Let the Games Begin, Hero (Entry Five)

I am done playing games. I am done hiding. I am done making myself smaller, cowering, hiding in the shadows so you can keep up your illusions. I am the worst of all of us, and I am tired of being ashamed of it. 

Keep wearing your masks. Keep smiling like nothing’s wrong. Keep laughing while I starve and die. I don’t care anymore. I will bring you all down and no one will stop me. You can’t hurt someone who has nothing left to lose, and you took everything from me long ago. 

Let the games begin, hero. We’ll see who’s remembered as a villain. 

The villain set aside their pen, blowing gently on the last page of their journal. Bandages circled their ribs, binding the broken bones tightly. There was no time for them to heal fully. Besides, it wouldn’t truly matter. 

The woman came up behind them, rubbing the villain’s shoulders. Her touch was firm and gentle at the same time. “Are you ready?” she asked. 

The villain turned to look at them, eyes gleaming dangerously. “I have never been more ready than I am right now.”

The woman’s lips ticked up in a smile. She shook out a long black coat and held it up. 

Black had always brought the villain a sense of power. They slipped their arms in and grinned. Darkness was something so many were afraid of. It made conquering the fear, wearing the darkness, all the more satisfying. 

The hero wore white. A facade saying that they were trustworthy. That anything they hid would show up immediately, that they were bright and good and true. 

They slandered the color. 

The villain made sure their hair was out of their face, displaying every jagged scar. 

“I am ready for the world to see me,” they said. Grinning a vampire smile, they shook out their sleeves and closed the notebook. Pressing it into the woman’s hands, they looked deep into her eyes. “You know what to do with this. When the time is right.”

She nodded. Sliding out of the room like a shadow, she left the villain alone. 

The villain closed their eyes, filling their cupped hands with water and pouring it over their face. When they came up for air, the hero was on T.V. All in white. Waiting. 

Not for much longer.