"-And after you left me for dead, I crawled myself to a quiet ditch, buried myself, and regrew to my full strength."

Her comicallly shiny boot was spattered with the dark green substance that was my modified blood, and I watched her approach my face like a soccer player.

A flash of light, the sound of distant thunder, the gentle rocking of my pain centers shutting down completely.

A fresh spay of dark emerald, dancing in the misty lights of my bedroom.

"You stupid motherfucker, you didn't think I knew how to get to you?"

The boot again, but I was okay with that; the wetness is just rain, and the sound is just thunder.

"You just thought you could fix the world, you fucking idiot?"

She's sounded so far away, but this was too important to miss.

It was finally happening, and I had to see it through.

"You little pissant, I remember discovering you when you were just some chump who ate dirt, and we changed the world together."

She was on top of me, lightning fast, her talons hooked under chin, severing my tongue from underneath. I had no choice but to meet her cruel gaze.

She was as beautiful as the day I met her

I watched, spine shattered, neck supported by the grace of her strength, as she plucked my eye from my skull.

At the time, I was thankful that my last sight was of her face.

"You're a monster, Eric, and all I want to know before I do the world a favor and put you down, is how you could sleep after what you did to me?"

She doesn't know

That realization pulled from my encroaching rest. I sent a signal to the photoreceptors in my blood, re-activating them.

I didn't need eyes to feel the lights above me, feeding me.

"Mmphfllhgh"

It's hard to talk with a broken jaw.

She withdrew her talon, and moments later my tongue re-attached itself to the base of my mouth.

I coughed, spat a tooth across the floor, and tried to lift my head.

"I did it for you."

Silence.

"I... it hurt me so much to see how this world disappointed you, Cynthia. We could save at most a handful of people at a time, a schoolbus here, or an elevator there, but every time the news mentioned the death toll in Iraq, you shut down."

Strained silence.

"So, Cyn, so I... I did something about it! I knew that you wouldn't, so I did. The nations can't be at war if there aren't any nations, and it remarkable how quickly the world food shortage gets solved when you hang all the figureheads of industry by their guts in public eye."

Thunder

I lost more teeth, but already could feel the new ones forming.

"Bullshit"

She said it like a growl, but I was still alive.

"I'm not just a plant nerd, Cyn, I know more about how you operate than you do. I didn't leave you for dead, I actually killed you."

Her grip lessened, I had truck a nerve, I think.

"But, Cynthia, I knew you would come back stronger. I knew it would take time, and with the amount of damage I did to you that day, I knew I had a twenty-ish year headstart to set it all into motion for you."

As my vertebrae clicked back into place, I lifted my head towards her own. Dim light, but the optic nerves rebuilt quickly.

"Cynthia, who do you think sent Blaze to dig you up? Who would have known exactly where to dig to find you?"

"You're lying."

It was soft, and I knew then that she understood.

"You came back a legend, and finally strong enough to make the changes you wanted. Jaded, maybe, but smart enough now to spot betrayal. You saw though Jolene, and made the hard choice to silence her before she could jeopardize your assault plan here tonight; I was so proud of you, Cynthia."

Full silhouette, darkness and light blending together as my eyes continued regrowing.

I saw the shape of her, and it drawing closer to me.

I thought that she understood.

That she grasped what I had been teaching her, and I could finally rest knowing that the world had a champion who make the hard choices to protect it from monsters worse than myself.

"So... do it, Cyn, this is how it ends. You finally get it, that there are some people that have to die. You know what the world needs, and I can finally stop being this person."

I blinked, once, twice, and on the third I could see again.

She was crying, and holding my face.

"You're insane, Eric. We need to get you help, we can still fix this."

She lifted my mouth to her own, and for the second time in twenty years I doubted myself.

"Cynthia, I can't be cha-"

The kiss wasn't something magical, it just simply was.

It was everything in that moment, and as my chest cavity uncollapsed, I rose to my feet holding her in that embrace.

"Eric, I love you, please let me help y-"

But it's hard to talk with a broken jaw.

I held her face in my hands, and as the nourishing light above shone on I squeezed those hands togther until all that was between my fingers was a pulpy mash.

I regarded the love of my life, smeared on my palms.

"I can't be rehabilitated, Cynthia, but maybe in twenty years, you will be."

Since then I've kept her under my floor in my bedroom, in my fortress, in my empire, on my conquered world. I hear her sinews reknitting in the dead of night, a sound like dry worms coiling on themselves. My advisors (the filthy opportunistic animals that they are) have been kept unaware, and I have no plans of tipping them off. One day, decades from now, she will spring from Earth like a vengeful god, and there will be no stopping her wrath.

Truthfully, I barely stopped her last time, and my conviction grows wary as each day passes.

I fear of monsters more awful than I.

Some of the whispers I hear from below the floorboards make me worry that whatever is preparing to climb out might not be Cynthia anymore.

Regardless, she will do better, because the world doesn't need a figurehead of redemption. The world, this horrifying dystopia that suppresses all facets of art, culture, and identity; it doesn't deserve to be redeemed.

It needs a Hero.