I feel like we're all

Just lost in the squall

Watching and waiting

For last call to fall

A world we've given up on

Though maybe that's just me

We're an army of sleepers

Listening to tyrants decree

I know some think it's wrong

To play the revolutionary song

But I don't think I can wait

Through this endless debate

Just to hope we can outlive

The pain and the hate

I'm a soldier without a war

Just trying to weather this storm

And I feel like it's better

To die on my feet

Then sit and die

While chained to my seat

I'm done trying to hide

This demon inside

I hope it's not forever

But I'm breaking the tether

And I can only hope

That it all comes together

To all the survivors

Being born as we speak

I can't promise you much

But I know you're not weak

You've fought a whole war

Where no one could see

But you're not really alone

And that shits the key

When you're lost in the darkness

And can't find you way back

Remember these words

You can weather any attack

You're a survivor

It's what we do

An emotional Macgyver

Who can carry through

I know that shits tough

And I'm right there with you

But that's how you know

You can see this shit through

So the next time you're lost

In a neverending nightmare

Just close your eyes

And know that we're right there

The smell of rain fills the upper levels of my tower, another attempt by nature to drag me away from my work and back into the bittersweet waste of time that are my memories, no doubt. The storm has been ongoing for the past three days, providing a welcome distraction at times and an unwelcome one at others. Right now, it is the latter.

The rows and rows of glowing concentric runes that float in front of me, casting pale light against the walls of my study, are constantly collapsing in on themselves as I try in what is probably yet another vain attempt to shepherd the arcane energy into a stable and usable state.

Stable perfection once more eludes me as, once again, the ghosts of the past threaten to upset my otherwise unclouded mind and ruin my volatile work. I sigh, and allow the construct to fade entirely, removing my glasses and attempting to rub the lingering vestiges of the sleep that tries to claim me even now as I do so. I haven’t slept since the storm began. I try not to, sleep that is. They always find me there, and I don’t have the energy anymore to entertain the nightmares they bring. Even if I deserve them.

I set the glasses beside me on a table and walk over to the nearest window. The world without them leaves my vision in an endless cascade of flickering motion as I watch the rain fall upon my home and the overcast community below. Though to be fair, it’s always overcast. I can’t see anything on the streets from here. Whether or not that’s because of my purposeful lack of depth perception, or simply because they are cowering from the storm, I have no idea.

I close my eyes and listen to the rainfall. If it truly insists on taking me back, than I decide to relent. Otherwise, I’ll be useless anyway.

“Elias?” I hear her say. “Are you sure about this?”

I almost retreat immediately. Of all of the memories, it would be this one. It’s always this one. I choke back a sob, as I remember the lies that I told her.

“Of course, Ellie. I would never do anything to put us in danger. Any of us. Especially the child.”

“I…I know. I just can’t but be a little nervous. I mean, this is new territory. For all of us.” She says as she rests her arms on her pregnant belly.

I give her a smile and let out a small, gentle laugh. “That’s what we do best, isn’t it love? Blaze a trail. Trust me.”

I feel the stinging tears pouring down my face, even through the fog of the past. You stupid fucking fool. She never should have gone anywhere near you, much less trusted you.

I try to pull myself free of it all, but now that I’ve started, it’s like trying to pull myself free of rushing rapids by sheer force of will. Pointless. Besides, I still deserve this.

I see myself step past her, igniting the various forms of esoteric arcana as I do, and give life to the thing that destroyed everything that I loved. That, gods fucking help me, I still love. I see the rift begin. My smile is still there but begins to waver ever so slightly as I see fluctuations in it that shouldn’t be happening. The problem is, she sees them too. And I see the fear on her face when I turn around.

“It’s okay. Don’t worry. I have it under control.” I tell her. More pointless lies to fill the final moments of our existence together. You arrogant prick.

I spew out endless placations and false promises, as I attempt to right the situation. But everything I do seems to upset the rift even more. And then it happens. The rift widens and the sound of innumerable screams assaults my ears, and I stagger to the ground, as untold nightmares crawl forth from an unending abyss of darkness and malice. Then I feel sharp claws rake across the side of head, and everything becomes black as a winter’s night. By the time I come to, and have the cognizance to examine my surroundings, I start to realize the truth. The rift is closed, but everything is wrong. Feels wrong.

