The Hidden Hero

It’s funny how a seemingly remarkable day can turn into the biggest disasters in one quick snap of the fingers. Such is how the day felt to Dylan, as he trudged around in his pajamas, awoken from another nightmare. He had learned to live with his demons, but could they be polite enough to not disturb his sleep every night? He picks up his phone to check the time. Its 3:15 a.m. “Well, it’s as good a time as any, to be up. “Thank you anxiety, for that.”, he says into the empty air, standing up and off his bed.

Once in the kitchen, reaching for some water, he hears a loud thump in his bedroom, followed by a loud “oww”. This startles Dylan, who, for some odd reason, decides that a rolling pin from the kitchen will be the best defense as he goes over to investigate. To be honest, though he was the government’s top researcher and developer, he didn’t have much to him except his out of the world intelligence. The gossip though, claimed him to be the most beautiful human to exist in this society. Even when most people hadn’t seen Dylan, even when they hated the ‘green eyed monster’, they all agreed who ever had glanced upon his features, swore to have never met with a more beautiful face.  

Braving on with nothing but a rolling pin in his hand, Dylan went into his room. When he saw no one there, he turned to his walk in closet, from where subtle noises were still coming from. He goes in all of a sudden, ready to hit.

The person in the closet screamed loudly, cowering from Dylan, seemingly really scared. Dylan stopped at this sight, because something about this, reminded himself of his childhood. As he lowered the pin, he realized that the man on the floor was half naked, wearing only one of Dylan’s ripped jeans, and in the process of putting on a shirt. Not to mention, something about the kid’s face, gave him déjà vu. His face seemed so familiar, the same shade of bright green eyes, but they held a shine of mischief in the kid’s. This infuriated Dylan to no limits.

“I give you 5 minutes to explain your presence in my closet, or I’m calling the cops.” That was an empty threat though, as his phone was left of his bed, and everyone knew the cops were no good in this country.

But to his utmost surprise, the boy just laughed. He moved his messy black hair out of his face as a smile danced on his face, full of pity. He says, “Sir, I don’t know where I am, or what the cops are, but trust me as I say this. If we don’t leave in the next 5 minutes, there won’t be anything left of us to call for anything.”

Dylan looked at the fear in the boy’s eyes, not understanding if the words were a threat, or an advice. So he barks, “What do you mean? Do not talk in riddles with me in my own house.” To this, the boy starts getting up, only for Dylan to move his rolling pin. The boy rolls his eyes saying,”Look here”. He walks over to the farthest part of the closet, where an odd light seems to be coming.

To Dylan’s surprise, he sees a vortex of sorts, swirling with a pink and purple light. “I have assassins after me and a bounty on my head,” the boy laughs, as if making some sort of joke. He continues, “I barely made it out, using this portal, but I don’t know how to close it. So any moment can the murderers come through.” The light reflects off his smooth tan skin, making him seem like he’s suddenly aged 20 years, with all the weight of the world.

Dylan sighs, wondering how he got into such a situation. He says, “Fine, come with me. I know a safe place, where we talk and you tell me all about these assassins, while I inform my people of the security breach in my house.” He moves fast through his house, gathering his keys and phone, as the child behind him wears his shirt, pressing on his hair to control the mess. Dylan sends a message on his phone that read, “Security breach in residence. Possible foreign tech. Keep it low.” He moves out the house all the while muttering about how he should just live up to his image of the villain.

Dylan takes his car out, and the child sits in it, a little warily. As they speed through the roads of the city, Dylan suddenly asks, “what’s your name? I never bothered asking. I’m Dylan.” To this, the kid replies, “It’s actually Prince Aidan Lan Mikealson.” Dylan’s eyes turn the size of saucers, as he quietly mutters lowly.

Aidan senses his confusion, to which he turns his bright green eyes away, while mumbling, “I don’t know about the prince status anymore. Not after what happened back home.” Dylan wanted to ask more, but he refrained, as they had just reached his hideout.

He knew it was very ‘villain-esque’ of him to have a hideout, but he had stopped feeling bad about his inventions, and started doing what the people expected of the mysterious ‘green eyes’. Walking with Aidan in tow, he moves to the door, which has multiple bio sensors attached. He confirms his identity, and unlocks the door, revealing a giant mirror in front of them.

It’s for the first time both Dylan and Aidan look at each other properly, realizing something very obvious that they missed. As they both stand in front of the mirror, shocked, both look at each other. “You-we-what? We look identical. Are we twins, how is this possible?” Aidan asks in disbelief.

