The Beacon

There were people like us, and then there were people like her.

She was their so-called 'hero'. 

She came in to save the day. Looked good in the media too.

Everyone loved a pretty endorsement. 

They gave her a stupid name too; Beacon, I think it was? Their 'shining light'. 

Well, the light only shines so bright when it's illuminated by big spotlights and cameras. I saw plenty of times when it flickered in the shadows, almost faltering. 

Beacon.

I snorted at how patriotic it all was. 

And here she was, drinking in the stars beside me over a can of cold beer. 

She looked tired. There was a new cut across her cheek that was caked with foundation. Her long, blonde hair came to her waist now that it was let loose. 

Last time I saw her, it was only to her shoulders. She wanted to even cut it shorter still. 

Beacon noticed my eyes lingering on her hair and pushed it behind her ear with a snort. 

"I know" she smirked "not exactly the pixie cut I wanted so badly."

"Not exactly" I hid my smile behind my own can i raised to my peeled lips. 

There was a reason why Beacon was the hero and I wasn't. Even though we were childhood friends who grew up in the same town and street, I was the one who was unfortunate enough to be mauled by a monster. 

Now, I had a gigantic arm that dominated the right side of my body. It had claws the size of knives and skin as thick as leather. With it as black as the night, it wasn't exactly the image that screamed 'saviour'. 

Beacon was the pretty one. They needed a charming hero, not one that bought fear. 

So, I turned to where my talents were praised, and she soaked in the light. We both had our own reasons for walking in opposite paths now. 

It was just a shame hers was so obsessed with everything she did. 

"You should cut it" I joked to her, picking up her locks to let them run through my curled claws "turn up with a shave patch on one side and black hair all along the other." 

Beacon gasped and laughed, shaking her head. 

Even her laugh was controlled. She sounded much wilder when we were kids, before our fates were formed. 

"I could cut it right now" I smiled and mimed sniping. 

I played it off as a joke, but it would be funny to see how her assistants would react to her branching outside of their perfect image. 

Blonde hair, blue eyes, skinny, and well-spoken. A damn doll. 

And here she was, spread-legged on the edge of a cliff, cape dragging in the grass so she could drink her third cold beer. 

"So, grab any new sponsors?" I leant back to snatch a glance at the long white cape adorned in multiple colourful embellishments. 

"Some make-up brand" she waved a hand before swinging the cape around to try and find it "and a vitamin company.... Oh! And there was this one!" she stabbed at it with a french-tipped nail "they do takeaway." 

"Takeaway? Are you even allowed to have that?" 

Beacon pouted, muttering something back. 

"How about I bring some pork buns with me next time, not just beer?" I offered. 

Her eyes lit up straight away. In that short moment, I had my old friend back. 

Beacon finished off her can so she could help collect the others. I put them into the small esky behind us and turned back to see her on her feet already. 

"I should go before anyone wonders where I am" she jerked a thumb to the sky "but thank you for the nice time, Russ."

I felt my cheeks burn at my name in her mouth. Instantly, I dropped my head to hide my fluttering chest by pretending to be busy with the esky. 

"How about tomorrow?" I peered up hopefully as Beacon began to hover off the ground. 

Her cape gently lifted up under her, like a flag being hoisted up its pole.

"I can't" she grimaced "interviews; the usual. But I do have Thursday off." 

Thursday? A whole three days away. 

I sighed and agreed. 

"It'll have to do. We'll meet somewhere else. Can't be having choppers finding out the best place in town." 

Beacon giggled and gave a little wave as she ascended higher. 

"See you then, Russ" she waved goodbye, quickly taking off. 

I watched her leave, making sure she disappeared into the clouds over the glittering lights of the town, before hoisting up the esky to haul it back towards the woods. 

I had to keep in mind that I was supposed to be the villain in her eyes. 

But, as I laid awake with my phone cradled in my hand and the snores of others curled in beds around me, I watched the shining face of Beacon smiling through her interviews. 

She opened hospitals, sang to children, saved people from natural disasters, and even sparkled through the endorsements that had me giggling at how fake it looked. 

She was so full of life and energy. I could see why she was their symbol of hope. 

She was everywhere. There was no escaping her. 

Maybe I liked it that way? Even when I dragged myself through the woods closer to civilisation, I saw her face beaming from a billboard where she modeled with a bottle of spring water. 

The fluttering inside couldn't be stopped when I saw it. When I was joined by others who shared the darkness, I found myself stopping to stare at it with a little smile to myself. 

But, I was the villain. Whatever hopes or ambitions I had were wrong. Every person in the group of outcasts had dreams too, but ours were nothing compared to theirs.