I throw myself to my feet. “ELLIE!?” I scream her name, over and over. But she doesn’t answer. It doesn’t take long to find her. She didn’t even have a chance to make it very far. I collapse on the ground, trying to hold back the urge to vomit. There’s hardly anything left that I recognize. Except the locket I gave her the day after we were married.

Some part of me, even through the wailing and self-hatred, recognizes the absence of our unborn child. They took it out of her. It takes everything I have not to picture what they could’ve done with it.

I open my eyes, unable to hold on anymore through the sobs that wrack my body.

“Do you ever think that maybe there’s a reason that we are confined to one world? Maybe we shouldn’t play in the sandbox of the gods. Especially without an invitation.” Her words still carry through to me, through the barriers I put up to block it all out. I should have listened then.

Something catches my eye on the streets below, even through the rain and my imperfect vision. I see one of them venturing forth from its hive beneath the city. I grind my teeth and clench my fists so hard that my nails dig into my palms, and I actually hear the sounds of dripping blood pattering against the wooden floor, a singular note added to the symphony of endless rain assaulting what is left of the world I knew.

I watch it, but only for a moment, as it quickly retreats back into the nearest building. For some reason they don’t like the rain, and I can only keep it going when I’m awake. I may have condemned the world to death and destruction, but this is still my city. The weather system I devised included. I turn away from the window and stride with purpose back to the desk. I place my glasses back where they belong, and I begin again.

Someday, somehow, I will find a way to fix the world that I’ve broken. Even if it costs me my life. After all, that’s the only thing that I have left. And I will gladly give it up.

The smell of drying blood and viscera should probably have been a sign that things were not going to go according to plan. But then again, when do I ever plan? Almost never. So hah, take that fate! How do you ruin a plan when there isn’t one?

You know what the best part of my abilities is? Turning every stairwell into an elevator. No, not literally. That would be a terrible power. Unless Apotheosis decides to make the world into a life size game of chutes and ladders again. But what would be the odds of that happening a third time? I’m betting very low.

Anyway, what I meant was, I stepped from dark corner of the stairwell to dark corner of the stairwell one floor above the previous dark corner, over and over until I started seeing “weird shit™”. Besides no sane person takes the elevator anymore. And what am I if not a paragon of sanity. I think that to myself, as I'm pelted in the face by what felt and smelled suspiciously like ocean spray…on the 22nd floor…in the stairwell. Hm.

Well, I’ll be damned if I don’t enjoy a good mystery, so I walked to the door leading to the 22nd floor hallway and yanked that fucker open. I had a good split second before I managed to shadow-step into the hallway itself which left me soaked up to my knees in the lake’s worth of saltwater that spewed out of the doorway like a haphazard gas station burrito breakfast after a few hours.

Quite an image, I know. What can I say? I’m an artist.

What was infinitely more interesting than that, was the eight foot tall being made of salt water, coral, and an entire school of fish that was fighting someone that I recognized.

“Ionic, good to see you again.” I said to the very powerful electrokinetic.

All he said in reply was a series of grunting noises, though that was probably because of the series of punches to his sternum that the sea creature decided to levy his way, rather than in response to my greeting. Probably.

Ionic had been an interesting member of The Saviors to meet. If you can call unchecked aggression and less than heroic homicidal tendencies “interesting”. He had fair skin, bright electric blue eyes, and platinum blonde hair that was about medium length, in that classic style of “short enough to not be a liability in a fight but long enough to look like Zeus’ younger cousin”.

Does Zeus have cousins? Probably.

According to word on the street, AKA The Savior’s files that I kind of sort of maybe took a look at when I was in their headquarters letting them have the honor of hiring me to do what I was already doing, he used to have a robotic body that was used to contain his immense amount of bioelectricity after he burnt out his original one, but then an Activated by the name of Ambrosia made him a new fully organic body. Which is kind of the full genetic equivalent of finding out that someone isn’t a natural blonde in my opinion. Like yeah, he might have a pretty boy thing going on, but they’re not real, if you know what I mean.

When I saw arcs of bright blue electricity start to form around Ionic, that’s when I decided that I should probably just leave him to his little spat and make my way further in. Which I did.

