Not the Hero (pt. 1/2)

Prompt: A story told from the POV of someone who’s not part of the hero’s journey. No, their role is much worse. They’re the hero’s tragic backstory and they realize it a week before their death.

(part two coming to you Christmas Day!)

------------------------

You think there might be something seriously wrong with Cam. You’re not watching him, okay? You’re trying to keep your distance from the kid because of that whole thing that went down during Homecoming. You thought it’d be funny to mock crown him, okay? But then everyone just freaked out for no reason and the kid cried and you’re just not going to put yourself in that position anymore.

Maybe I should tell someone, you think, watching the way he scurries down the hall, looking over his shoulder like someone’s coming after him. One time you chased him to the library, trying to get him with a water balloon. He didn’t even look this scared then. Kid clearly needs help.

Cam is the same age as you, but about a foot shorter and 50 pounds lighter. He reminds you of your younger brother, the one who got sent away, and maybe that’s why you’re a little too friendly sometimes. It’s not your fault that Cam doesn’t know you’re playing. He’s a lot more delicate than your little brother.

You swing by Mr. Ten’s room at the start of lunch. Mr. Ten doesn’t like you, but he does like Cam. You’d thought about going to the guidance counselor first, but then remembered the last time you and Cam had been in his room. Your six day suspension had been repealed and they’d made Cam write an apology to you. You still don’t know why anyone had needed to apologize to anyone. You’d just scared Cam in the locker room, like the team did to each other all the time. It wasn’t anybody’s fault that he tripped and hit his head.

Mr. Ten is flipping through test papers when you knock on the doorframe. His expression is open and friendly when he looks up but clouds over when he sees you. “It’s lunch time now, Mr. Finn.”

“Yeah,” you say. You know, that’s why you have time to stop by. “So, something’s up with Cam.”

“I thought you agreed to not bother Cameron anymore,” Mr. Ten says, lips pursing.

“I’m not,” you say, brow knitting. “But there’s something weird with the kid and I thought you should know.”

Mr. Ten puts down his papers. “And what exactly is weird about Cameron today?”

You don’t like how Mr. Ten said that, like you’re making it all up. But your dad says that you’re too sensitive so you push that away. “I don’t know, I think you should ask him. That’s why I told you.”

Mr. Ten sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. “Mr. Finn, I am not like the other faculty at this school. I will not interrogate Cameron at your say so—”

You start. “That’s not what I—”

“-- if you don’t mind, I have to prepare for my next class—”

“--but I didn’t—”

“Out, Mr. Finn,” Mr. Ten says in his scary voice, the one he uses when you and your friends start horsing around in the back of the room.

You stare at him, trying to figure out what just happened. You were trying to warn Mr. Ten that something’s not right, right? You turn on your heel and stalk down the hall. Maybe you just need more proof. If even Mr. Ten isn’t going to help Cam right now, nobody else will. Not without proof.

————————————————————-

You follow Cam home. It’s not hard, you guys live in the same direction. You used to play at his house all the time, back when your mom was still alive. But then Cam’s mom said you were getting too rough and loud and told you to not come over anymore. Whatever, that’s not the point. The point is that you know where Cam lives and you’re pretty sneaky.

You follow him through the park, watching how jumpy he is. His face is crumpled like he’s about to cry and his head hangs low. He looks like he did after you forced him up onstage to accept the fake Homecoming crown and you feel your gut twist. While you thought the prank was funny, that look told you it wasn’t. If he’s making that expression now, something isn’t right. What’s wrong with, Cam?

Cam walks off the path home and deeper into the park, out to where the city put up a boundary to protect the last bit of forest. The gate around the trees is big, tall and locked, but Cam walks up to it like it’s going to open for him.

To your surprise, it does. You’re pretty sure he didn’t touch it either.

You scramble out from behind a picnic bench and lope over to where Cam just disappeared. The gate is still swinging and you take the chance to slip inside before it settles closed. You’ve never been in the Old Forest before and you don’t really like it. It feels bad in here, like standing in the middle of the gym at 2am by yourself.

