The Undoing Of Heroes | ✓

thirty two

thirty two 

NO, THE FLASH of light certainly wasn't my entrance into heaven. Though, to be honest, if I were going to heaven after what I'd done, someone up there had to have done some sort of grave clerical error. 

The flashes were those of a camera, and I tried helplessly to hide my bare face from their unforgiving lights. It was of no use - my face had already been caught on multiple pictures, most definitely displayed in high definition for all the world to see. At last, my identity had been unravelled. 

Something in my chest seemed to shrivel. A part of me was wilting. At this moment, my world was tilting on its axis. From this moment on, and from the moment I had been tossed into that cell, my world was going to do a very severe one eighty. Life as I knew it would flip upside down, and losing that control terrified me. 

I had lived so precariously for such an extended amount of time that I had a certain assuredness in my safety, believing there was no way anyone - or anything - would trump me. Perhaps that was why I was so jolted when I realized I'd actually been caught and brought to trial. 

And photographed. One small, unfortunate fact I couldn't forget. One no one else would forget as my face would be plastered across all major media outlets within the next 24 hours. 

Swallowing a hard lump of ill-tasting failure, I bowed my head as to avoid the camera flashes. Something burned in the white of my eyes, and before I knew it a lone tear had pressed its way out of the corner of my eye. There was nothing quite like the sensation of pushing back tears at a moment in which you could not cry. But there I was. 

Led by by guards, cuffed, humiliated. And crying. What a brilliant picture that would make. Crown Heights', and now Dynamo's, antagonist, the tough, unbreakable supervillain who'd forced the cities under her thumb. This image would be completely shattered as these pictures were released, showing them the real Nightspark. 

I was no fearless, brave supervillain. I was a scared girl.

No, not a girl, I reminded myself, a woman. 

I was over eighteen. Something I was made very aware of as the court made it very clear to be I was to be sentenced as an adult. Lifetime. 

Lifetime imprisonment. 

It got be wondering where they would put me. Would they build something new, something top of the notch capable of keeping supervillains under lock and key? With the way the world had been developing lately, I was sure some team of scientists would be hard at work figuring out the way our powers worked. 

Keeping my eyes trained on the ground, I stumbled into the back of a van with the guards holding me upright. They shoved me into a smaller holding cell, dividing the back of the van into two parts with a thick wall of bars. I sunk down into the bench quietly, placing my cuffed hands in my lap. 

With a forceful push, the door to the cell was closed. A few locks clicked into place, before the guards sat down warily, keeping one eye trained on me. They were expecting me to do something, which in all honesty was more than what I expected of me. 

I sat hunched over, my back hurting and my wrists hurting and my heart hurting. Not only was my body battered and broken, my pride was dented. The overbearing weight of failure pressed down on my shoulders, and shame burned on my mind. Throughout the tornado of emotions and impressions, I saw flashes of my family. Friends. What had led me here - to this moment.