Our Hero

It was just a school project, Nothing important, really. None of us were that interested in creating anything special.

It was just me, Chase, Dustin, and Carlos. I mean, I think it was Carlos. This was second or third grade so I'm still kind of fuzzy on some of the details. What I know for sure, however, is that we didn't take the project very seriously.

"Create your own Safety-Hero!" Ms. Mooney had proclaimed in an over-excited voice you only hear from inexperienced Teachers. "You'll be in teams of four, and the whole school will vote on which hero they want to see in a real, live comic book. Then we'll submit that character to the contest, and your character might be in a special Avengers story!"

Some of the kids gasped, mostly the boys, while others like myself couldn't care less. This was well past the dawn of the Nintendo Entertainment System and pretty much all other forms of media already seemed to pale in comparison.

Especially comic books, which no one would even admit to reading until that point.

"It's gotta be a meteor dude who, like, throws comets and stars at people." Dustin sounded like he'd already had the concept prepared.

"It has to be about safety, dimwit. You can't just make up any dumb thing and expect us to win." Chase reprimanded. You could always spot the kids with important fathers, you know?

I just sat back and doodled in my notebook as the other three politely disagreed. At one point during the debate, I think the term "anus face" was applied.

Then, I chuckled.

"What's funny?" Carlos asked, thinking I'd been laughing at him for some reason.

Without a word, I turned the notebook page toward them and showed off the crude pencil sketch I'd made. It was a completely mangled man in skin-tight spandex, with a cape made of tattered bandages. His chest symbol had been ripped off and the gaping hole in his chest was covered with a comedically oversized band-aid. Despite being covered in blood and having multiple protruding bones, he stood in a heroic pose and wore a wide grin.

I scratched in a title above his demented face. "Horrible Injury Man"

Carlos and Dustin immediately lost their shit. They laughed so loud that Ms. Mooney courteously asked them to respect the peace of our learning habitat… which was pretty much as pissed as she would get.

"We have to do that." Carlos clapped his hands and rubbed them together like a cartoon villain.

"Maybe his origin is that he was crushed by a meteor!" Dustin added helpfully.

"No way," Chase was the voice of dissent, of course, "That's dumb, and you're going to get in trouble if you show that to anyone."

"He shows kids what happens if you do something wrong," I explained, tapping the pencil to the page as if he'd simply not seen my genius, "Like, all the bad stuff you could do, he already did it and now he tells you not to."

Despite his objections, Chase was overruled three to one. This was our character, and we each made sure to get our opinions in so it felt we were co-creators and had some legal right to this half-assed scribble.

Eventually, Chase did come around.

"Well, he needs an enemy who WANTS kids to do bad stuff, then." He snorted, as if this should be clear as day to the rest of us peons.

"Well then you do it." Carlos challenged him, though I would've preferred to create the character myself since this was my idea.

Chase was quiet for a moment, then diverted his gaze out the window as if in deep thought.

"Yeah, that's what I thought." Carlos laughed.

By the time class had ended, we'd prepared what we thought was a sure-fire winner and handed our papers back in with everyone else. Luckily, the gore-filled abomination was hidden beneath a stack of at least two "Bike Safety" heroes and a "Captain Stop Sign". The latter had a battle axe shaped like the sign he was named for, a concept which immediately made me jealous.

"I'll think of a bad guy on the bus." Chase insisted, though we'd all but forgotten his lack of contribution. It was a moot point since the project had been handed in.

In fact, I'd completely forgotten the entire thing by the time my Mom called me down from a game of Mutant League Football.

"Your friends are here!" she yelled up the staircase.

I hadn't been expecting anyone, and I almost yelled back, "Which friends?", before I remembered that yelling through our house was a privilege reserved for people who paid the bills.

Carlos and Dustin came rumbling in like twin tornadoes, dropping their jackets and putting sticky hands on any action figures I'd left lying around. One of them… Dustin, I think… fired up the Nintendo and slammed in Battle Toads. It went back off again when I reminded him we had important work to do.

