London
The sound of fast rain drops bouncing off the floor keeps a man sad. The zephyr bellowed hard causing the large windows to rattle aggressively. Each time they shook, a cold wind entered the apartment.
It was a sweet defect in the rooms that Theo appreciated both in sleep and in consciousness.
Each time the windows creaked and it got cold he was forced to seek warmth in his blanket, only intensifying his sleep further.
The man sleeping on the white sheets: his pale bare back faced the air while his stomach and chest pressed deep into the bed weaving through the land of slumber.
His disheveled long hair spreads out like a spider's web. It is a light brown colour and it's texture is like a wave. Each strand is soft and curled.
We cannot see his face but you can tell he is a large man. His back is wide with flabs of fat as well as muscle.
It is common knowledge that Heroes possess more muscle mass than regular people.
Even though, Heroes still need to keep themselves in tip top condition via intense physical activity and training. Otherwise they end up like Theo.
Theo does not do any such intensive training results in his fat percentage exceeding his muscle percentage.
The result was a dad bod.
The alarm rings off. The sound of a bell contrasts with the sounds of the rain.
The time is 6:00 am. That's when he set it.
Superheroes have to wake up early.
Crime and Fiends had a habit of popping up when you least expect them to.
When hundreds of people have been killed no one's going to listen to," I over slept. I'm sorry ".
But Theo. Even if he was awake, nothing would change. Maybe he would even hold back the real heroes.
" You're not helping. Fuck off ", they'd say.
" Bunch of self worshiping ass holes ", that's what he thought of most superheroes.
Theo's Arcane Dominion is limitless regeneration.
He'd forgotten the actual title.
He didn't have the immortal part, cause god said oh you'll regenerate, you can't be killed and you can't get sick but you're still going to die of aging though.
What bull shit.
The only plus side to being unkillable is the part where Theo drinks his life away and still not completely drink his life away.
He can get high as many times as he wants and not worry about cancer. That's the only good thing about this cursed superpower. If you can even call it that.
Huuuh, he lets out a weak groan cause he knows he has to get up. Get up and walk the grim hopeless spiral that is his life.
He placed his hands at the side of his body then raised himself, sitting up. Slowly emerging from the blankets like the hung over human abomination that he was.
Almost slumping down back to the bed. His limbs were heavy and he had a hollow exhaustion.
He had no idea how last night went, and not in the ' He finds a girl asleep next to him ' way.
That never happens.
He can't even remember the last time he was interested in stuff like that. You could even tell, the other side of his bed was as cold as fuck.
He'd given up on romance a long time ago. A sad fact considering he was just 25.
The only thing he loved that ever loved him back was his beer, whisky and wine. Whatever made him forget about this sad life.
He basically emptied a bar he thinks, cause that's how it always goes. Across his bed is a brown oak wood counter with what, you could count like 10 empty bottles there. Heavy drinking didn't get heavier than this.
His room is damp with large windows to the left where he gets a nice view of the screaming dumb driving fucks the country calls civilians.
People and Theo never really mixed. The worst thing was that there were billions of them.
" Aaaagh "
He clings to his forehead hard. Theres a sting as his brain tries to recall fleeting memories.
Shit. Having a hangover sucks. His mother did always say drinking is enjoy now and wish you hadn't later. Advising a son you'd eventually disown. Well it was good advice.
Theo moves to the side of his white sheet bed. His muscles are weak enough to lose an arm wrestling match with an old lady. He looks to the windows and then rubs his eyes.
His long strands of hair ( bangs ) block our view. But one thing's clear.
He has very very blue eyes. They almost looked beastial
He pulls himself up to his feet. They're so weak he can feel them shake. Kinda like being crippled. To the right of his room are five doors and at the other side of each of them is a hall.
Real weird home but it's part of the reasons he loved it.
Each hall leads to every other part of the apartment.
He can feel each hair of his grey rug on his tender feet. Each step sends a pulsating jolt through him, reviving his lost strength in his legs.
Hey I ain't a model but at least I have beautiful feet.
And he was right. His feet were beautiful. They were long and large but weirdly slender.
He had a foot fetish. A narcissistic foot fetish.
