Shadows

• Superhero
• Part 16

The door opened ominously slow. A figure stood there, as one would expect, his face unrecognizable from inside the darkened room. Backlit by the hall light, he cast a shadow over the room's only occupant -- a pink and bloated deformed man sleeping face-down on a hospital bed.

My final failure, the man in the doorway thought. My final attempt at godhood. The figure slid into the room and closed the door behind him.

Thank you. Thank you for showing me that the flaw was in the designer, not the design. I am an imperfect god who creates monsters in his own image. And you are the most grotesque creation yet. The figure in the shadows reached out his hand and caressed the shorn head of his abomination. The scalp was slick and damp. Sympathetic fingers traced the ridges under the skin where the bones of skull fused together and pushed upward like tiny mountain ranges. The shadowy man stood in silence, watching his sleeping creation.

With resolve, the shadow began his task. Using a pen light he searched the right arm of his creation. On the underside he located the valve that held like a dam against the reservoir of blood underneath the skin. Out of his pocket he pulled a syringe and placed it into the valve. You were never meant to be horrible. You, unlike all the others, were an empty canvas, healthy from the start. Instead of making you better, I made you into a monster. I hope you can forgive me for creating you. He pushed the plunger on the syringe down. And I hope you can forgive me for destroying you.

The sleeping man stirred. His bloodshot eyes slid open peered through the darkness. "Dad?" the abomination asked, hopeful and confused.

"No," the shadow figure said gently, "it's just me, Dr. Tyler. Go back to sleep, Brandon."

• Tags
• serial
• superhero