You stick to the edge of the gate and follow it until you can hear Cam’s voice. To your surprise, he’s not alone.

“--can’t do this, I’m 16—”

“It’s your destiny,” a woman says. Her voice is like the forest--dark and uncaring. A gym at 2am. “It’s written in the stars. You will fight, Cameron. Or the world around you will die in flames.”

“Oh my god,” Cam says. “Do you hear yourself? This sounds insane!”

“As insane as you lighting your bed on fire?” a man asks. He laughs. “You know you have the magic, Cameron. Why can’t you believe in everything that comes with it?”

Is this--is this that Dungeons and Dragons thing? you wonder, back pressed tight to the fence. You don’t think so. These people--whoever Cam is with--seem really convinced that what they’re saying is true. That magic exists and Cam is the Chosen One and that the world is in danger. Like in Harry Potter. Is Cam Harry Potter?

You’ve missed some of their conversation, but you hear Cam say ‘no’ several times. You wonder if you’re going to have to jump in and fight these people if they try to make him. You’re usually confident in your fighting ability, but you’re not sure now. These people think they have magic. Could you fight magic?

Luckily, you don’t have to find out. Cam storms off, shouting over his shoulder how he “has a life” and isn’t going to be their “sacrifice.” You don’t know when sacrifice came into play. You swallow hard. Cam is in more danger than you thought if this stuff is all true and you don’t think this counts as evidence. Your brother told you that he saw ghosts and no adults believed him. You don’t think you’re any different than your brother. If you start talking about magic, Dad will commit you too.

“...this didn’t go as planned,” the woman says. You start. You didn’t know they were still in there, just behind the trees in front of you. “At this rate he’s not going to awaken in time.”

“It’ll happen,” the man says. A growl enters his voice. “We’ll make it happen.”

“You’ll make it happen,” the woman retorts. “I agreed to be his teacher, not his recruiter. Hold up your end of the deal, Mitch.” There’s the sound of wings and you know instinctively that she’s gone.

“Hold up my end of the deal, huh?” Mitch asks. It almost sounds like he’s talking to you. “What do you think?”

Every hair on your body stands on end. 

The man that comes out from the trees is dangerous. You’ve met dangerous people before. The debt collectors that came to your door and asked about your dad were dangerous. The man--the ghost-- your brother described seeing was dangerous. But this…

This is a whole new level.

He’s smaller than you, like most people, but his shoulders are squared, arms loose at his sides. His hair is darker than yours, nearly blue under the sun and his eyes are pale, green chips. His mouth is twisted into a mean smirk. “Well?”

You don’t run. Maybe it’s because you won’t get far, maybe it’s because you’re as dumb as the standardized tests say. You ask, “What are you trying to do to Cam?”

The man laughs. “Nothing you need to worry about anymore.”

“What?” you start to ask but then light shoots from the necklace draped around the man’s neck and you’re in pain. Worse pain than when you dislocated your knee when you were 12, worse than when your mother bled out under your hands, worse than watching your dad drive your brother away and only brought himself back. It’s physical and emotional and spiritual, a complete destruction of everything that makes you you.

“The death of a friend at the hands of abyssal magic,” the man says from somewhere above you. “Hey, it might be enough for an awakening.” 

You don’t really understand what he’s saying and he walks away before you can ask.  You never understand what anyone’s saying. You hate it, you hate how you never understand. Why can’t you ever just understand?

That’s easy, the ground tells you. You don’t know when you collapsed to the ground. I can give you understanding.

You gasp like a fish, dirt at your lips. The ground can talk? 

The earth laughs into your mind and you feel it like your mother’s hand against your forehead. They’ve opened the gate, asking you to play a role too soon. Take advantage of it, okay?

You jolt back into your body as the pain leaves it completely. You lie there, on the ground, gasping and staring up at the sky. There’s the smell of iron around you and your clothes are tacky. You are covered in blood, but you can’t be bothered by it. You understand now.