Ignoring the sounds of one-sided combat coming from behind me, I made my way towards the next closest throwdown that I could hear. There was an even bigger fight going down upstairs too that was deafening, even through the walls. I came upon an interesting sight. A man with pitch black skin and bloodshot yellow eyes all over his body. Like, ALL over his body. Even on the soles of his feet. It was pretty disturbing. You would also think that he would have noticed me, but I guess he was a little preoccupied.

Luckily enough for him his feet didn’t seem to touch the floor. He just levitated about a foot off the ground. Currently throwing miniature black holes at the guy and levitating as well, was Dr. Elias Magnus, better known around here as Darkstar. Elias is a local legend, born and bred in New York post-Activation. He was a scientist trying to find a way to harness different forms of esoteric energy to try and find a permanent replacement for all of the old-world power sources.

One critical mishap later and next thing you know, he’s Activated. He’s one of the only people I know of that wasn’t born with his powers. Then again, maybe he was, but the accident was the first time he ever used them out of reflex. I’ll have to pick his brain about that at some point.

Nice guy, honestly. Unless you piss him off. Then you get to be subjected to having your entire body shoved into a blackhole the size of a human fist. A normal human fist, not like the planet crackers on Atlas.

I sit there for a minute watching old man Elias, who is about a third of my age by the way, before he notices my presence and then gets his block knocked off by an invisible punch while he’s distracted. You would think that he would know better than to let his guard down in a fight, man his age and all. Also, apparently Eye-guy is telekinetic. So, I do Elias the favor of wrapping inky black tendrils around the many-eyed man and giving him a second to breathe. I’m a nice guy like that.

Elias whips around the guy in the air and aims a fist with a black hole wrapped around it right into the back of the many-eyed man’s eyeball laden head. The ensuing impact splatters blood and eyeball juice everywhere and sends Eye-guy careening out of a 22nd floor window and down to the streets below. I guess he knocked him out, or maybe he can’t actually fly and can only levitate, because the poor bastard hits the ground below at full force and splats.

“Void?! What are you doing here? I thought you were rejec-passed over.” The 43-year-old scientist says, doing a terrible job of covering the blatant insult.

“Just doing my civic duty, as always. And I wasn’t rejected. I declined.” I lied through my teeth at the man. He frowned at me, then sighed.

“Look, have you seen Sentinel or Gigaton?”

“Sentinel yes, Gigaton no.”

“Good, then he must still be fighting Redstar.” he said, relief evident in his voice.

I pushed past the initial thought of why so many people needed star in their name and told him where I saw Sentinel. He visibly paled, which was impressive given his already pale complexion. Between that and the grey streaks in his otherwise jet-black hair and beard, he had a goth Dr. Frankenstein thing going on. Actually, I imagine that this is what I would have looked like about 70 years ago, if I could age that is. Then he turned and started nervously pacing, even though his feet still weren’t touching the ground.

“…no.” he said. “Not again. It’s going to be too late by the time he comes back again.” Then he turned back to me.

“I need you to do me a favor. I need you to find Eldritch and Starchild and tell them that Ana…Gigaton, needs backup.”

“Another star name? Why are there so many of you? Not that Void is the most creative name or anything but still-”

“Nicholas! Please hurry!” he said. I frowned at the mention of my first name. I wasn’t aware that he knew it, or that anyone did. Except for me and a whole host of dead relatives and acquaintances.

I just nodded and shadow-stepped away from the room. Next stop, the 23rd floor.

The sight of Eldritch and Starchild wasn’t all that surprising, given that I was told that they were here. The sight of the…thing, that they were fighting was another thing entirely. It was a hulking mass of irradiated tumors and body horror. Fun. And then there was a man dressed like an old-world party magician, who kept opening and closing portals to redirect telekinetically thrown objects and energy bolts back at the two heroes. And man let me tell you, what a fight.

But first, more origin stories. Yay!

Eldritch is a pretty big legend. Mostly because he was actually the first Activated on record, technically. It’s a bit complicated.

In 1922 the man that would come to be known as Eldritch was a creole conman on the streets of New Orleans named Achilles Dupont. Selling fake voodoo and hoodoo to all of the naïve and gullible European tourists and refugees on the streets of the French quarter, he would end up crossing the wrong man. A white man by the name of Alistair Wicked.

