It was an accident. An accident.

No one was ever supposed to get hurt. No one was ever supposed to die. And yet… here we are.

I sat in the safety of my lair, watching newsfeeds and live footage from security cameras on the monitors laid out in front of me.

I watched, jaw slack, as my arch nemesis Orion, the city’s resident Golden Boy… burned his home to the ground.

So much was already ruined, and Orion was only getting started.

Yes, yes, I know what you’re probably thinking. Why would the big, bad, evil supervillain care if the hero finally snapped and went on a blood hungry rampage? Well… it was always a game.

It was supposed to be a game. A harmless one.

There was always a cycle to things. A balance.

I’d first rob a bank/kidnap a politician/whatever I felt like. Orion would catch me. We’d struggle. He’d inevitably take me to jail. I escape. Rinse and repeat.

But at the end of the day, it was always supposed to be harmless.

No one was supposed to get hurt.

And no one ever has gotten hurt… not until now.

Guilt erupted within my chest like a bomb, taking my teeth clench and eyes water.

It was an accident.

But… it was my fault.

She wasn’t supposed to die.

Fourteen. That’s how old she had been.

Orion’s daughter.

It had been another iconic game of cat and mouse. I had been driving my new sonic car as the hero hurried after, thrill of the chase flowing through my veins like a drug.

We were en route to Orion’s house, and I had been planning on wrecking into that new little gazebo of his, insult to injury. He was richer than God, so I figured, who cares. It would’ve been an annoyance, at best.

But then… then she was there, sitting inside.

I thought she was at school, she was supposed to be at school.

Maybe if I had noticed a minute, even a second earlier, maybe I could’ve stopped in time. I tried to stop the car once she came into view, but the damn thing wouldn’t. And then… then…

The guilt lashed tenfold.

Here we are, indeed.

The bitterest of ironies is how the citizens now begged me for help. Begged me to be their new hero. The one truly responsible for this mess.

Orion was a grieving father who’s lost his grip on reality after his very world shattered, it wasn’t his fault.

But me on the other hand… I was the monster.

I was the one who destroyed this city.

And now, I was forced to watch it burn.