaced by glowing red irises that give me infrared vision and look extremely terrifying to the uninitiated. I remember the first time someone took a close-up look at my face. Retrieving a stolen computer from a passed out thief is much easier than one conscious.
When the transformation sequence was done, Rose was gone, and the Salamander had appeared. It used to be agonising to transform, like every cell in my body was being incinerated. Nowadays it's as if a needle pricked every part of my body instead of being tortured by fire. It’s not as painful as it once was, but it isn’t a simple experience to put myself through. Thankfully, the benefit of becoming who I truly am far outweighs a small hiccup like pain.
I couldn’t stop myself from shaking, giddy with excitement. Forget planning. I just wanted to get to the cool moves of the night.
As if crawling across the ground, I scaled the wall up to the top of the roof. I walked towards the centre of the roof, cicadas chirping, then turned back around, running as fast as I could and leapt across to the next block. Then the next. With a flip, I jump down to the street level, enjoying the feeling of wind pushing against me. Before, I would have loved to skydive. Now, skydiving would be far too safe to enjoy.
‘You remember how to control the tail, yes?’
‘It’d be like forgetting how to use my arm, you know that.’ My tail wrapped around tree branches before I can even touch the ground, transforming myself into a pendulum, spinning around the branch and flinging myself off back into the air. This was the stuff of comics and movies. Slingshotting myself from one building to the next or sticking atop a moving train without a hitch, these are the types of moments I lived for.
Maybe I’ve always been a bit of an adrenaline junkie at heart, but this was on a whole other level of rush. Sometimes I can’t stop myself from calling out ‘Woooo!’ to no one in particular during my lonely acrobatics.
Sol and I had trained with these powers for months now. Since neither of us wanted to be slamming face first into a bird or missing a jump onto a rooftop. Sometimes they take control of a hand or the tail if I let my mind slip and I lose focus of the task so a crisis doesn’t ensue. I’m positive if something happened to me, their host, it would affect them too. So it made sense he would ensure my safety, because it was intrinsically linked to his.
‘’Looks like another uneventful night, partner.’ They said as if it were a bad thing. Sure enough, even at heightened senses we found nothing of note, the sound of cicadas and cars on the ground floor being all I could hear.
‘Well, at least it's fun! Stopping petty thieves is cool and all, but having some time to ourselves is always nice.’ I replied, not seeing the uneventful nights as completely negative. Though I mean, a supervillain or something to take down would be nice.
If you were to imagine emotions as a box of toys, Sol and I have two separate boxes which we share during 'playtime'. If they’re furious, I’ll feel anger. If they’re depressed, I’ll feel sad. And right now, when they’re as excited as I am, I’m elated. Even through his stoicism and monotone, I can tell he’s having a good time enjoying our freedom together without them ever having to say it.
When I’m hidden in the gloom of night, there’s a certain lightness I feel. It’s my personal time. It belongs to the Salamander alone. The expectations and judgements of my critics and fans alike dissipate into the void, the blackness forging a fortress for my heart. I don’t have to listen to Gor talking about the discussions had in his classes about the Salamander’s place in society, nor do I need to hear Carissa talk about how amazing of a hero I am. No one degrades me nor praises me. I can simply be.
The harsh winds blowing against me are a constant reminder as to my ramping speed, the rush of looking down and realising how far up you are is something mind bogglingly cool to me. What more could I want in life? My mind finally stopped its self-sabotaging ways of thinking about Zhen Rong, or if Ashen was okay, or how I’ll handle my essays. Almost as if I was finally free from the burden of being Rose.
My body burnt up, causing me to stick to the next wall I got to.
Something ignited my senses. I could feel shaky breath on my skin, despite being alone on stuck to a wall. Closing my eyes to focus on my other senses, it clicked. A heat source reared its head as I approached a rooftop right next to the one I was about to leap out of. Another person on the roof? At this hour? Not good.
‘We should go find out who’s up here at this hour. It can’t be good news.’ Sol suggested, as if reading my mind. And they probably were, alongside with my feelings. With all the stealth I could muster, I jumped to the next roof and got a glimpse of the person behind the heat signature. He was built like a jock, biceps shown off by his singlet. His powerful legs screamed ‘I don’t skip leg day’ and his hair was neatly cut. From afar, he seemed like a man who took good care of himself.
However, a scream of sadness emanated from him. Like an extra weight that constantly dragged him. Maybe as someone who does theatre, I can pick up on the subtle signs easier, but it’s not a superhero power to read body language. His hunched back, legs hanging off the building and his head down in shame, told a petrifying story. I watched him, careful not to scare him. Cautious about making a sound, I landed silently on the roof he was on, trying to see if I could reach out to talk to him without freaking him out. I could hear my heart pound.
He stood up and took a deep breath, his legs creeping toward the edge. I hastened my steps forward. So close, I just had to move a little faster and I could talk to him without scaring-
“See ya, mum.” He whispered, my heightened hearing catching that murmur.