Theo's room is like a cess pool of stinky clothes, emptied beer bottles, fashion magazines and half eaten pizzas.
The best thing about it is his large TV and his pc.
He takes off his pajamas and walks through his hallway half naked. He's walking slowly while putting his hands on the wall so he doesn't fall.
His long brown hair is very messy.
He washes his face or at least does something close and puts his toothpaste on his...,
Wait where is it. Ah there.
He grabs his toothbrush and applies the paste on it. He holds the paste to his mouth and presses hard.
Then he just brushes away till it all dissolves and turns white.
When he's done he dips his hand in the cold water and splashes his face.
He holds the sink staring at his reflection in the mirror.
His eyes are baggy, he hasn't shaved, he's probably going to get killed today, maybe twice. Enduring all that pain for 5000 dollars a month. He's currently posted in London but he works under one of the worst superhero cooperations in America stationed in miami.
And everyday they get closer to laying him off.
Why did he even become a superhero in the first place. 10 years, more than a third of his life thrown away into this and for what.
" How the fuck did I get he_
BOOM.
An explosion
Happened faster than any body could react. The explosion was loud and just like that the top half of the sky building was gone.
The sound was defining. Not deafening but defining. Defining the chaos that was about to ensue. The fire quickly spread around causing large smoke fumes that reached the clouds.
They were spotted from miles.
In half of Theo's apartment was gone and so was his upper body. An eyeball on the floor rolls itself to see. Theo could still operate lost parts of his body for at most 2 seconds.
Thank god his room wasn't a floor higher.
His whole apartment was reduced to dust and debris.
He had lost half his upper body. When's the last time that happened. Usually he was just cut in half. Ohhh this was going to hurt.
That fleshy grotesque sound began.
Slowly he regenerated from under the rubble.
Veins pulling out of and into each other, his bone marrow
growing, his muscles reappearing, tendons clinging, arteries being made. His blood forming pools, slapping against his raw flesh to enter into the arteries.
The Skelton forms first and then the nerves and arteries cling, the muscle grows itself on the nerves. The body makes adjustments as it regenerates ( sometimes it doesn't get it on the first try ).
The hair forms just as it was before being disintegrated and then his eyeballs are usually the last thing to form. But the nerve and veins were always the most painful part.
He pushed the rubble from his top and the first thought that came to his mind was to scream. Even though Theo regenerates he still feels all the pain of losing half his upper body. If you decapitate him it would take a few seconds or even less for his head to come back but it'll come back screaming because Theo feels the pain of being decapitated for about an hour. It goes on for a week but it's not that intense anymore.
The shitty part is sleeping on a pillow or having a kid tap your neck.
He holds onto his mouth, he hopes to stop himself from screaming. Whatever caused this was close by. He'd never see any Fiend capable of causing this much destruction. Half an apartment tower blown away in seconds.
Dear god he has a long way to go and probably lots of pain to feel.
The tears flow and there's just nothing he can do but hide and not scream. The pain is so severe he's biting deep into his hand. Regenerating and biting harder to the bone.
A counter strategy he developed to hide his screaming.
It was barely working.
Whatever monster hit this building. To cause this amount of damage, It had to be a Behemoth or higher. And he couldn't stand a chance against a wraith class last week.
Then he heard it. Growling that had an echo. A voice that was so primal and sinister he could lose his mind and drift into a hysterical insanity any second.
The voice grew louder and louder. A roaring bent on mayhem as it was getting closer.
Now the only smart thing to do was run.
Run and run quick.
Theo scurried to the rubble that used to be his bedroom and hid there behind a large stone wall.
He tried to be as quiet as he could.
Even if it couldn't kill him. People don't realise how much it hurts to be killed cause they die. They don't get hit by a car again and again and again and again.
Theo does. The fear of knowing and feeling your body experience life ending injuries over and over and over, that's something he has never gotten used to.
And he's been a superhero for so long. So so long. He doesn't deserve this. He doesn't deserve anything good and he won't hope and wait for it to come his way.
So why does it always have to be so bad? Why does his life have to be so unfortunate? What did he do to deserve all this...,all this....Pain?