Fucking ominous name, right?

Achilles found himself kidnapped along with a lot of other “people who shall not be missed”. Alistair’s words not mine. Turns out that Alistair was an occultist who bought a talisman from Achilles that would supposedly protect whoever wore it from malevolent spirits. Except that Achilles was a conman selling nothing of the sort. Not really anyway.

So, when Alistair’s beloved wife Francine wore the talisman during one of their rituals, and against all odds they actually made contact with something, it did nothing to save her from being ripped away to some nightmare dimension by the entity in question.

Achilles and the other people taken by Alistair and his cult were meant to be used in a sacrificial ritual to bring his wife back. But instead, when all the other “sacrifices” had been cut down during the endless chanting juxtaposed with screams cut suddenly short, and Achilles found himself under the ritual knife apologizing and begging for his life to a man that had lost any morality well before he had lost his wife, something…unexpected happened.

Not that anyone noticed at first. See, the knife came down, right into Achilles’ heart no less. But, unlike the others, he was ripped away, just like Francine Wicked had been. And in his place was a single multi-faceted jewel containing the screaming visage of Francine Wicked.

Alright, I may have made that last part up.

But truthfully nothing happened. Alistair’s wife was not returned to him, the entity did not intervene in anyway except by removing Achilles from the world, and Alistair spent the next few years going insane before being convicted of killing his wife and hanging himself in his prison cell.

I’d feel bad, if he wasn’t a racist, murdering, cult leader son of a bitch.

According to the man formerly known as Achilles Dupont, there was a lot more going on behind the scenes, though. He spent an amount of time between a few minutes and literal eons trying to convince an alien, eldritch entity that looked like a dying galaxy to return him home. An odd specification of time, I know. But I’m not the one writing the stories here, just recounting them to an adoring audience is all.

Achilles claims to have made a deal with the entity. Apparently, it hadn’t been aware of anything outside of its own dimension before the Wickeds tore a temporary hole in the walls between its dimension and ours. But now it found itself infinitely curious about all of the things and concepts that flooded the minds of humans. Love, hate, hope, despair. And that was just the surface. Sunlight, grass, ice cream, the list goes on.

The point is that Achilles offered a part of his very soul to the being just to be taken back home. That way it could experience all of those things through the lens of a mortal being, i.e. him, in the safety of its home. Except that, oddly enough, the entity considered this to be a raw trade for Achilles himself. So, it offered a fragment of it’s own essence in return, to replace the part of himself that he would be giving up.

And look, I know what you’re thinking. But Void, how did any of this happen if the world before Activation was mind-numbingly boring and normal? I mean, still awful a lot of the time but in a non-reality shattering way. Good question. I have no idea. But I have some theories. Worldshaper rewriting history? An alternate universe? Or maybe, the world was never as cut and dry as we believed it to be, and we only started paying attention when it became impossible to ignore. Who knows?

Anyway, Achilles, afraid of the consequences of being part eldritch abomination, attempted to turn down the offer but his attempt fell on deaf…well not ears, but you get the point. It didn’t listen. After having a part of his very soul removed and haphazardly replaced with a dark, writhing shard of iridescence like an ill-fitting puzzle piece, he was sent screaming out of that twisted reality. According to him, he awoke back on Earth but in a very different world then the one that he had left behind. And with his heart once more intact.

Oh, and he could also read people’s minds, fly, and crush a man with his mind like a fucking soda can.

Which oddly enough is what he just did to the monstrosity being fought while I was explaining all of this to you. What a coincidence. Body horror is down for the count. Kinda makes you wonder why Eldritch didn’t just do that to begin with.

I yell out across the room and tell Eldritch what Elias had told me. He acknowledges my words and disappears down an adjacent hallway, presumably towards the explosive fight going down on the other side of the building. I also told him that I like his hair. He didn’t react to that part, but as a man with shadow abilities, I kind of wish that I could pull off the black dreads look.

Starchild seemed a bit preoccupied with the magician, who had begun throwing his own energy barrages at the star skinned hero.

Right so, next up for story time is the Radiant Wonder: Starchild.

He was born on a Native American reservation in Dakota post-Activation, though I can never remember which Dakota. I guess it doesn’t matter anyway, both are basically gone now. Nobody knows his real name, but his past is interesting to say the least. Maybe not Eldritch interesting, but still interesting.