“No!”
My grisly scream frightened him. My now inhuman voice was an amalgamation of Sol’s and mine overlaid on top of one another. We ran towards him in a desperate dash against time. Cicadas turned silent, replaced by a burning ringing in my ear. The terrified man turned to look for a bit, wide eyed, but not hesitating with his original plan.
Like a shooting star, he fell fast, off the roof. Time slowed down to a crawl. My legs burned as I pushed my legs to their limit, sprinting like a mad dog without a care in the world. I could have outrun a car at this pace.
Please let me be fast enough.
I leapt off the roof, pushing myself off the side of the building to quicken my descent towards the man. Frenziedly, I reached out my hand to grab onto him, only to graze his fingers and watch him fall further. The look of despair and regret in his eyes hopelessly begging to me to save him was obvious as he took a quick look into my crimson irises.
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Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. I felt like a child looking at her balloon fly out of their grasp.
“Shit!” I have never saved someone from themselves. I watched him fall to the ground, watching his body shatter apart into pieces and blood paint the void deck.
‘Shit!’ Swiftly and without my knowing, my tail extended out, wrapping around him as I clung to the wall. My co-pilot saved him. Sol saved him. They and I couldn’t stop our hands from shaking as we tightened our grasp around him.
“I gotcha, I gotcha!” I panted, stressed from the fact I had stopped someone from making a horrible mistake.
He looked at me in my red eyes and I looked back into his brown ones. Those eyes were cold and lifeless, like he couldn’t really see what was in front of him. The human instinct to fear death was there in his being, but there was a subtle sadness to his eyes as well.
“Y-you’re that Salamander thing. From the news. The- the monster. I didn’t even think you were, uh, real.” He mumbled, not daring to look me in the eye any further.
“This extremely real monster just saved your life. We’re going back up, and we’re talking.” I commanded, never having been more conscious of my tail in my life. I was thankful beyond words to find he wasn’t struggling as I slowly crawled up the walls, thinking about what to say.
'Thank you, Sol.' They didn't say anything in response, but my endocrine system told me they weren't feeling particularly upbeat either.
I sat the man in the middle of the roof, far from every edge. We stared at each other, like he was sitting with his therapist. But my tongue was frozen over.
‘What do I do?’
‘We saved him. What’s left?’’
‘No, that's not it! What if he decides to… we can't just leave him here’
‘But you can’t change him. It’s not your job. You saved his life here. What more can we do?’ They didn’t understand. They couldn’t understand. Panic was rising within my chest, if I left him here, he may not be safe tomorrow. Or a week later. Or a year later.
‘It became my job when I got these powers. I gotta… do more. Whatever that means.’ A wriggling sensation tickled my brain, Sol processing the thought. The man looked at me for guidance or for me to leave him alone.
I didn’t know what else to do, so I asked questions. Anything to take his mind off ending his life.
Gabriel was a Pinoy, whose home life was anything but fortunate. His father was struggling at his current job and thus never around, leaving his mother as the only thing keeping him grounded to earth. Recently, his mother had been diagnosed with an illness that he knew they couldn’t afford to treat. In a moment of weakness, he decided to save himself the pain of having to go to a funeral and be left alone.
I’d elaborate more, but he wouldn’t divulge any more information to me. Gabriel refused to go into detail, perhaps out of spite. Irritation coloured his face as he avoided my gaze or scratched his collarbone, but I didn’t care. He could live the rest of his life hating the Salamander if he wants to, at least he will be alive to hate me.
“I’m sorry to hear about what’s going on in your life.” I said, despising myself for not being able to come up with anything wiser. How the hell did heroes in comics do it? This should be a moment of triumph, the life-altering moment that will make Gabriel believe in a better world. Instead no useful sound fills the air, only the eerily cold air of the night.
“Don’t be. I don’t need your pity.” He said softly, an iota of rage hidden beneath the surface of those words. I didn’t want to press further, so I continued asking about him instead. Without hesitating, he answered me in the same vague way he did before, the same exasperation dripping from every word he spoke.
The gym was his only escape and the only thing that made him feel adequate. It was freeing to improve his body how he wanted. Sadly, it was one of the few places Gabriel felt any control over his life. Obsessing over gains or weights became second nature, it was his lifeboat keeping him from drowning. He had friends and the future as an engineer, but would have loathed to end up working and neglecting his family like his dad. I listened intently, trying to think of something heroic to say, anything that would motivate him to keep going on.
‘He does not seem fond of us. And yet…’ Sol thought to us, as if predicting his next words.
“I’ve never told anyone about this.” He confided. I imagined us from a bird's-eye view, how baffling it might look for a giant reptile to be sitting next to a normal man, and for it to be as mundane as eating at a restaurant.
“Why not? You said you had friends.”
