The Lear Library

This was a story I wrote based around the City of Heroes universe, in which a young woman that always wanted to be a heroine met her end at the hand of the Circle of Thorns, a rather unpleasant bunch of ancient cultists. A sort of… stream of consciousness thing for the heroine’s last moments.

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My name’s Amy, and I’m an idiot.

Seriously. I’ve been through a whole lot in my life. You probably don’t want to hear about it, want to get to the nitty-gritty of what happened in my sorta-kinda illustrious career as a Hero. But everything needs context, and right now I have the time to provide it.

My parents… my real parents, that is, they didn’t want a kid. Put me up for adoption early. I grew up in foster care. People say it’s a bad way to grow up, but I didn’t find anything wrong with it. I mean, sure, my “parents” had to divide their time a lot, but they’re only human, you know? Their failings, such as they were, were only ever that of a person who happens to live one second per second, one hour per hour. I don’t blame them at all.

I guess I probably blame my original parents somehow. I don’t know exactly what for, though.

I grew up with a lot of boys, always jostling and muscling for rank. ‘Cause I didn’t know any better, I joined in. Oftentimes, I was told I should be more ‘ladylike,’ but given my foster-mom used to fix the pickup’s engine and cuss blue at the teevee every day, I didn’t rightly know what a lady was, properly. Took me a long time to find out, really.

There are too many, and they are all too close.

When I was young, I was really into comics. And the thing about the early comics is, pretty soon they were actually being mirrored on the teevee. I was one of the privileged who got to see comics played out on the screen, before it was commonplace.
I’m not ashamed to tell you, I had my first sexual dream about Captain Valor. He might be ashamed of it, though.
I was enthralled by heroes. Their… stridency, their very supra-realness. I could never put words to it before now. But now, the words come to mind, come to my lips… too late, all too late.

They are armed, and I am not.

It was when I was about sixteen, I got my first job; Cooke’s Electronics. The manager, Harlan… he was a dick. A lecherous, conniving little slime. I was too young for him, God save me, but I saw how he acted around other female employees. And, after I spent a year or so there, I saw his attentions turn to me. By that point, I was sick. Sick of everything. Sick of my shitty job, sick of my shitty home (though it had always been good enough for me before) and sick of my shitty friends. I got out.
I’d saved money, and I still idealised heroes. I heard stories of how you could go to the East and learn mysterious techniques that would give you superhuman abilities… of course, I’d heard about them all from comic book cut-out mail order sections. I knew that was a crock… I was determined to find these things myself.

Their eyes glow with malicious intent.

So I ended up in Korea. And let me tell you, I’d already learned a couple of moves before I’d even hit Eastern soil. Too many bars, too many eager men… too many times when I’d needed to put a guy bigger than me down fast, and as an example to the rest. It was like singing. I’d found I had a good voice… now I needed to train it. I started with Muay Thai, but I soon grew bored. Or restless, maybe. Something. Soon enough, I moved on. Not before I’d learned everything I could learn, either. I just… grew bored. I moved through into China. I learned the military’s unarmed defence drill there… at least, most of it. Soon enough, I was dabbling in the Japanese disciplines as well, but never enough to really find… I don’t know. You know how every seeming martial arts master in the films has some sort of inner peace? I never found that.

They raise their wicked, curved blades.

In time, in too little time to really learn the secrets of any one thing, I moved back to America. And I did what I wanted to do… I dyed my hair red once more, because the colour had gone out of it since I’d been travelling. I spent my money on getting leather boots, leather pants… a snug leather jacket. I put dark mascara on, and I stocked up on hip-flask whiskey and small medical kits. Then I went out to fight crime. Everything was… it was almost like a joke. But it was the best kind of joke, where you laugh and laugh as you fly by the seat of your pants, making it up as you go along.

They stab their blades forwards.

After I started as a hero, I found myself wired almost all the time. I’d realised the stakes after some punk nearly punctured my lung with a knife… I started drinking heavier then. I already smoked, but I smoked more. I started frequenting clubs on my nights out, took guys home. Took girls home too. It didn’t really seem to matter. One at a time, or all together… makes no difference to me; That was practically my motto, in pleasure as much as in crime-fighting. Things changed, though.

I feel the first blade slam against my sternum.

I got involved. Got involved with a group called the Guardian Force. Good people. They supported me, watched my back.
I got involved in other ways, too. The dead man called Daniel… I felt so much pity for him. Once he was like me, now he’s… so different.
I felt for Sarah, my roommate. Mostly, I felt guilty. She could control stone and earth, to an extent, and I knew she liked me… even though she was just… hell ,what? Sixteen years old? And by this time I was about a decade older. But I knew the truth she didn’t, and that’s why I never let on. Even though I thought, sometimes, it’d be nice to teach her the ropes… knew she’d get the wrong idea. It ain’t often I decide to take the high road. Too much effort.

I feel the thorn pierce my very heart.

So that’s it. A short, brutal life, filled with short, brutal days. Violence and sex, alcohol and pain. I never really slept a lot, in my hero days… too much exertion or too much alcohol invariably meant that I just fell into bed and passed out.
I’m not going to say now that I was a hero. I can’t lay claim to that title. I’ve done so many things, and so often they’ve not been good.

I’m sorry.

I’m sorry that I made my foster mother cry.
I’m sorry I’m skipping out on Sarah, leaving her with rent to pay and a creepy landlord to rebuff… there’s some money I left in an envelope. It’s not much; not enough to ease my conscience.
I’m sorry that I made Jess take up smoking… but then, I guess it doesn’t matter so much, seeing as she’ll never get cancer.

But then, neither will I now, will I?

I feel the thorn pierce… my very heart…

And finally, I sleep the sleep of the just.