According to Lakota tradition he was assigned a “wanagi”, some sort of star spirit meant to protect him, at birth. Except that unlike pretty much every member of his people ever, his star spirit decided that it was not content to watch and protect from the sky. So, it decided to become one with him and give him the power to protect himself, and his people. And that’s about it, as far as public knowledge goes. Didn’t really have a chance to do more than skim his file.

Starchild has glowing white hair, bright nuclear green eyes, and skin like a nebula. Stardust and cosmic gas flit across his form constantly, as if his body is just a human shaped tear in reality that acts as a kind of window into the cosmic void. And he can fly, create bolts of very painful and dangerous plasma, and, perhaps most obvious of all, can survive unaided in the vacuum of space.

Which about brings us to the close of this little scuffle, as Starchild decides to go full supernova on David Copperfield, leaving nothing left.

“Bit much, don’t you think?” I say.

“He kept making jokes about Indian giving every time he redirected a blast back at me. So, no. Excuse me if my patience wore a little thin.” he said back.

I hadn’t heard anything like that, but then again, I was kind of busy talking to you.

“Darkstar said-” I began.

“I heard.” he said, cutting me off. Then he flew down the hallway just as Eldritch had.

“You try to help a guy out, and does anyone give the slightest bit of gratitude? Of course not.”

“Why is the reject still here?” came a particularly electrifying voice.

I turned around to see Darkstar and Ionic coming up the stairs behind me. Right, I had completely forgotten about everyone’s least favorite sparkplug.

“I wasn’t-”

“Don’t care. Leave.” he said before pushing past me and following after the others.

I looked at Darkstar who was giving me a sympathetic look.

“He’s just jealous that I can teleport, and he still has to run down a hallway like a normie.” I said trying to brush off the blatant hostility.

“Nick…Void, you really shouldn’t be here.” he said. Take a wild guess what he did next. If you guessed “levitated down the hallway leaving my pasty ass alone, yet again”, then you are correct.

Well, that’s why I have you. Right? YOU can’t fly away and leave me grasping at the scraps of my ill-fated existence, unlike everyone else. Huh…where did THAT come from? Looks like something has managed to worm its way free of the prison that is my subconscious. Time to put it back where it belongs. Aaaaand…repressed.

What were we talking about? Oh right, Ionic and his ocean of character defects. Well, I suppose we have time to deep-dive into his backstory as well. I didn’t really bother with the full treatment before, but oddly enough I can’t remember why,

Anyway, Ionic was born as Lucien Leclair, a French-American from San Diego. Lucien is one of the handful of people I’ve met that has been around as long as I have. When the Activation occurred, his abilities manifested themselves and the sheer amount of bioelectricity running through his body burned him alive. As if by instinct, the bio-electric field that was his consciousness shunted itself into the city’s power grid in order to survive.

After a few months he was discovered by another legend. Lexicon, a man given knowledge of many Activated by whatever power he had. Of course, back then, he didn’t quite know how to use that power to get at specific information. He just had to go with whatever his super-powered mind spit out. But this is Ionic’s story, not Lexicon’s.

After he was discovered, the government agency that Lexicon worked for found a way to move Lucien into a new mechanical body designed to contain his power. And Lucien himself. See, the thing about Lucien is that the months of crippling isolation without the sensory input that comes with having a human body had a disastrous effect on his psyche. That and whatever method the government had used to rip him out of the San Diego power grid and put him into his new body.

Lucien suffered severely violent psychotic episodes that seemed completely random and could stop as suddenly as they started. So, they added to his body a kind of shut down function that would detect when he was on the verge of emotional instability and then shunt his consciousness into a kind of faraday cage, where he would essentially be put into a timeout sensory deprivation chamber until he calmed down. Yeah, pretty twisted.

He's still an asshole but, nobody deserves that shit.

The “does not exist” agency that employed Lucien, called A.R.E.S. though I have no idea what the name stood for, used Lucien as a super-powered assassin. Well usually assassin would denote some level of subtlety, but in Ionic’s case they kind of just switched his timeout function off and set him loose on whatever unfortunate organization had become enough of a problem to need to be deleted from existence. Obviously, this was back before the world was completely broken, when the world governments still somehow believed that they could control what was happening.

