I Am a Hero

[dmboogie]

Hey. Hey Daniel. Hey.

It took Michael a full minute of prodding and signing to break Daniel free from the insidious grasp of American Gods. Daniel wasn't the most observant dude at the best of times, after all, and when he had a good book in front of him, not even the explosive return of their lord and savior Crabzilla would immediately catch his eye.

Daniel turned to face Michael, grudgingly closing the book in order to free his hands. Yeah? He signed, clearly trying to decide exactly how annoyed he should be at the moment.

I just want you to know that if this plane crashes on some deserted island and I'm the only survivor, that I'll eat your corpse last.

This wasn't the first time that day that Michael had contemplated a crash. Hell, it wasn't even the third. He'd never been on a plane before, and even with the many statistics that Daniel had thrust at him, Michael was still a tad nervous. Planes were fucking scary, man.

It kind of scares me how quickly you're willing to resort to cannibalism. Daniel signed.

I'll even make a shrine for your corpse. Michael continued, ignoring him.

I'm sure that there will be a convenient coconut tree or two.

I'll make your body a hat out of the finest leaves.

Probably some berries, too. Maybe even suitably tiny animals.

You will be my co-ruler. You shall sit on the throne, looking pretty, while I get the real shit done. Michael Mitchellson, king of the island.

Also, why are you the only survivor? I could survive a plane crash. Maybe.

Just me, alone. A man against the world. Surviving against the odds.

This continued for far longer than it probably should have.

---

Michael descended from the top floor of the mall like the most stylish of all heroes, like... like...

No. He couldn't even fake it, now.

Daniel, his best friend in all the world and practically his brother, was long dead. All this time that Michael had spent searching, hoping, hell, even praying, all spent on the ghost of a man. Had Daniel bled out slowly in the dirt, overwhelmed with pain and horribly alone? Had he gotten himself killed putting his life on the line by trying to talk someone down, trying to save someone? Had it been a complete shock, over with before even he could realize it? Michael would never know.

Michael's friends had lied to him. That was a lesser pain, but Michael could still feel it slowly consuming him. He had trusted them with his life, would have sacrificed himself without a second thought to save them, and this is how they repaid him? By treating him like a fucking child, by not respecting him enough to tell him the truth? Had they been worried about his reaction, worried about Michael running off to get revenge? Even if Michael had been told, there's no way in hell he would've disrespected Daniel's memory by abandoning his closest friends. He should have realized back at the hospital, when they scattered like vermin after a single gunshot that his "friends" were nothing more than a bunch of fucking cowards.

Before, yes, Michael would have hesitated to track down Daniel's killer. Now, though? He had nothing and no one left. He passed Tim's corpse on his way out. Tim had been with Michael the longest on the island, but even he had never saw fit to inform Michael. He walked away from the body without a second glance.

Revenge. It was a strange thing to contemplate. Over his lifetime, Michael had read book after book about revenge, about how it left a man empty, how it spawned nothing but further hatred. True heroes didn't get revenge. They found it within themselves to forgive.

Michael couldn't forgive. He couldn't forget. Hansel had been in his sights two times already. Michael had tried to be the hero, to stop Hansel from murdering others. True, no one had died, but only because Hansel himself had refrained from further violence. Michael had been as fucking useless as he had been then as he had his entire stay on the island. There were probably people who would be alive right now if Michael had had the guts to pull the trigger.

No, despite his desperate former delusions, Michael wasn't a hero. He hadn't done shit. There wasn't anybody left to save. Everyone he had ever cared about was dead. A hero wouldn't care. A hero would fight until the very end to protect the innocent, to try and get them out alive.

Michael could never be a hero, never could have been a hero. But there was one thing he could do, even now. One final purpose. He could make sure that the son of a bitch who had killed Daniel would never get off the island alive.

((Michael Mitchellson: Continued in Layabout.))