Dylan, still incoherent from shock, doesn’t reply. It took him 5 minutes to regain composure, and when he did, he was back to being his calm, collected self. He closed the door, and moves forward, again with Aidan left to chase him to where ever he was going.

They stop in what appears to be a living room. At least that’s what Aidan would call it, from all his knowledge. He sees Dylan walking around furiously typing into his phone. He decides it’s best to stand and wait for whatever rationale the other man is trying to come up with. Not that Aidan had much time, given his situation, but he hoped he could trust this ‘safe space’ in hiding him just long enough.

Dylan, furiously running his hands against his hair, speaks up after what seemed to be a long silence, “Doppelgangers, that’s the only plausible explanation. While I’ve heard of cases of ‘gangers, I’ve never seen one jump out of a magic portal. Now please, Aidan, do explain yourself.” It seemed like he would burst out any moment, so Aidan quickly jumped the gun and started narrating his story.

He told Dylan, of how he was the crown prince in a parallel universe. Their world was very similar to this world, in its gadgets and tech, as far as he could judge. The prince himself held a great knowledge in technology and loved innovating and creating new things. In his 25 years of life, he had contributed much to the technological advancement of his kingdom. Things were good for him, until a day came, when the people of his world rebelled. They asked for the king, his father, to be pulled from the throne. As much as Aidan wanted to side with his father, he was not a fool to his surroundings. He knew of how ruthless his father was. But never in a million years did he expect him to be killed but the revolutionists.

That’s when he knew he wouldn’t be safe. His would be the next turn. Aidan had already heard whispers, so he did what he could. He worked hard on a new piece of technology he was working on, which could act a portal between the dimensions. Just as he was to test this, one of his friends in the castle came to warn him of the assassins after him. Aidan was left with no choice but to jump into his own unchecked creation, hoping for the best.

“And that’s how I ended up in your closet. Maybe the wormhole sensed DNA equivalence and dropped me here, who knows. The thing is I’m here, while my subjects go through a tough and tedious revolution.” Aidan sighed. Dylan looks surprised, thinking of how this kid has gone through so much and still seems to be the bubbliest person. How can someone laugh and be nice even when there are assassins after him beats him.

Aidan stops his train of thought as he continues, “I really would’ve liked to listen to the people of the kingdom, to know their difficulties. I had already decided I never wanted to be a ruler like my father. If only the people gave me a chance to speak. But rarely are prisoners of wars allowed much justification in times of strong tides.” Dylan makes a sound to agree, as he receives a text message from his workplace. It read: tech destroyed, proceeding to find the foreign nationals for inquiry.

Dylan sighs and tells Aidan, “They’ve destroyed the wormhole, and are gonna capture the assassins. If they ask about you, you are my twin brother from the state across the seas.” Aidan makes a face, as he asks Dylan, “Dude, I just spilled my life story to you. The least you could do is indulge me in yours. After all, we are stuck here while they chase the assassins.”

The older man sighs, wondering how he got stuck with the most upbeat kid in the parallel worlds. He still indulged him, taking a deep breath before starting with his story. “Well, I was just a plain little Hispanic kid, living his life with a loving mom, abusive dad-” “whoa, I’m so sorry for you” “well kid, I’m sorrier because you keep interrupting me, and I don’t feel like I want to continue.” Aidan frantically apologizes, as Dylan continues, a little sullenly.

Dylan tells him of how he was a prodigal but perfect child. And he was in college when the world collapsed. He spared him the details, because who hasn’t seen those end of the world movies. This led to the formation of a dystopian world government, which seemed pretty interested in only its own motives. They gathered all the kids who had survived and showed any signs of superior intelligence, and got them working. Dylan was one of them. To cut his long 30 years into a short story, he tells him of how he basically helped create the worst weapons in the history of mankind, which got him the villain status. People knew of the green eyed man who was evil to the core. He was the man who was the cause of the government never falling despite much efforts and who was the reason behind their misery.

At one point, he had stopped caring about that, accepting the villain status with open arms. There wasn’t much he could do. In the beginning, they had leverage over him, as they captured his mom. But she died, and by then, Dylan welcomed his villain status, so the government weren’t worried. There wasn’t much Dylan could do, no matter how much he felt for the people.