I hadn't noticed what Chase was holding until he sat on the floor in my room. It was an actual "professional" sketchpad. At least it seemed that way at the time, though I'm sure it probably came from a drug store.

"What's that?" I asked, peering down at him.

"It's my idea book." Chase shook his head as if that was the stupidest question he'd ever heard. "I use it to get out my thoughts and feelings."

"Ha ha! FEELINGS?!" Carlos balked as he and Dustin settled the floor, and I threw myself on the bed.

"I don't want to, my Mom makes me." Chase once again acted like this made perfect sense and anyone who thought otherwise was an idiot.

"I came up with a villain, too, in case his sucks." Dustin chimed in. "It's an alien who gets stronger when kids make dumb mistakes."

Ignoring the interruption, Chase opened the sketch book with a snobbish flair of apathy.

Carlos made a trumpet sound, as if something important were about to be unveiled.

"Mr. Ick." Chase announced, gesturing to a roughly sketched blob of goop and drool. "He is made of disease and slime, and he infects children who get injured. He makes them die."

"Is he…" Carlos smirked and injected the rest of his sentence between laughs, "coming… heh… from… haha… a toilet?!"

Carlos pointed, we all took a glance, and then the laughter grew to a deafening din. Chase didn't think it was funny. Most people probably wouldn't, but coming from someone as stuck-up and bland as him, the idea was priceless.

"I bet he's afraid of the toilet. He's not even potty trained." Dustin insisted, bringing us to the brink of laughter-induced asphyxia.

"Give it here." Carlos reached for the sketch pad. "I'm showing this to everyone in the whole class!"

Chase dodged the attempt and shook his head. "No way. If you don't like it, I don't care. I was going to throw it away, anyway."

Within an instant, Dustin was on Chase's back, pinning him to the floor. He was still laughing like a hyena. Carlos took the opportunity to grab the pad, but both he and Chase now had both hands locked in a death grip upon it.

"Pry his fingers!" Carlos cackled, "C'mon!"

He was talking to me… but I wasn't laughing anymore. I don't know if the others could tell, but Chase's face had turned red and he was gasping for air. Dustin wasn't that big, but I guess he was big enough.

I had an instant to decide whether I wanted to side with the kid I hated, or the two knuckleheads that were actively attacking him over a stupid drawing. I decided, perhaps selfishly, that the whole ordeal would be over if I got the sketch pad away from both of them and returned order to the room. In actuality, it was just a way to avoid picking sides.

Before I could lay hands on the book, however, a sudden and jarring crash knocked us all for a loop. A hailstorm of wooden slivers and chunks of drywall immediately followed.

"Fighting?"

The voice was raspy. Booming. We were still reeling, picking wood out of our hair and faces as we squirmed and crawled away from the source of the blast.

"Don't you know the dangers inherent in four-man fisticuffs?"

Carlos must've opened his eyes first, because he was he first one to scream. Dustin gasped, I shouted, and Chase shrieked in that order.

Amid the debris was a raw, bloodied pile of mangled flesh that barely resembled a human being. What was left of a face leered at us with wide, crimson-filled and swolen eyeballs.

"Mom!" I screamed, "Mom! Someone's in the house!" … there was no response.

"Most accidents occur in the home," the pile said, slowly lifting itself from the newly stained carpet, "Careless behavior only increases the chance of a fatality!"

The wretched form cracked and groaned as it rose, dripping organs and slop it apparently didn't need. When the thing finally stood before us, its identity became clear.

"Horrible Injury Man…" Dustin whimpered.

"INDEED, YOUNG CITIZEN!" the creature exclaimed, throwing its cape back triumphantly, "I recieved a Safety Signal that told me four little boys were being unsafe, so I fell here as fast as I could!"

We were frozen. All at once any semblance of individuality disappeared and we were simply staring, gawking debris like the pile around us.

"Sure, getting into a dust-up now and again can be good for the spirit," the thing took one lurching, bone-splintering step toward us, "It's a great way to deal with the unease of burgeoning hormones, but think about what could happen if things got out of hand!"