“I feel like they wouldn’t get it, lah. I try to motivate them to do stuff like exercise or socialise like me, telling them it’d make them feel better. But it barely makes me feel better. It helps a little, but if I told them that, isn’t that hypocritical? Like I’m trying to be strong for them, give them all this good advice and it doesn’t even work for me.” His voice quivered as he stared off into the light polluted sky. No stars in view tonight.
“I get it, man.”
“You do?”
“Of course. I’m not always,” I gestured towards my body, “like this.”
“The news and Reddit always say you’re super strong. And you just caught me midair like it was nothing, like shit man I’ve been bulking and you caught me like I was a pen falling off a desk.”
He gazed towards the sky, trying to find the moon.
“Are you telling me someone like you… feels like… this? Sometimes, too?”
“Yeah. When I don’t look like this, I encourage my friends with stuff like essays. Or I gotta tell little kids not to let bullies get to them. But in reality, I’m not that great at doing work either, and whenever the media bullies me, it gets to me too.”
“Ugh, hate essays. Thought I’d be free of them when I got into engineering. No such luck.”
There’s a moment of calm when he’s processing my words, then his head spins to me like he remembered a talking point he misplaced earlier in conversation.
“You do anti-bullying talks?”
“Well, only just the once.”
“Don’t kids freak out when they see you?”
“Honestly? Only if they’ve been told I’m scary. Lots of kids are really interested. Some even think I’m cool. Edgier, older kids, but still.”
“You don’t really look like a hero, I guess. Those eyes and this…” he pokes at my palm, taken aback by the wetness. Reptilian skin, man. Not our fault. “Doesn’t exactly scream good guy.”
I want to say something, but Sol interrupts.
“What does a good guy look like?”
“Hmm,” he lays back, exhausted from conversation. “I guess brighter colours, less tail.” He smiles, but we don’t. “Guess it doesn’t matter, bah. Looks don’t really matter. I look pretty strong, but I’m so weak.”
“You aren’t weak.”
“I am, I don’t need to be coddled. I get it lah, I tried to run away from my problems. I tried to… y’know.” He kept looking at the sky, not daring to meet my eyes.
“What matters is what you do now, I think.” I said, not daring to look him in the eyes. “We are only who we are by what we do, not what we look like or who people think we are. Gabriel, who would you like to be?”
“I’d like… I’d like to be alive.”
We smiled, he smiled. I finally stopped twiddling my thumbs (not even realising I was doing that) and took a deep breath, feeling a tiny semblance of control again.
“That’s good, man. I’m proud of you.”
“Thanks.” No one’s ever told the Salamander that. I let the new feeling of gratitude towards me simmer and sit, Sol and I enjoying the feeling that comes when your efforts are acknowledged.
“Is there anything I can do for you to help?”
“You saved my life then sat here listening to my life story. That’s more than most people would.” He laughed as if it was a joke you make to an acquaintance to lighten the mood.
“I think your friends would.” The words came out before I could stop myself. He looked up at me, bewilderment obvious, as if he never even considered that his friends would listen to his problems and validate his feelings. “You gotta believe in them.”
I bit my tongue a little. Sol’s inner fire danced along my back, trying to get me to say the next words to both Gabriel, and myself.
“Believe that they love you, even though sometimes it's hard to believe it. That they’ll love you in spite of flaws.”
Still lying down, Gabriel put his hands behind his head. His heat signature became more nuanced, getting cooler as he got more calm.
“Yeah. Yeah, maybe. Should I talk to my dad?”
“Your dad should know, too. And hug your mum. You should appreciate the time you have left.” Both of us gave our two cents. The lessons I internalised from heroes in my life from fiction had seized control of my mouth and body as I gave the best advice I could. When Sol spoke, it was as if a wise mentor were giving advice to a budding student.
Hearing sniffling, I turned to see tears shedding from Gabriel’s eyes. Without thinking, I took him in for a hug, lowering my body temperature so I wouldn’t hurt him on contact.
Feeling his fragile body made me realise how close of a shave this really was. If I was even momentarily late, Gabriel’s dead. If I had said even one wrong thing tonight, there’s no telling that he wouldn’t try again in the future. Did I just get lucky? The voices of doubt infiltrated my head, making me second guess myself.
This is what heroism is about. And it’s brutally difficult.
“Um, if you got nothing else to do, could we, uh, just sit up here? Just for a while longer? I… appreciate the company.” He asked, embarrassed and unable to look at my face. I nodded and braced his hand, still lost in my own thoughts. As he pulled back to lie on the roof, I followed suit, Sol and I’s thoughts mixing together like fish in a pond.
This was what being a hero was all about. It’s not just saving people. It’s about igniting the fire of hope back in their hearts. Making people feel safe and to realise they can be more than what they are.
As I lie down, staring at the sky with the crescent moon being the only thing filling that black sea, I couldn’t help but wonder if I could live up to the needs of a hero. All my powers, and I still barely succeeded tonight.
We didn’t speak the rest of the night, but my head was anything but quiet.