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"Stop please." I yelled, straining on my bonds as another building came crashing down in my beloved city.
"Nothing will stop unless you stop it yourself." I looked with hatred at the blank monitor that brought the sounds.
"I can't do anything." I say in defeat. "Please stop, there's no need for this." I try again to reason with him.
I screamed in pain as the needle pierced my skin again, injecting liquid lead straight into my bloodstream.
"Never say there's no need for this!!" The voice from the monitor screamed.
"You're the strongest Superhero in the world right?" He asked his breath shaking.
"Well the world needs a hero now."
The screen showed different beautiful landmarks of the world destroyed, fires raging, houses were still falling, people defeated praying, children crying.
I closed my eyes shut having seen enough and shout right back at the monitor
"You know I can't do anything."
I say looking at the mechanic hand holding the syringe and needle filled with liquid lead.
I had been injected 12 times since my arrival, enough to kill a regular man 12 times over.
"That's my-"
"Weakness?" The voice from the monitor interrupted me.
"Is the world's greatest hero worried about a weakness when the world he's in charge of is in danger?" The sarcastic tone really tore into me.
"What about what you said on television?"
The monitor sparked back to life, showing me after I had just defeated the Gavaliatron.
I took the microphone from the reporter's hand and spoke into it.
"No evil shall walk on the surface of this Earth when I'm around, stay safe and without fear, for when fear is there, evil is ever near."
"Pretty moving words."
"I was just a young hero then, I was foolish." I say in regret.
"Perhaps you were foolish," he chuckled "doesn't mean it's not true."
"Tell me Sam Brave, how brave are you now?"
I looked down and realized my legs were shaking.
"Pathetic." He remarked with disgust.
"I am afraid?" I asked out loud, realizing and trying to comprehend the new emotion.
It messed up my abilities, I felt weaker than I already was, everything became even scarier.
I strained against the chains holding me alight. Trying to rip even one of the links.
"Do you know who I am Sam?" I looked at the monitor shocked at how close it had come to my face.
I jumped backwards to get away but the chains dragged me back in position.
"I am the one who is going to scatter all your plans."
"Destroy your very being and watch if and how you pick yourself back up again."
"I am your worst nightmare."
The screen flickered like a spoiled tv trying to come back to life.
"Remember this face Sam, for this is what you'll use to describe evil throughout your life."
"I am Fear."
I saw a man in a hoodie sitting on the chair right in front of me.
As though like a mirage, the monitor and wall disappeared revealing the man was sitting in front of me in the same jail cell.
"Hey Sam, how're you feeling?" He asked gently.
His voice was soft with a kind of icing coldness.
I felt my heartbeat double in my chest.
"I-I-I feel fine." I said feeling my insides squirm.
"Now that doesn't sound very convincing Mr. Brave."
He flew straight towards me like a bullet, hanging on my chains and laughing.
"You look like you've seen a ghost." He said, holding my chains like a pole and playing with it.
"Aren't you going to kill me?" I asked, shaking, abandoning any facade of acting brave in front of him.
"I'm not going to kill you silly." He remarks in a non playful tone
"You haven't saved the world yet."
I shook my head at the mention of saving the world.
"Hmmm, I see." I looked at him as he put his hand on his chin, nodding his head in pretense thinking.
"It's not that you can't do it... It's just that you don't have any incentive to do it, right?"
I looked at him as he kept on spewing nonsense.
"You feel like even without you there, there are other heroes who can save the people?"*
He walked to his seat and sat down crossing his legs.
"So what would make you more inclined to break your bonds?"
"Maybe your life?"
A red laser dot showed on my body right on my left chest, on my heart.
"It's a gun made for liquid lead."
"One bullet contains 3 grams of it."
I looked down at the laser pointing straight to my heart.
I pulled once more on my chains. I was done.
"Hmmm maybe not your life then", he snapped his fingers and another door opened.
"Maybe another's..."
I heard the squeaky wheels of a trolley rolling.
"Maybe your love's?"
Grace was rolled in on a trolley. Her eyes wide in shock and fear.
She was muffled and strapped, standing up.
I looked as the laser left my chest, travelled on the ground and went straight to her head.
"Stop it!!!" I shouted.
"Stop what?" Another laser popped out, landing on her stomach
"Don't shoot."
I shouted straining on the chains again, tears in my eyes.
"Come make me."
He brought out a third gun with a laser pointer.
It shone on her heart.
"Swallow your fear, or embrace your loss."
With closed eyes, fearing the inevitable, I took one last pull screaming.
I opened my eyes in the darkened room. The chains on the floor with the manacles broken off them.
The injection of liquid lead needles broken in my body.
I saw only the monitor on the screen.
It turned on and I heard the sound of laughing.
"Ha ha haaa" The voice I've grown to fear and hate sounded.
"Seems you've still got some fight in you, scared hero."
I looked around again and saw no traces of what I witnessed before.
"Fear messes with your senses, wouldn't you agree?" The voice asked sarcastically.
"Where are you?" I asked the voice.
"Now don't get too ahead of yourself Sam." He said laughing.
"Remember, the world is still in a complete state of destruction, fire and fear, in all honesty, it's a mess out there."
The monitor lit up, showing where the destruction was worse.
"Grace is such a fine woman, isn't she?"
He asked again.
The screen switched, showing her chained in a room.
"A divine guest who hasn't even raised her voice once"
The focus shifted to show Fear in the corner, he walked into the light and held the camera to his face.
"Go great Hero, fix the world, defeat Fear and save Grace."
And so I went.