He was on his hands and knees in front of me. Blood spilled from his mouth. Wounds everywhere. He was panting, and I have succeeded.

“This is over.” I said, stepping forward, tightening my grip on my rapier.

He started laughing, a throaty, hacking laugh.

“Oh how wrong you are brother,” he lifted his head to face me, “I am over. I have been crushed under the heel of who they call their hero. Yes I am over. However YOU, well you have practically just started.” He smiled up at me, a knowing, ruthless, eager smile.

I tilted my head and narrows my eyes, knowing he will try to twist my mind and confuse me.

He glanced past me, as if seeing a vision, “Oh yes, this world will see far greater destruction, even after I’m gone.”

“I am the hero of this story.” I demanded, speaking slow and harsh and sure.

“Oh yes dear brother. You started off with good intention, destined to destroy the villian. However you passed limits and limits until you would do anything to kill me. That is what you have done. You have become me.”

“No, no!” I screamed, failing to realize what I had done. He was playing with my mind. Toying with me.

“I am the hero!” I demanded. Faces of friends and family flashed before my eyes. These were the people I fought to save until I no longer had the luxury of it. I had killed countless people, their names and faces now a distant blur. _But it was for the greater good. _That’s what the man staring back at me said too. He taught me this and I have practiced it enough were I have fully come to belive. Those words were the anthem that I repeated in my head every time I hurt someone. Eventually, I become so tunnel visioned around my goals, that I hurt anyone and everyone who so much as suggested another way. I dropped civilians off of bridges, I hurt the people closest to me, I have shamlessly accepted praise from people I have hurt, and they will never know the destruction I have caused. I have willingly embraced the powerful feeling that has come to me through peoples willingness to see only what they wanted to see. They wanted to see a hero, so that’s what they saw. Leaving the lifeless bodies of their companions in alleys and streets, they also have failed to see why I have become. What I have realized I have become.

I staggered back, searching for something to lean on, finding nothing. The realization hit me like a blast of fire, burning away all the happiness I had.

“You have commited the same number of crimes as me, hurt the same number of people, and killed, just as much as I have. Oh yes dear brother. We all look the same in the dark.”