Incidental Superhero
Part 10
My own wracking cough wakes me. I hack away in pitch blackness, everything around me completely obscured. The last thing I remember is falling off a bridge into the passenger seat of a car.
“Hhrg…” I croak. I would trade a great deal for a sip of water. With a pained rasp I clear some of the burning from my throat and try again. “Hello?”
Nothing. I sit still to listen, but my ears are ringing badly and the only thing I can make out over the high pitched tone is my own heartbeat. I moisten my dessicated lips with the tip of my tongue and taste the iron tang of blood there.
I try to take stock of my limbs. My toes wiggle in my shoes. I raise my right hand and run the digits over my face, feeling after injuries there and finding a large gash on my forehead, sticky with blood.
When I try to move the fingers of my left hand I find them stiff and uncooperative, and sitting here I can’t raise my left arm higher then my belly button. I run my right hand over my left side feeling for the problem in the dark, which becomes apparent quickly. Halfway between my elbow and my shoulder my fingers run into a warm, wet piece of material cinched tightly and tied into a knot. A makeshift bandage of sorts, maybe even a tourniquet, but who tied it?
Sonya burst back into my head. I call out her name and feel around the cabin of the car with my good hand for her, or, I fear, her body – but there is no response and I find nothing. Gone. Then I remember her pushing me off the bridge, our failed plan and the expanding nuclear explosion, and all at once a tidal wave of emotion slams my back against the dusty car seat and I start sobbing, my tears burning as they pass down my face over countless small cuts.
Our best efforts simply weren’t enough. We had a chance to save the entire city, maybe the whole world from nuclear annihilation, and we botched it. And don’t tell me I’m being too hard on myself. I can stop time for God’s sake. I had four years to learn how to fly a plane or disassemble a missile. I could have done more, and I didn’t, and now it’s over.
Tears spent, I sit alone in the damaged van and wait for nothing in this black purgatory.
An indeterminate amount of time passes during which I wonder at the state of the world at large. I imagine my parents and siblings awakening back into the stream of time, from their perspective teleported dozens of miles away from calamity in the blink of an eye. I considered leaving a note in my father’s pocket finally telling him the truth, the strange ability I’d hidden for a lifetime, but I didn’t. I figured I would be there when they awoke and they’d see me, and then I’d explain. No such luck.
I imagine a speck of light some distance away and soon realize it is not my imagination at all. The light grows in size in the dark tunnel as the person approaches. I am watching them through the shattered windshield as they get closer.
Less than twenty feet away my eyes begin to cooperate with the light of the electric torch and I see the shadow of the thin light-bearer closing in on me.
I give the briefest thought to self defense before realizing in my current state it would be futile anyway. Then I further realize how silly it is to think this person is already a bandit, mere minutes after a nuclear bomb fell, as though the most basic social principles suddenly and completely failed to apply.
I laugh ruefully to myself, and then outloud when I catch a glimpse of Sonya’s face in the electric light, bruised and cut but smiling back at me from the bent and scuffed driver’s side doorway of the van.
“Good morning sleepy head.”
She leans in for a kiss, which we enjoy together.
“You pushed me off a bridge.”
We kiss again.
“I think I found a way out.” She said, ignoring me. “You coming?” She offers a hand.
I raise my eyebrows in mock consideration. “A tempting offer.” My left hand useless at my side I reach up with my right and take hold. “Fine. But remember where we parked.”
If You Enjoyed This Story – Or Any Of The Hundreds Of Other Legends From The Multiverse – And Want To Give A Dollar To The Madman Behind The Curtain Who Writes Them All:
Subscribe to the RSS feed or leave a comment anywhere on the r/LFTM subreddit with “!subscribeme” or “subscribeme!”, and you’ll receive a notification whenever a new story or continuation is posted.
READ MORE FLASH FICTION
| ACTION | APOCALYPTIC | DARK | ESTABLISHED UNIVERSE | FANTASY |
| FUNNY MAYBE | HORROR | MISC | WTF IS THIS? | SAD |
| SCIENCE FICTION | SCIENCE FANTASY | TWIST ENDING | RANDOM |
READ LONGER STORIES
| THE DEMON’S CANTOS | INCIDENTAL SUPERHERO |
| BENEATH | THE HUMANITY SAGA |
| THE TRAVELER | I, LYCANTHROPE |