No hope

“W-what?!“shouted I in shock. I couldn’t believe that I had to face the most terrifying hero into town to pass my Villain exam. “Can I get another one? I-I can’t! He will kill me! I am not good enou-”

“Cristy Bone! You know the rules of our Villain Academy. You can’t change the hero you’ve got.” Said the teacher. “Yes Miss” I had to obey; I couldn’t say no. A ‘no’ would mean I’m not passing the exam. If I don’t pass the exam, I wouldn’t become a villain and I would be the shame of my family. In my family everyone was a great Villain, and everyone could rely on us if things get bad. And I was the black sheep in the family. I was just too afraid of death and of the heroes to be a real villain. I left the room where we pulled the cards with the names of heroes we must fight with. And me, Cristy Bone, the most scared villain in school, will face the best hero in the town! What a luck!

I looked at the card while walking in my room. What should I do? I don’t want to die! But I want to pass. And make my family finally proud of me! But could I handle it?

On the half of the way to my room I changed the direction to the training scenter. I’ll get better. Even though I only had one day till the fight. Hope dies at last, right?

“But how will I make him fight with me? The heroes don’t know anything about our school.” I thought. Maybe I could rob a bank or attack someone? Then the hero comes, and I’ll battle him! Yes, something like that we had in class. It was easier than I thought! Okay, one problem less. Life gets better! I smiled and looked confident in the training centre. And then I realized that things don’t get better. I still must fight with someone, and I must rob a bank or attack someone! One problem less one problem more! It can’t get better, can it? If I was in a movie cloud with rain would be over my head. So much to live is getting better.

I started to train. I had to win tomorrow.

I started with the warmup. I collected my power and made a fireball.

In this moment I started shaking. I almost fell on the ground. I started realizing that it is much more dangerous to fight with Mightman, the hero, as I thought.

“I will die, I will die, I will die!” Heard I in my thoughts. It was so difficult for me to do a basic spell and it won’t help against him! Never! I started to tear up. Should I go to my brother and talk to him? What will he think? What if he tells mother and then…? I didn’t want to think about it and just ran over to my brother’s room. But would it help? In this moment I didn’t care about it I just needed someone to talk.

“Oh my gosh, Cristy! What happened?” he asked carefully. I ran in his arms and hugged him. I could feel how his shirt became wet of my tears. So, I tried to stop crying and tell him what happened. He listened carefully and I hopped he could give me a piece of advice because he already went through it and is already a teacher in this school. When I was at the end of my story he sighed. “Listen. Mightman is a hero, he won’t kill you!” he said. Now I started to remember. It was against the rules to kill anybody. I was a little bit facilitated. But I was still scared.

“Thank you.” I thanked. Okay, I know his comment didn’t really help but, hey! He still tried! He just answered with a nod. I went back to the training scenter and practised the easiest spells. I didn’t even try the difficult ones; they eat too much of energy. I hoped these basic spells would be enough and Mightman is just a weak hero which was always at the right place at the right time. That sounded logical to me, and I hoped it would be true.

I was really at the end of my energy when one of the teachers came and told me to go to sleep. I looked at the clock. I didn’t realize how late it was.

“S-sorry” I apologized.

“I know you’re scared and you want to give up on everything, but you have to try! Maybe you win!” she tried to cheer me up. I almost fell again of fear to lose. But I didn’t show it. But how did she know? I tried to hide my fear asking myself this question. “Of course.” I said instead. I didn’t want to ask her and be impolite. She smiled with a warm smile at me. “Oh child. Good luck tomorrow.” After that she turned around and went away. I stood there for a while but then I went to my room. This was strange. Who was she? A new teacher? I never saw her before. My thoughts were interrupted by a group of kids in the hallway.

Everyone was talking and everyone was excited because of the missions. Some were lucky and got weak heroes, and some got very powerful heroes like I got.

“Cristy!” someone shouted. I looked around and saw my best friend, Jenny. “Oh hi!”

 “I finally found you!” she was out of puff. I supposed she was running to me.

“What’s up?” I asked. “I got Maxyglock!” she cheered. Maxyglock was one of the weakest heroes in the city. Why did she get him and not me? She is so much better than me. I should have been happy for her because she will pass the exam, but I wasn’t. I was jealous of her. I knew it was wrong, but I couldn’t change it.

She must have seen how nervous I was and asked me “Is it bad?”

I nodded with my head. “I am so sorry! Maybe we could change if you want to!” she offered. I wanted to scream Yes! But I couldn’t. It wasn’t allowed. So, I said no. “So, who did you get?” she asked.  

I almost started to tear up again (yeah, I am a real cry-baby) but Jenny hugged me before I could. “It’s Mightman, isn’t it?” I was shocked. Again. How does everybody know it? “Yes” I answered. She didn’t breathe. She was as shocked as I was.

“You can do this! You’re stronger than you think!” she cheered me up and my mood started to get better.