Oh, you think. You’re not important. You’re not the one who’s going to save the world.

But you’re the reason Cam will.

—————————————-

It’s weird going home after everything that’s happened. Weirder still that nobody stops the six foot football player that’s wandering around covered in blood. But, maybe, that’s not so weird. If they took you to the hospital or the police, it could affect the story.

The story where you die.

You’re going to die. You’re the tragic backstory here, but the one that’s not quite sad enough for anyone to be particularly bothered by it. You’re the bully, the one who made Cam’s life so hard for so many years even though Cam always thought of you as a friend. Your dad won’t cry and nobody will think to tell your brother. Everyone’s too busy once the apocalypse starts to even remember your name.

Everyone but Cam.

Cam is going to mourn you when you’re gone. He’s the hero, the savior, and even though he’s been tormented by you, he’s going to remember the best parts of who you are.

You wipe the moisture out of your eyes. He’s going to remember you. Even though he’s scared of you, even though you’re the reason why he can’t rely on the adults around him, even though you mock crowned him as Homecoming Queen, he’s going to remember that you were kind, once upon a time.

(Ha. Once upon a time. It’s that kind of story.) 

He’s going to remember you like you remember your mom and your brother.

You walk into your empty house. There are no family pictures on the walls and your dad’s left all his bottles on the coffee table again. It smells like alcohol and sweat and, now, blood. You go to take a shower.

You don’t think you can just let yourself die for Cam’s story, as much as it means to you that he still cares. You don’t want to die, for one, and if you did nobody’s going to meet your brother when he gets out of the hospital next year.  

But Cam needs to awaken before the magic apocalypse happens. If he doesn’t awaken, then his power won’t protect this town, saving everybody who needs to be saved to stop the end of the world. Your death, finding your body broken and twisted in the locker room, is what’s supposed to trigger his awakening.

So if you aren’t going to die, you need to find another way to awaken Cam’s powers. 

You think until morning, trying to figure out how to go about it. Then, as dawn breaks, you get it. You have a great idea.

You’ve never been any good at brainstorming, so you might as well ask Cam what he thinks about the whole thing.

————————————————

Cam is pressed against the lockers, backpack clutched to his chest. “I don’t have any money, Finn, I swear, I--”

“I’m not trying to rob you, Cam, fuck,” you say, brow furrowing. You look up and down the hall, checking to make sure no one’s coming. It’s so early in the morning that only some teachers are here. Cam always comes early to avoid you. “When have I ever taken money from you?”

“Last year,” Cam replies promptly. His fingers spasm around his bag. “You stole my pencil case and never gave it back. My lunch money was in there.”

The pencil case you lost between periods. Guilt swoops in your stomach. Maybe you are a bully? “Uh, sorry about that, I guess? I didn’t know there was money in there.” You shake your head. “I’m not trying to steal from you now. I need your help.”

Cam blinks. His eyes are really quite large. You feel like you just watched a deer blink. He asks, “My help?”

“Yeah,” you say. You spent the walk to school practicing how to ask. “See, when I followed you yesterday to the Old Forest, that guy--”

You don’t really know what happens next. One moment, you are starting your speech leading up to asking how exactly to avoid dying, the next you are in the middle of a field. Golden grass sways against your jeans and early morning light nearly blinds you. In the distance, you can make out the edge of town.

Cam gets right up in your face, not seeming the least bit surprised by this rather surprising turn of events. “Dude! You can’t talk about that stuff at school!  Are you insane?!”

You look down at the grass under your feet and frown. “Dude, can you teleport?”

“No,” Cam says sarcastically. “I drove us here--yes, I can, now tell me why the hell you were following me?”

“I tried to tell Mr. Ten that you’re in trouble,” you explain, “and he wouldn’t believe me. So I was trying to get proof.” You decide to ignore the teleporting bit for now. It’s probably not important if Cam isn’t freaking out about it. “You should really ask him for help, you know. He’s a good guy. He wants the best for you.”