“Well shit, and here I’ve been crying like a baby about my problems, when you are in so much troubles yourself.” Aidan says. Dylan scoffs, saying, “What troubles? I took care of them didn’t I? Also, let’s just focus on you right now. Now that the portal is gone, what will you do?” Aidan looks at him with pity, “Changing the subject won’t help sir. The trouble you give yourself mentally can all end if you just decide to listen to your heart and help the people.” “In case you haven’t got it, newsflash, I’m supposed to be the evil mastermind behind the government’s rise kid. I ain’t got no heart.”

Aidan sighs, how a 30 year old man can act like such a kid? “Just remember, if you caused the government’s rise, you can also cause its fall. It’s all about believing the power one has, especially someone as special as you. For all its worth, I believe in you.” Dylan was surprised to say the least. No one in his life had ever told him they believed in him. He looked over at the sparkly eyed boy, unable to understand the feelings swelling up in him, almost akin to pride. How had this boy managed to spark more emotions in him in a matter of hours??

“I’m sorry about your portal. They destroyed your only way home”, Dylan says in a forlorn voice. Spectrally opposite to him, Aidan cheerfully says, “Hey, if the evil government can take care of the assassins, I don’t mind staying here. It’s not like they want me back home.” But Dylan didn’t miss the sadness in Aidan’s eyes as he spoke about his world. To alleviate the tense atmosphere, Aidan continues, “Then I can have a good time turning my evil twin into the good twin.”He smirks at Dylan, causing Dylan to laugh out loud.

Dylan had learnt so much from him in such a short time, it was unbelievable. He was starting to look forward to living with Aidan, if he would like that. He guesses living alone really had turned him into a belligerent old man. He’d never been fond of those movies where a big sudden realization makes the person have a change of heart, or a person sparks such feelings that they change their paths, but damn did it feel real all of a sudden. Maybe he’d found a family in a boy from another dimension. ‘A brother from another mother’ as they used to say back when he was a teen.

Unfortunately, not every villain gets to be evil guy in EVERY story. Maybe he wasn’t supposed to be in this one. Because, as they sat chatting, Dylan hears the security alarm go off. This was SO not good. “What’s that?” Aidan whispers, to which Dylan replies, “security alarm. There’s someone trying to enter. Your assassins are better than I gave them credit for.”

Aidan looks shaken. This stirs something in Dylan, who ushers him into the back of a room, pulling a lever which opens a door. Aidan only looks at Dylan quizzically. “It’s my panic room. Go in, I’ll be in soon, I’ll have to inform the security office.” Aidan rushes in as Dylan closes behind him and goes to get the security on call in his study. He tells them that they are here, and to send reinforcements quick.

As he’s going back to panic room, he sees he’s too late. The assassins. They don’t bother masking their faces, their pearly white skin bouncing the light off in the room. They sneer, “Lan, so long buddy.” Dylan didn’t try to make any justifications as they raised their weapon. He couldn’t give Aidan away. He was but a child who needed to live. While Aidan was as pure as gold, Dylan knew he wasn’t. Maybe this way, he could repent his actions, and help Aidan live as him. “The kingdom under me would’ve been much different than my father’s you know.” He says in a last attempt to placate them. The two assassins scoff, “all you royalties are the same, scum of the earth. We’ll be better off without you.” They end up shooting him, much to the horror of Aidan, who was watching in the panic room from the cameras.

The men left soon after, and Aidan rushed out the room, seeing Dylan’s eyes almost closing. “You are a good human Aidan. Keep being good. My life isn’t much to offer, but you can continue living in peace here as me. They’ll catch the assassins and you’ll be ok.” Aidan had tears streaming down his face, unable to process what was happening. Dylan reaches to wipe the tears away, saying, and “thank you for believing in me.” Aidan cried like a baby for the first time in years.

After a long time, there was a knock on the door. Assuming it was the security office; Aidan hid Dylan, and talked to them about the assassins. They told them they had been chasing them, and that they committed suicide by cyanide. Aidan seemed to not care. As soon as the security left, he prepared to give Dylan a proper cremation and last rites. He saved his ashes in an urn he found in the living room, as is the tradition in his kingdom.

Aidan seemed to have lost the bounce in his step. How could a stranger, a person who barely knew him, give up his life for him? It was after a few days of retrospection that he returned to his normal self.

He vowed to make good on Dylan’s sacrifice. He would make sure to erase all bad from his name. To help the people and to raise Dylan’s name from the evil green eyes to the person who saved the people. It was the most he could do to cherish and respect the memory of the boy who was wrongly made the villain in someone’s story.