Thankfully for Ionic, his life took a different path when he met a Greek woman going by the codename Ambrosia. Ambrosia was a biokinetic, which meant that she could manipulate the human body on a molecular level. Or animal body. Any body really, as long as it was organic.

Ambrosia had taken to using her abilities to heal less than savory people as a back-alley doctor for hire. Apparently, she had information on several key targets of A.R.E.S. that had been given patch-ups by her, and Ionic had been sent to retrieve said information and then either forcibly recruit her or remove her from the picture entirely. Except that, in a rare moment of non-violent clarity, Ionic begged her to fix him. And she did. Eventually.

Making an entire body from scratch is a lot more difficult then healing a gunshot wound or even a brain hemorrhage, but she figured it out and even managed to curb most of his violent tendencies.

How? I have no idea, but I won’t pretend I’m not curious.

And the rest is history. Just like this building, IF THOSE EXPLOSIONS KEEP GOING OFF!

What the hell is going on back there, anyway?

A rebel with no cause

In world without meaning

An army of thralls

Too afraid of bleeding

So the world created me

A fallen angel who can see

To punish the greedy

And those full of envy

The ones who would steal

And lash others to the wheel

For daring to tell them the way that we feel

I may be lost

And I may rage

But I was put here to rattle the cage

So when they test me

And see black wings unfurl

They will feel the wrath of the Bastard of the World

Ironically, I'm at my keyboard when they find me. I hear the door to my trailer give way and the first thought to go through my head is a completely unoriginal but understandable "What the fuck?", followed quickly by the second thought.

Nobody would fucking dare.

I step out of my room, ignoring the part of me that says to just wait and ambush whoever it is as they come down the hall, and step into the living room.

I'd like to say that I'm surprised at what I see. But, to be honest, I figured this day was coming.

They just sit there and stare at me for a moment as if simultaneously disappointed and angry at discovering the mundane existence of their creator. I look at the bent and broken door and the holes in the doorframe where the hinges were ripped out completely.

"The door didn't do anything wrong. It's a bit much, don't you think?"

Sentinel is the first to step forward. I wince because I know that he has the most room to be upset about how I chose to bring him into being. And I know that I deserve whatever he says and does.

The unnamed werewolf is there too, the only surviving member of a trio of brothers fallen victim to a werewolf in the first horror story that I ever wrote in first grade.

He was both the only survivor and the killer after he was bitten. I guess I ALWAYS had issues.

The last one is a bit more obscure.

Back when my father was homeschooling me after he believed that my mental health coupled with my apathetic middle school teachers was slowly turning me into a potential school shooter, he realized that I had some talent in creative writing. So, he tasked me with writing a story. Just a story. Whatever I wanted. I was actually excited that I got to do something fun that day.

Of course I quickly grew bored with the assignment when my brain decided that HAVING to do it was synonymous with torture. So the knockoff Legend of Zelda protagonist with adopted parents, amnesia and a prophecy to his name was born. I don't even remember his name actually, and he doesn't volunteer it.

Not my best work, for sure.

"Why?" They all ask in unison. Fuck if that isn't the question, huh.

"I don't know." is all I can find to answer with.

"Not good enough." Sentinel says.

Right. So I guess I get to explain him now.

Adrian Cross, AKA Sentinel. My first real attempt at creating a superhero. Akin to Superman in that he is damn near unbreakable and that even if someone finds a way to kill him, he just comes back. Whether he wants to or not. He was struck by some mysterious red lightning after having a screaming match with a lightning storm he chose to see as God. Then he threatened to pull the trigger on the gun aimed at his temple. That was when it happened.

I know. Says a lot about me, doesn't it. A person with suicidal depression saved by God or whatever before he can go through with it, and being given immense power. Delusional for sure.

Except that I didn't stop there. I kept writing, because of course I did.

Adrian was already in a bad place in life. Being given powers akin to Superman but with a bit of a theme around the red lightning that created him did nothing to erase that. But when he died fighting a man with powers similar to his that had chosen a much darker path, but managed to take the evil bastard with him, he was content. He was truly ready to go. He could die a hero.