“I’m not going to ask Mr. Ten, a normal human, for help about the apocalypse,” Cam says. He sounds very unimpressed. “How did you know I was in trouble?”

You shrug. “I don’t know. You just looked like you were.” He looked like your little brother before Dad sent him away. You don’t really feel like telling Cam that. “But when I followed you, that lady you met said that that Mitch guy needed to recruit you and he was like for sure and then she popped away. And then he, like, found me and tried to kill me, but the talking ground saved my life and gave me, like, a vision of the future and I want you to help me figure out how to help you without me being dead.”

Cam gapes at you. “What?”

You start to explain again. “Okay, so, you know the lady and dude you met up with?”

“Yes,” Cam says. He shakes his head. “You overheard her tell Mitch that he needs to convince me?”

You nod. “She’s really worried you won’t, like, get your powers before the world gets eaten by the abyssal magics. But don’t you already have your powers? You can teleport--”

“Teleportation is small magic,” Cam dismisses. “Did you say that Mitch tried to kill you?”

“Yeah,” you say. “With his necklace. There’s was a light--” you break off and squint at Cam’s face. It’s doing something you’ve never seen before. “You okay?”

“Are you telling me,” Cam says very calmly, “that my guide to all this, the one who’s supposed to train me to save the world, tried to kill my childhood bestfriend with the Soul Destroyer Gem?”

You press a hand to your chest, surprised by the warmth you feel there. “I was your childhood best friend? Aw, I missed you too, buddy.” 

This is going well, you think proudly.

And then Cam explodes.

You’re sent flying back and you hit the ground hard enough to make you see stars. You gasp on the ground, trying to figure out what just happened. Above you, there are rings of pale blue light racing out and away. When you crane your neck, you can see they’re radiating from Cam. 

Cam who is floating half a dozen feet off the ground, eyes shining with blue light and hands curled into claws. 

“Dude,” you say and then have to cough for a long moment as your lungs protest. You sit up and try again. “Cam! Dude!”

Cam doesn’t seem to hear you. You stagger up and take a shaky step towards where he’s floating. As you get closer, you can see something flashing through his glowing eyes, like those special effects you see on TV when someone is reading really fast. “CAM!”

At last, Cam turns towards you, still silent and radiating sheer power. He still doesn’t say anything, but that’s good enough for you to think he’s paying attention. You push through another wave of magic. “Dude,” you say, panting for breath, “you looked just like Avatar.”

Cam blinks. His brow furrows. The power around him lessens and then, all at once, disappears. He nearly falls when he lands back on the ground, his legs visibly shaking. “What?”

“You looked like Avatar,” you say again. 

“The good one or the blue one?” Cam asks.

“You’re such a nerd,” you say because you have no idea what he’s talking about.You look around you. Nearly all the grass in the field has turned green again, even though it was dying moments before. “Dude. You did this?”

Cam stares at his hands. Slowly, a blue glow forms. This time, he does collapse to his knees. Flowers boom and brush against his sides comfortingly. “Oh god, my power is to make things grow.”

“Is it the thing they were talking about?” you ask. “The waking or whatever?” You prod at a flower with one toe. “How? I thought you had to see me dead to awaken.”

“I don’t know,” Cam says. He looks up at you. His face drains of color. “Your head--you--”

You cock your head. “My head?” He must be trying to ask if you’re okay after throwing you so far. “I’m fine, bro, you should be worried about you. “What was that?”

“R-right,” Cam says. He takes a deep breath and looks at his hands. “I just, I just got so mad and then I felt something break open inside me and--”

“Break open?” you ask, alarmed. “Like your appendix?” You drop down beside him and prod him in the side. “Does it hurt?”

“No.” Cam swats at your hand. “Yes, I’m pretty sure I awakened. Mitch told me I had purification powers, but I didn’t expect this.” He looks above you before letting his eyes slide back to the ground. He picks a flower and examines it. “Though I guess it makes sense. Genevieve did say that abyssal magic was decay. This is pretty much the opposite of that.”

