Random House Children’s Books and Brandon Sanderson, New York Times bestselling author of Steelheart and the upcoming Firefight, want to hear from you!
In 1,000 words or fewer, write a story that follows the following prompt, created by Brandon Sanderson himself:
“If you were a super-villain, what would your one power be? And how would you use it to conquer the world?”
So, here is my take on the prompt - hope you like it!!
SO WHAT DO WE DO WITH OUR LIVES
WE LEAVE ONLY A MARK
WILL OUR STORY SHINE LIKE A LIGHT
OR END IN THE DARK
GIVE IT ALL OR NOTHING
~Tina Turner, We Don't Need Another Hero
WE LEAVE ONLY A MARK
WILL OUR STORY SHINE LIKE A LIGHT
OR END IN THE DARK
GIVE IT ALL OR NOTHING
~Tina Turner, We Don't Need Another Hero
I haven't seen the light in six hundred and fifty-four days. My cell is dark like the gray haze of smoke rising from a raging inferno. There is no light that can penetrate the thickness that swallows me; suffocating me, squeezing my neck like a scarf pulled too tight. My lungs feel as though mud has caked every inch of the spongy surface, my breath comes in short, ragged puffs. I still have at least twenty-five thousand days of my life sentence remaining.
I'm not sure my body will hold out. Of course that was the purpose. To stifle all that I am, what I can do. But to know why I am here, you must first understand how I came to be.
* * *
They say I am an enigma, a freak of nature and should be put down like a feral beast. And to them, when they caught me, that's exactly what I had looked like. I was hunched beside an elm tree, curled into a tight ball, my long, black hair twisted in snarls down my back. My eyes were wild; pupils dilated filling the entire circumference of my milky blue irises. I not only looked like a wild animal, but as I snapped my jaw at the approaching men in black, they muzzled me like a rabid dog. The cold metal grated into my skin, burning my flesh, searing any humanity from my already lost self. My wrists were shackled together behind my back with the strange metal, eliciting more internal wails from my locked jaw.
The men pulled me to my feet, wrenching my arms up from behind nearly dislocating my shoulders. Stars danced in front of my face, my head reeled back and my knees buckled. I collapsed to the ground landing on the hard concrete, jarring my bony knees and jamming my teeth. Warm, iron tasting liquid pooled in my mouth; I had bitten through part of my tongue. They pulled me off the ground, yelling for me to stand. I didn't have any fight left; I was too drained. I stood on wobbly legs as the men dug their iron-spiked gloves into the fleshy parts of my arms and dragged me across the pavement towards a black van.
The doors in the back opened, two more men in black jumped out holding a metal collar that they clamped around my neck. They yelled at me to comply, or they would have to use force. A part of me laughed, is that not what they were doing?
"I was only trying to save him," I said hoarsely to the men beside me.
I had seen the boy in a dream; it was like that every time. I saw exactly where he would be and how it would happen. The boy, his face and fingers still chubby with youth, the shock of red curls on his head; was too young to leave this life. I saw how he carelessly leaped off the curb, how his eyes focused on nothing but the small park across the street. In my dream, I yelled for him to stop, and searched frantically for his parents but no one was nearby. I woke with a start, clenched my body and brought up the vision of the dream. I saw the tree-lined street, the red car parked along the curb blocking the boy's line of sight. I saw the cracks in the pavement and then lastly I pictured the boy in his navy blue shirt and tan shorts.
The air was sucked out of the room; the dull light faded into blackness and was followed by a deafening POP, ringing in my ears like a sonic boom. I collided with the boy, knocking him out of the way of the speeding car only inches before he had been hit. But then the worst happened; the driver of the car swerved in the opposite direction and jumped the curb speeding toward the small park. My mouth went slack; the tires squealed and then came to a gruesome stop. The car had run down the boy's frantic mother, her screams cut short with her last breath from under the vehicle.
The man beside me pushed me into the back of the van releasing the iron spikes from my arms flooding me with a sense of joyous relief. The set of the man's jaw and the vein pumping rapidly on his forehead told me all I needed to know; he didn't care about the why. "We don't need another hero," the man growled as the door of the van slammed behind him snuffing out the light. Something stabbed me in the thigh like a bee sting and I realize have injected me with something. My eyes grew heavy and my head filled with fog.
I don't understand why they have taken me captive. I was only trying to help; I've only ever tried to help. I focus on my bedroom, the buttery yellow walls and floral curtains. The creamy bedspread my parents bought me last summer. But the familiar sensation of teleporting doesn't come. Anger welled up inside of me, burning like acid in my stomach. How dare they treat me like this, like I'm a threat to everyone.
"I only tried to help!" I yelled into the darkness. And as my eyes closed, shutting out the light for the last time, I vowed to take my revenge on these men dressed in black. I vowed to make them pay for hurting me. And then a wonderful, horrible thought seeped into my mind; I would take revenge on everyone, make them pay for not understanding. And from the darkness came a bone-chilling laugh like none I've ever heard.