But guess what? I kept writing. So, he came back. Again. That kind of shattered him for a while, I think. To make things even worse. It was then that I got back into therapy. I stopped writing for him, because he was a character born of the most depressing aspects of my mind, and that's all I could see in him anymore.

Until recently. But that doesn't really matter right now.

"I'm sorry." I say. Judging by the looks on their faces, that definitely isn't good enough either. I sigh.

"I created you to help me understand." I start, giving each of them a sympathetic look in turn. They don't interrupt me so I continue.

"I'm very flawed, this I'm sure you know by now. When I created each of you, I gave you a piece of myself. Something that I couldn't reconcile on my own. In the hopes that you could help me find a way to do just that. And, in a way, you did. I grew, and I learned and I need you to know that I never forgot about any of you. I use the lessons you taught me every single day. For myself and those that I love. I'm only sorry that I never returned the favor. But you know what? I will."

Something in them relaxes. Sentinel especially seems taken aback. I knew he would understand, even if it still hurt him. He's a much better person then I am. They all are. That was the point.

Slowly the other two come around. I don't think they're okay with the why of it, so much as they know that nothing can change it. One by one, they fade, as if they were never there.

Let this be a lesson. Never abandon those that you've created. They deserve more than that, just like you.

The foggy umbra of a city far from sleep lay spread out before me. In all those old superhero movies, there was always the edgy “hero” posted on a rooftop, watching the people he had chosen to protect, and posing like a badass. I remember a time where I would have envied that hero like most anyone else. Now, not so much.

But after everything this world has endured, everything I have, I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. The emergence of the Awakened almost burned the world to ash. We oohed and ahhed at the fantastical things we saw, ripped right out of films, comics, and our wildest dreams. Until a man made of molten rock drowned Chicago in a lake of fire. Until a woman the size of an ocean liner, sunk half of the eastern seaboard into the ocean. When a child of 5 years old threw a tantrum so violent that it killed millions and turned most of the central United States into the Grand Canyon 2: Apocalyptic Boogaloo.

But against all odds, we survived. Back in the old days, they would have called that a miracle. But that was before miracles became commonplace. Back when people prayed for one every day, instead of praying that they could survive one more day without being subjected to another “miracle”.

But it’s not all bad. It never is, and that’s a life lesson that took an apocalypse, and a cosmic amount of irony, to sink in. We may have lost contact with most of the world when Activation occurred. But focusing on ourselves for a while hasn’t been the worst thing.

Ignoring the despotic warlords warring in the streets to claim the entire tri-state area as their “domain”, the tribal groups of sentient ex-zoo animals ruling what’s left of Manhattan, and the roving groups of cannibalistic electrokinetics running people down on their self-powered motorcycles like twisted ghost-riders in what used to be central park.

Just another day in New York, post-Activation.

My name is Adrian, but people around here know me as Void. I’ve been around for a while. As in pre-Activation. That was almost a century ago now, and I’d like to think that I look pretty good for my age. Something about my abilities stopped me from aging, unlike everyone else. Most everyone else, anyway.

I reach out with my power and slip into the shadows behind me, emerging an instant later out of the shadows of an alley below.

The first thing you need to know about life in this world of titans and self-proclaimed dark gods is that things don’t abide by the laws of the old world anymore. And I don’t just mean the laws of physics, or the literal “legal” laws. Haha, yeah no, we don’t have those anymore.

I mean reality. And “reality”, is whatever men and women like Apotheosis and Nirvana feel like making it today. And I mean that literally. Fucking worldshapers man, god damn. Then there’s the whole monster thing. See, whatever manifested all of us world destroying bastards into being, didn’t stop there. It decided that the world needed more horrible shit in it.

Now, even on a good day, you can just be going along with your day trying, for some ungodly reason, to fish some dinner out of the Hudson. Next thing you know, a two-legged fish the size of a small dog, but with biceps way bigger than whatever you might claim to have down there, decides that this time YOU get to be dinner.

But hey, that’s where I come in. I slip through the shadows and next thing you know tenebrous blades of inky darkness sprout from my own shadow, turning that scaly little fuck into sushi. You’re welcome.

At least that’s how it was. But then THEY showed up. Some busted ass Costco brand Justice League wannabes calling themselves The Saviors. I know right, fucking pretentious pricks. They came to bring “order” and “law”. But how do you bring that shit to a place where even the trees try to turn your ass into a light snack.