I slogged my way through to Thursday while reminding myself just how different we were. 

Beacon smiled for parades. I cleaned blood out of my clothes in the sink. 

Beacon gave inspirational speeches that I listened to while sweating over the mass grave I dug. 

She smiled alongside police while I kept my head low as I was fearfully rejected trying to purchase pork buns. 

She shook hands and posed while I snapped fingers and jumped counters to throw my loot into a bag so I could flee. 

She didn't have to deal with the screaming vendors or persistent security. She had it easy as the person they looked up to. I dealt with the rest. 

Finally, Thursday arrived. 

After warming the buns up in the microwave and pushing them into disposable containers, I started my walk to our new meeting place. 

I chose the sloping hill right underneath the gigantic billboard. Easy enough for her to find, and comfortably close to the trees for me. 

Beacon was always caught in some sort of camera lens or floodlight wherever she went. Meeting at night made it easier for me to spot those and scurry off before her whole reputation could be broken. 

Being seen with a villain would be a death sentence for her. She'd be ridiculed and hurled from her luxurious lifestyle. A fallen hero was neither good or bad, it was just pitiful. 

Taking my place next to the gigantic metal beam, I grinned when the familiar white cape billowed outwards in the sky above. 

Beacon made her gradual descent to the grass beside me that she lowered herself onto, curling her cape around so it wasn't crumpled. 

"So, how was your day?" I started as I rummaged through the bag to reveal my loot. 

Beacon gasped and groaned in happiness while picking at the side of her boots to gratefully slide the zip down on each one. 

"Don't get me started" she sighed back "did you know that I had to stand in a very particular spot beside the Deputy today? Not too close to the front that I look like I'm overshadowing him, and not too far back that I'm not involved. It was all measured to the centimeter, I swear. And, get this, they rehearsed everything we had to say just to make sure nothing could be taken out of context." 

"Sounds exhausting" I teased. 

"Oh, shush" she scoffed back and looked up at the border of the billboard above us with a wrinkle in her nose. 

"Did you have to choose here?" 

"I thought you liked the sight of yourself?" I grinned to her rolled eyes "I quite like it."

Beacon sighed and took a bite of her bun she pointed up at it. 

"It took forever to get my hair the way they wanted it" she complained "all that time for them to choose just one photo. It's not even the best one." 

She swallowed and shook the bun at me now. 

"You know, I'm not even allowed to eat these" she scoffed with another bite "it's always the most bland food. Just give me something with flavour and grease!" 

I gestured to the buns and smiled as she nodded her head with a groan of delight.

"You are a lifesaver, Russ."

"And you're...." I smiled back, quickly dropping it when I spotted something moving in the sky toward us. 

"You're being followed!" 

Throwing my bun into the bag, Beacon did the same. She sucked the mess off her fingers so she could hurriedly zip up her boots and get to her feet to slap the grass off herself. 

"Shit, shit!" I panicked. 

As it got closer, I could see it was a helicopter. Without lights leading the way, the black chopper had flown towards us before I had even realised. 

Tying up the bag and throwing it to the trees, I didn't even have time to take a breath before my feet were launched off the ground. 

"B, don't drop me" I whimpered to her and tried to grab her arms letting me dangle below her "you know I don't like this." 

The billboard looked like the face of a building from this angle. Everything else around it was a speckled void. 

I didn't want to shred her skin with my claws trying to hang on. The last thing she needed was deep scars all along a place so public. 

Beacon grimaced down at me panicking under her. She didn't have much of a choice. With us both caught together, we had to fight. She needed to protect her name as a hero, and I needed to let her win so I could scurry home for another day. 

She never killed her opponents, but I had seen how close to death she had put them. 

"Sorry, Russ." 

Her hands released me to send me tumbling down towards the ground. 

I was flipped through the air, shooting past the smiling face of the blinding billboard twisting around in my vision. 

I had the air knocked out of me when her hands caught me at the last moment to drop me to the grass. I scrambled away, only to have Beacon send me sprawling with a kick. 

There were no words between us when I peeled myself from the grass that clung to me. Any sort of recognition would be the end of it all. 

I swiped my claws at Beacon, who easily dodged them. She took to the air so she could spear herself towards me with both boots and have me shot back into the ground, gasping in breath while clutching her shoes desperately.

I could feel my ribs crushed beneath her. Every breath felt like it was getting tangled somewhere in my dribbling throat. 

Beacon glared down at me, her eyes glowing. 

"NO!" I cried out when I realized what she was going to do "hang on! B...!"

Everything was erased in a flash of blinding light. I couldn't see anything. It was all just a wall of burning white. 