One gooey, gristle-hand grabbed Dustin by the shirt. He squealed.

"Let's say you just watched Muscle-Bound Bobby Bulldog, world-famous Pro-Wrestler, deliver one of his spinning power slams."

The thing began to whirl in place, its hand still firmly gripping Dustin by the Joe Cool logo on his shirt. He started slowly, but quickly began to spin faster and faster until the two of them all but disappeared in a cartoonish cyclone.

"The only problem is, you're no Bobby Bulldog, and you don't have the years of training necessary to execute such a complicated move! All of a sudden…"

Dustin's shirt tore free. In a flash of an instant… that seemed to last forever… Dustin sailed backward, shirtless, through the bedroom window and out into the night. I could see the look of sick horror on his face.

The glass blew out in an exact silhouette of his flailing body.

"Another unfortunate fatality brought on by violent media." The thing stopped spinning, having left a ring of blood and fluid across all four walls.

Carlos jumped to his feet, something the rest of us had forgotten how to do. Without a word, he sprinted for the bedroom door. As soon as his hand met the doorknob, however, the thing's hand was already planted on his shoulder.

"Hang on a sec, champ!" It grumbled, "Did you know that running in closed spaces is the number one cause of death for children of your age named Carlos?"

The thing lifted Carlos by the seat of his pants and hauled back as if he was about to throw him head-first into the door. Carlos covered his head and eyes, held aloft in what was essentially a fetal position.

"Sure, when Mom's made a fresh rhubarb pie and Pop's about to eat the last piece, you want to get there lickitty-quick! However, it's always best to take things slow and steady…"

The door flew open of its own accord. Though I couldn't see out into the hallway, I immediately heard the mechanical buzz of something horrible.

"Uh oh! It seems that today's the day Pop decided to bring in the industrial wood chipper for a few repairs!"

The thing tossed Carlos like a softball. He yelled, but only for a moment before the sound of metal seperating meat from bone filled the room. A blowback of gore spattered Horrible Injury Man, though he didn't flinch in the slightest.

I turned to Chase, dumbfounded. I looked just in time to see him slipping into the bathroom door.

"Chase!" I shouted, climbing to my feet after him. I heard the sound of the lock clicking seconds before I struggled with the unmoving knob. "Chase, let me in! Help!!"

There was no response.

I froze in place once more, slowly turning to see if the thing was still in the room. If it was, there would be no one left to focus on but me…

"Forgot to use the bathroom when you had time?" it asked, stepping toward me like a broken marionette… its feet not even touching the ground at times… "That's why it's important to be safe and go when you have the opportinity, not when it's an emergency!"

With my back against the door, I stared down the approaching monstrocity.

"Why, imagine if you were to have an accident in public…"

The thing's hands gripped my shoulders and began to lift me from the floor. I was wild with fear. Half insane. My brain became a muddled pool of desperate last-minute stalling tactics and childish scenerios where I somehow suddenly learned Jujitsu. There was no way out, at least none that I could imagine…

Or was there?

All at once, I decided that the only thing that made any sense in this situation WAS nonsense. Any random, stupid thing I could come up with was just as valid than anything else when it came to escaping the situation.

With trembling hands, I gripped the over-sized bandaid I'd drawn onto the horror's chest and ripped it free with one violent, grisley yank.

The thing groaned in pain.

It stumbled backward, dropping me from the floor, as slick, glistening innards began to push their way out of its chest. Horrible Injury Man began to turn inside-out as the sickening meat of his body slowly imploded, the unrecognizable matter passing through and spilling out of the gaping cavity.

"Did you know…" it wheezed as it expelled its lungs and throat, "… that most…"

The heap of distorted parts sagged to the floor with a soft squish.

I slumped down at the door and threw the clotted, hair-covered bandaid aside.

"Chase?" I finally croaked, "You can come out now, you coward!"

I heard a voice from the bathroom, but it wasn't one I recognized. It was a bubbling, burping, deep voice that sounded like it was gargling oil.

"Ick… Iiiick…"

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