I know, a lot of things trying to eat people, very obvious. But trust me, when you think that the last thing you will ever see is someone being stuffed into a demonic tree’s mouth and seeing their arm being severed by pulpy wooden teeth as they scream for help and try to reach for the outside world one last time, everything else falls by the wayside in terms of worries.

Anyway, that particular bit of ever-burning nightmare fuel aside, I now find myself out of a job. Kind of. See, when the newbies rolled into town, they found it every bit as difficult to pull off the impossible as one would think. One being me, obviously. So, they decided to try and whip the local Activated into shape and form some kind of super-powered police force.

Now, I have standards. But as New York’s most well-respected hero, I decided to do them the favor of throwing my hat in that ring. Be the Costco Batman to Sentinel’s Costco Superman and all that. But then they fucking rejected me. Apparently, I didn’t pass their “psychiatric evaluation”.

“Narcissistic tendencies, acute schizophrenia and occasional complete disassociation from reality.”

So, because I believe in myself more than they do and occasionally talk to people who aren’t there, they branded me as a liability. You try living for a century in this world, never aging, and stuck watching everyone you love die to overgrown nightmare shrubberies and other horrible bullshit, and see if you don’t come out the other side a little less than sane.

I step through the shadows once more and find myself atop another grungy rooftop. I was here before they even bothered to turn their golden merciful gaze on this city, which was doing just fine without them, by the way. Mostly.

Okay so, they got the power up and running again. Whatever, we did fine without electricity for almost eighty years. The water? Tastes like irradiated flop sweat, but sure it’s on, I guess. The Volt gang…fine I’ll give them that one. Less cannibal bikers is a win for everyone, I suppose. But the whole turning central park into a community garden thing was all ego on their part.

Anyway, you might think that I took it a bit hard. Being that the only thing keeping me going is trying to help out where I can. You would be wrong. I took the news with dignity and grace. And then I put Sentinel’s statue through a shadowy blender.

I mean come on! The fucker has only been here for like six months and already has a statue?! I’ve been here for decades! Where is my statue?! Not that I need one, obviously. I’m not nearly as vain as that unbreakable bastard. If only his statue had been as unbreakable.

I chuckle to myself as I step from shadow to shadow, making my way towards the city proper. My completely understandable lapse in judgement aside, I decided that regardless of their unattainable expectations, I am still more than capable of doing what I’ve always done. Protecting the people of New York.

And when I found out that an invading team of so-called “supervillains” calling themselves the Doom-Walkers had moved into my city, well how could I not do my civic duty.

When a body came crashing down through a skyscraper window, broken and bloodied, did I hesitate? Of course not. When I realized that the broken man in front of me was the unbreakable Scion of the Skies, THE Sentinel himself, did I stop for even a moment?

Nope.

After all, it wouldn’t be the first time that I’ve died. Immortality is a bitch. Did I not mention that? Ah well.

What’s the worst that could happen?

A life of darkness was nothing to you

As you cut it away with your smile

A light so bright that I was left there to marvel

That something like you could come from something like me

Endless hours of dreading the moment

That you would be left to my corrupting touch

Done away in an instant as I realized that it was I who was at your mercy

A light that I had thought could not find me

Lost in my shadows as I was

That was nothing to you as you reached out

And pulled me into the world I dared not dream about

Fading light that leads the way

To the place where shadows play

A place not found at time of day

Where they beckon you to stay

A place that is bereft of light

Where you no longer have to fight

Where memories will linger on

Where you never have to meet the dawn

When the void has claimed us all

And as we drift through umbral squall

We can let go and feel the bliss

Of the comforting abyss

An endless world that once was black

And filled with echos of things it lacked

Is now a world of endless joy

Where we no longer have to destroy

A silent voice

Devoid of choice

A twisted world where we rejoice

The deaths of friends made into foes

Our hypocrisy it shows

The same fate waits for us below

At the cold and lonely close

My mind is on this price we pay

To extend this farce another day

Watching as the gold threads fray

To reveal they're truly grey

To extend this ignorance

While we're feigning innocence

As we ask for deliverance

Will not make a difference

Trapped in cycles to which we submit

And ignore the sins that we commit

To make a world that's counterfeit

A world that's lost on this hypocrite