Beacon earned her name for her gift. She literally was a shining light. Looking straight at it resulted in temporary blindness, or until she was gracious enough to reward you with your senses again.

I'd been blinded by her before when we were kids. It was out of trust back then.

Now, she couldn't be so forgiving. 

I could still hear the chopping of the helicopter blades in the air above. Beacon's panting breath was closer. Her boot crunched when the pleather of it was relieved from my chest. 

I swiped for the air to make sure she still wasn't standing over me. My legs spread to search for hers, finding them beside me. 

Kicking into her, she staggered. With her gasp of surprise, I swung a hand across the ground to find her cape and yank on it. 

Staggering to my feet with the cape firmly in my hand, I jerked it back roughly to hear her collapse.

Reeling from guilt, I was caught in bewilderment when the clutched cape was torn forward so my face could be met with a swift boot to the chin. 

"What the f....?"

Slashing blindly through the searing fire blooming around the teeth I spat on the ground, I heard Beacon yell out when I felt her soft skin tear underneath my retaliation. 

Did I hurt her? 

"Wait, Beacon, are...?" 

My claws weren't dull. I had cut myself on them many times and knew how little pressure needed to be put behind the tiniest of slices to make it gush. 

I hadn't held back in my anger. She'd be shredded. 

"Beacon?" I turned to try and find her through my hearing. 

There was nothing. Had she taken to the skies again? 

Heat splattered and ran over my head. Raking a finger through it snaking down my face, it tangled with my breath. 

There was a grunt, and I instantly threw up my claws to help protect myself from the next blow. 

I braced for the collision, closing my eyes as I whimpered. 

When I opened them, they were burning from the flood gushing down my arms. 

Weight hung in my hands. I saw the white cape of Beacon whipping in the flurry swept up by the helicopter trying to land now. 

The clean fabric started to run red. It grew heavier until it couldn't move anymore. Soaked with blood, the cape hung limply over me. 

"Beacon?" 

Why had she let me see this? I wasn't blind anymore. Had she given up? 

No. She was the hero. She couldn't look weak to a villain. 

Lowering my hands down, my breath caught in my chest when I saw Beacon skewered in my claws. 

She was lifeless as she hung there. Her leg was torn wide open from my initial blind attack. It looked like her intention was to shove me down from above, probably so I'd tumble down the hill I was frozen at the edge of. 

I had protected myself. I killed Beacon. 

I couldn't mourn for her here with people spilling out of the helicopter and sprinting towards us. All I could do was tear my claws from her body, further mutilating it in the process. 

Gently lowering her down in the grass below her billboard, I scrambled to snatch up my bag on the way to bolt for freedom. 

I could hear the screams when I ran further from the scene. I swatted my way blindly again, choking through the tears and agony crushing my chest. 

Her blood was still all over me. I abandoned my bid for freedom to try and rub it off, only smearing it further. 

No! She couldn't be dead! I didn't do it! I couldn't have! 

She was Beacon! She was the hero! 

No! 

NO! 

Her blood dribbled over my lips. It dripped over my eyes. 

GET OFF ME! GO AWAY! 

Hauling the bag into the ground in panic, I swatted at the blood clinging to my claws that flicked it everywhere. Leaves splattered and bark flecked with speckled crimson. 

"NO!" 

Digging my claws around my head, a feral scream tore through me. It sounded more like the roar of a monster that echoed through the woods and up into the sky. 

All of my strength left me with that scream. My legs gave out and crumpled me into the dirt and leaves that smothered my curled body. 

Shivering and sobbing, I couldn't bear to look at my own hands hugging myself, cutting into my arms effortlessly. 

I killed her. My best friend.... 

"Be.....B...."

My whimpers were cut short when I heard the cutting of the chopper again. It ascended and hovered, the woods behind me snapping alight from the searching beam. 

I couldn't be caught in it. 

Heaving myself up and using the new adrenaline pumping through me, I ran. 

I didn't stop until the helicopter gave up its search to pull back towards town. 

Watching from the overlooking cliff, I looked over to the shining billboard Beacon proudly smiled from.

I'd have to make sure I never saw it again. I had to get as far as possible from here before the headhunt really began. 

It'd only be a matter of time until the news dropped that the hero was dead. I had to be out of town and across the country before that happened. The further into darkness, the better. 

"Goodbye, Beacon" I whispered to the billboard as I lifted myself from the edge I stood at, unwilling to peel myself from what I had destroyed "I'm sorry." 

Then, I slipped back into the darkness with her blood soaked into my skin; the only villain who killed the shining light of a hero.