“Now…” she pushed me away softly “go to bed and sleep! Tomorrow is a hard day!”

I listened to her and went to bed. She was right. Tomorrow will be a hard day. To be honest, I don’t really think I’ll survive. But who knows?

The night was a disaster. Why? Well: I couldn’t sleep, I almost had a panic attack, I had the worst thought of tomorrow and what could happen, and I was sick. Perfect! Could it get better? Yes, the kids next room were obviously drunk and sang terribly all night and I had to wake up at 5.30 am next day! The worst night in my entire life. Once I read on a book a phrase: “Welcome to my life sucks!” and this phrase fits me now the best. So, it looks like the my-life-sucks-club has a new member: Cristy Bone! Yay! It wasn’t a wonder for me that I couldn’t get up in the morning. The only time I could sleep was during the lessons and I did it. The unexpected part was when the teachers did catch me, and I could sleep. Maybe they just let me sleep because they knew it was my last day to life? Probably yes.

After the lessons I went directly to the city and planned in my head how to attack somebody. But I was never good in thinking in situations like this. Will he really come? Maybe a different hero will come, and I’ll have to fight him? Maybe I’ll just say I want to fight Mightman and he’ll come? Probably it won’t work. I’m just going to do everything on reflex. I have practised it many times. What could go wrong?

 And there I was, standing in a crowd of people. My hands started shaking and everything was blurred. I can’t remember how I grabbed a woman and flew up in the sky. My body did it automatically. The ‘plan’ was working so far. But the scariest part is only coming.

“Get Mightman or I kill this woman! Get him! Now! You have two minutes!” I spoke up. Everyone was in panic, and my ears almost died because of all the noise around me. The woman didn’t scream, and she probably knew how nervous I was.

If you’re asking yourself how she could know it, well my hand was shaking like I will die in a few seconds. Oh wait, right. Maybe because I will die in a few seconds!

“Silence!” Everyone stopped screaming. It was Mightman. I started panicking and shacking in the entire body. Okay, the scariest part is starting. I can handle it! I accidently let the woman fall and she screamed. I couldn’t look at her or do anything. I was frozen.

“Is everything okay?” asked a man the woman. “Yes.” She answered. I was relieved. Thanks God she is fine. I know I am a villain, but it doesn’t mean we kill innocent people.

Suddenly I felt ground at my feet. Why wasn’t I flying? I looked down. We were at a mountain. How did we get here? I looked around. No one. Just me and Mightman. He teleported us here.

I started panicking even more because I understood. If I die here no one will see it and he still will be the hero. So here, where no soul sees us, he could kill me and get away with it. “Now.” He started. Will he kill me? No, no, no. I teared up.

“Aw. Our little villain cries.” He laughed instead of saying that what he wanted to say before. He made a step to me. And I a step from him. And again, and again. And out of nowhere, I was at the end of the mountain. I looked down. Nothing but darkness. My tear fell down in the nothing. If I do another step backwards. I swallowed. I would die. I would fall like my tear.

“You know.” He started talking. “I have better things to do, so make it quick. What do you want? If you, little rat, want to fight me than do something and don’t just stand there and do nothing” He continued. I tried to speak but I couldn’t. He was so much scarier than I’ve imagined. Because of that I decided to react and do something like he said. Attack is the best defence. I took all my courage together and decided to attack him. I made a fire ball and threw at him. I took all my power, what meant that the ball was as big as 3 men together. I hoped that would work and hurt him, even if only a bit. But then happened something.

Mightman jumped at me. He jumped through the fire and pushed me of the mountain. I didn’t see it come. Was this my end? I cried but he didn’t care. How? Why? I didn’t understand anything, was he the villain or me? Why was a hero killing a villain? Why are they talking about forgiving if they never forgive anybody themselves?  

I looked at the mountain and hoped he will save me. Because he is a hero. Heroes save people and don’t kill them. Maybe I was wrong, and he did it by accident? But I was wrong. There was no hope. He stood at the edge of the mountain, watched me falling and smiled. I felt the anger coming up from me like a big bomb. This smile. I wanted to get it out of his face. I wanted to erase it, tear it out.

“You little – “I started. Suddenly big black hands passed by from down and tried to grab Mightman. He didn’t understand anything and could do nothing.  Just like me. He thought get away with it. He forgot that there is something like Karma in this world. He tried to run away but the hands were faster. They grabbed his foot and pulled him down. Now he was crying, and I was smiling. Even though I was still falling and in a few seconds I will die. Fall apart like my tear when it fell down here. Like me now.

I was so happy because I did these hands. It was my power! I wasn’t such a weakling as I thought. I smiled and closed my eyes. Mightman was falling next to me. It was my end, but I was still happy. I did it. I killed Mightman. I was the winner. And I was proud of myself. I passed the exam. I was a real villain now. At least I will die like a villain. The next moment I felt pain all over my body. Mightman stopped screaming and I was enjoying my last breath. The last moment of life.