The growl grew louder and louder, That thing was getting closer and closer.
Theo didn't know if he was just freaking out but he could swear that thing was looking for him, following him. He did run and he was sure it didn't hear him. Maybe smell. He hadn't showered after all.
This really really sucked.
His breathing grew desperate, his heart on the verge of leaping out of his chest. They were long deep frantic beats.
What is this thing?
He had to know what it looked like. Even just a peak. To defeat an enemy one has to know the enemy.
Not knowing what was looking to kill him seemed to make it worse.
He leaned to the side of the wall, one of his blue eyes moving forward from behind the rock and saw the creature in a 1080 full on pixel view.
Why did he bullshit himself. It's way worse now.
" Why god, why did you create these things ".
It was like a Fiend on steroids. Its muscles, they looked like they wouldn't budge if hit by a homing missile or a torpedo. At least 7 feet tall. Blue glowing horns and eyes. Muscles big and overlapping over each other in ways they definitely shouldn't. Dark dragon scales covered its entire body, each maybe three inches long.
It had large white claws maybe a foot long. Theo gulped.
Its neck, like a bisons.
Its spine grew out as spikes from its back and ran all through to its tail. A tail much longer than itself.
What is this, godzilla's son?
The air around it was heavy and seemed to be distorted. Warped in a way by Arcane.
So this is what a titan class looked like up close. It's the second he's ever seen.
The first he'd,?. He remembers seeing a glimpse of the 100 metre long dragon that attacked new York just before it died. If he had to guess this one was much stronger.
This shit, this fucking sadistic joke that was his life. It's like every so often life was trying to deliver a dark humour punch line at his expense.
You'll live but it is going to hurt and you are going to shit your pants.
Theo was this close, this close to a no. 2.
But the only thing in him was fear. Sickening fear.
The fiend turned to the haggard breathing
Theo directly made eye contact with it. Terrible, terrible glowing blue eyes. Reminded him of the eyes of his father.
He hid behind the rubble. Covering his mouth trying to reduce the sound of his tears and panic but he knew very well what was coming. This Fiend heard him long ago. Its heavy footsteps were quickly growing louder.
" I am fucked ".
It's roar was the last thing Theo heard as it punched him and a reality shattering explosion erupted. Destroying almost half of the whole building and reducing Theo to a_
Yeah whatever you could call that.
Remnants was the word I believe.
Yes Theo was now just Remnants
There were pieces of his ribs, spine and a leg. Half of a leg
Like the first explosion but this one was a direct hit. The force of the blow sent Theo flying straight into the skyscraper across.
The shock waves broke all the glass windows of the second building before he even crashed into it.
Hitting the floor and bouncing off the ceiling in line debris stopping about 20 metres away from the broken glass which he entered throw.
His leg was on a car wind shield, and his head was now a mesh of blood and brain cells.
His body regenerated again just as fast but this time he was butt naked. His pants were reduced to ash.
He screamed very loudly. Felt like his whole body was ripped to shreds.
No.
It WAS ripped to shreds.
He started crying, wailing in pain even after he was fully regenerated and then held his mouth again but he can't stop. It's just so painful to feel pain that you can't see.
" In and out Theo, oh please, please go away. In and out, in..,arghhh. In and out ", his said panting and shaking with pain.
When the pain subsided.
( Scratch that )
When it was mild enough that he could ignore, Theo took a big breath. He didn't know why the titan fiend wanted to kill him.
This wasn't the first time a Fiend took interest in killing him. But not a Titan and not with this much fucking determination.
Whatever this things deal was with him, It hated him like it was personal. It was a goal, like he needed to die.
Heh good luck with that. It can make him experience hell on earth but it can't actually send him to hell.
Theo got up from the white office floor., naked. He started removing the shards of glass stabbing into his back and torso. A slow regenerating sound came after the bloody glass shards were thrown on the floor.
He gasped relishing the fact that the intense pain was going away.
He looked up and around. Then he turned to the hole he was sent through.
He could see the other building
He saw two bright twinkles shrouded in darkness and dust.
The titan was glaring at him.
He needed to run
He needed to run fast.