The Last Superhero by Astrid 'Artistikem' Cruz

it.
    This
is your brain he's in.
    The train halts, the lights
go off.
    “ No!”
    On they go again, but the
thing isn't going anywhere.
    Push another door and there
he is, shouldering the one at the end of the train, the one impairing
a swift escape.
    Nightmares are nothing more
than dreams, aren't they?
    This is my world. My own.
    Propel myself towards him,
grab one of the metal posts and swing my legs full force to his
face... For his hand to catch my ankle and FUCK it burns and he has
to release me, surprise on his face.
    Now the shouldering of the
door has become frantic.
    He's scared?
    He is scared.
    Try to leap over me and now
it's my turn to grab his calf and hear him fall and feel the fire
starting and exhale the pain as he kicks my face, but I've got a hold
on him and he's screaming in pain.
    “ Steven!”
I spit blood. “Stop it! This isn't you, it's your Id!”
    He pauses the vicious attack
on my face and I push myself to my knees. I can still see. I can see
him sneering with rage, dragging his burnt leg. And I look down at my
hands, see they're charred.
    It's only a dream.
    It's only my brain.
    It's all in my head.
    This taste of blood isn't
real and my hands... Not. Real.
    His eyes are changing shades
from the black to the hazel, his dark hair graying from the roots,
making it slowly to the ends. Slowly and, apparently, painfully for
him as he can't stop grunting.
    “ Who
are you?” he roars and his voice seems to come from
every-fucking-where. “What are you doing to me?”
    “ Take
the mask off,” I demand.
    “ Never!”
    “ Take
the fucking mask off!” The lights flicker, the train car
quakes, rattles, trembles. “Steven.”
    “ My
name,” he's gasping, a hand running around his belt, “is
Salvatore!”
    He finds what he was
rummaging for and a quick movement sends a knife flying through the
air and directly into my chest.
    I fall on my haunches. It
hurts. I fall on my side. It fucking hurts. I roll on my back and
he's looking down.
    The knife's blade stuck
half-way between my breasts.
    He lowers himself next to
me, puts a finger on the tip of the knife's handle.
    “ Who
are you?”
    “ I...”
can barely talk, gotta push, “...love you.”
    His face falls for a second,
the hazel showing once more.
    Before going back to the
dark, his expression turning to disgust.
    And with the slightest
movement of his finger, the knife's pushed further into my
breastbone.

16

    Frightened eyes look down at
me, frantic hands travel through me, shallow breaths welcome me back
to reality.
    Michelangelo's still made of
stone over my head.
    “ Giana,
darling.”
    I'm lying on the floor next
to the statue.
    “ I'm
okay.”
    Try to sit and my chest
hurts.
    “ I
hurt you, oh no I've hurt you!”
    “ I
said I'm okay.”
    Sit. Don't press that hand
to your chest or then he'll know he's really hurt you.
    Although it's a mind trick.
    Although it's all in my
head.
    But that knife got stuck
good back there.
    Damn.
    Get on your feet and rush up
the stairs, to the library. Ignore his hurried steps, his hands
trying to stop you.
    And how he finally catches
you and pulls you to him.
    “ I
know what I have to do. Next time. I know what I have to do next
time.” Robotic speech.
    “ You're
not doing anything. Not now, not ever.”
    Glance up. Dead serious
stare.
    Nothing left of the drunk
dude snoring on the sofa.
    Not an inkling of the
villain I chased in that train.
    “ Steven!”
    “ Giana,
please.”
    “ No,
you don't get it. I've been reading.”
    “ What,
exactly?”
    Raised eyebrow, meet my
frown.
    “ What
I need is to find the answer to this riddle.”
    He grabs my hand and tugs me
away from the library and into a spare bedroom where he rummages
inside a drawer on a dresser that appears to have been there since
the eighteenth century.
    His hand still clutching
mine, keeping a death grip on me while I can only try and guess what
the hell he's doing.
    From the depths he rescues a
portrait framed in silver that