#3 Superfriends

He’s my best friend.

We met at work, a newsroom of a local paper. I was there a few years before he was hired, but we connected straight away. I found a kindred spirit in Kent that I couldn’t find in anyone else. I took pictures. He wrote fluff pieces. Probably the only guy there less intimidating than me. Chubby, awkward, thick-rimmed glasses, he wore clothes two sizes too small and always seemed to vomit out the wrong words at the wrong times. There was one time Percy, our boss, called him into his office fuming with anger. Kent didn’t know what to do, so being the pitiful sack he is … was … , hid in the copy room closet until an hour after the place had closed. I took a little pride in that, no longer being the weakest of the bunch. Sometimes I made him pay for my lunch, pretending I had forgotten my wallet. Just for that rarest burst of superiority.

He pulled the wool over my eyes. Over all of our eyes. He wasn’t a pushover, wasn’t weak like me. Hell, he wasn’t even human. Spent all his time away from the paper floating around, saving grandmothers and punching unpronounceable space-deities into orbit.

That was before. Before all of this happened. Before I pushed this creaky wheelbarrow. Before I collected the arms and the legs and the ears and the pelvises and the half decomposed faces. I was his friend once, but my motives were selfish. I think he knew that. Now, he forces me to tidy up his mess. These chains I wear are heavy and tight. He couldn’t kill his pal, Timmy Nelson. Maybe he wouldn’t kill me.

I wish he would.

It’s that slut Lola’s fault. She broke his heart. Fucked Percy on his pretentiously huge mahogany desk. The son of a bitch can hear a quartz vibrate inside a Breitling in Chicago while doing a crossword on the Moon, you don’t think he’d pay special attention to his woman? She murdered everyone. The catalyst to the end of humanity.

Although the end isn’t coming quickly. He’s toying with us. Earth’s entire population is on edge, waiting for the next outburst. Last time it was Sydney. Tore the heads off of a hundred thousand people in less than thirty-two seconds. Piled them up. Sat at the top. King of the universe.

My best friend.

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Category: Superhero