Genevieve must’ve been the lady in the clearing. You nod and run a hand across the grass. It feels nice and smells very sweet. “So that’s it then? You awakened? I don’t have to die now?” You’re struck with a realization. “Dude, did you just awaken at the thought of me being murdered?”

Cam scowls at you. “I awakened because I just found out an important person in my life went against all of his teachings to try and murder you. Don’t make a big deal out of it.”

You sniffle. First you find out he’d be upset if you died, then you find out he’s upset by the thought of you dying. And he considers you his childhood best friend. “Thanks, man. I’d be upset if you died too.”

“Would you?” Cam asks. He twists so he’s facing you directly. The flowers shift to avoid being crushed, twining out of the way like they’re alive. “Would you be upset if I died?”

Your jerk. “Of course. I’m beginning to get that I’ve been, like, not so chill lately, but I still--” you cut yourself off and look down at your knees. Your jeans are stained green where you hit the ground from before. You swallow hard. “You’re still my friend.”

“Huh.” Cam leans back on his hands, watching you. Just as you’re starting to get uncomfortable under his stare, he snorts. “You’re a shit fucking friend, Finn.”

You rub the back of your neck. Your head feels pretty heavy. “Yeah, I’m starting to get that.” You think about trying to explain that you thought you were joking around with him, but somehow it seems wrong. It doesn’t really matter what you meant. It seems stupid to say it out loud now. You sigh. “So what now? I’m not dead and you’ve got your powers just in time for the attack next week. Should I--”

“The what next week?” Cam squawks, jerking upright. His eyes are very wide. “Did you say attack?”

“Oh, “ you say. You wince. “Did I not mention that? The ground told me that an abyssal tear is opening up over the school next week. That’s how I died. Or die.” You feel a flash of alarm. “Oh shit, maybe dying is still on the table.”

Cam jumps up, snatches you wrist, and tries to drag you up too. “Come on, we need to contact Genevieve.”

“Not Mitch?” you ask. You know he’s an important part of Cam’s journey, but you’re kind of scared of the guy. He tried to kill you after all.

“No,” Cam snarls. He doesn’t seem to notice that you’re following him willingly. He’s still got a surprising strong grip on your wrist. “Fuck that guy. If I see him, I’ll make tulips grow out of his eyes.”

“Harsh,” you say. Then you imagine it and can’t help but feel a bit better. Your attempted murdered would like really dumb with flower eyes. “Maybe we should find him then.”

“First Genevieve,” Cam says. “Then we make Mitch’s head a flower pot.”

We. You start to smile. “You want me to come with you?”

“You kind of gotta,” Cam says apologetically. “Genevieve is probably the only one around who can get those antlers off your head.”

“The antlers?” you parrot dumbly. He doesn’t seem inclined to release your left hand, so you use your right to feel the top of your head. Disturbingly, there’s something that feels like a pole coming out the top of it. You grop the other side of your head. Two poles. “Oh my god. Dude. Oh no.”

“I’ll fix it.” Cam looks over his shoulder, meeting your eyes as if begging for you to believe him. “I promise. Please don’t freak out.”

You try not to panic. It’s surprisingly difficult. “No, no, it’s cool. It’s cool. Antlers are cool. Why did your powers give me antlers, Cam?”

“I don’t know,” Cam says, “that’s why I’m kind of in a rush to find Genevieve. That and the murderous Mitch thing.”

“Right,” you say faintly. “Okay. Game plan.” At least you’re not dead. You nearly trip over a rock. It seems unfair to you that you’re the clumsy one in this sitation. “Wait, dude, can’t you teleport?”

Cam stops dead in his tracks. He doesn’t turn to face you, but you can see his ears turning red. “Oh, yeah.”

You stare at the back of his head. “You forgot you could teleport.”

Cam whirls. “You didn’t realize you had antlers for, like, five minutes. Get off my back.”

You open your mouth to retort but then Cam is grabbing your shoulder and the world spins.