I still remember the water as it rushed over me, its inhuman like weight constricting every fiber, muscle and bone. The pool’s shallow surface betrayed it’s deceptive depth as I sunk for what felt like eons in an almost incomprehensible darkness.
And I wasn’t alone.
The spirits of everyone who had ever suffered beneath the waves of the Odyssey called to me. Their rage, their sorrow, their fear, their mirth, an almost overwhelming cascade of emotion that nearly drove me mad and the loudest voice of them all was my own.
Screaming at me to stop pretending to be something we aren’t, to give into who we truly are, to just let him in so we can finally be whole. Those minutes I was submerged felt like years, but in truth I only needed seconds to agree with him.
So why is it when you pulled from the pool Doctor that I was still the same insufferably frustrating hopeful hero that you tried so hard to break in two?
You became much more darker, Felix was nearly consumed by his demons, but I was exactly the same. An anomaly that you couldn’t understand, a mystery you couldn’t solve and even if you had managed to dissect my mind, you would have never cracked that code.
Because your analysis was wrong from the very beginning.
See the Odyssey Pool doesn’t draw out the darkness within you, it’s not some magic evil machine that you can use to corrupt every good soul that comes your way. All it does is force you to face parts of yourself that you’re terrified of. While you were so self centered you double downed on the egomania, Felix was petrified of the monster hiding within him and me…
I didn’t have the courage to truly be a hero.
I thought I’d gotten both my parents killed, I couldn’t save anyone and though I put up a brave façade, I was terrified of failing again. She always said I’d be the hero Arcadia needed but I didn’t believe I was the one they deserved.
Until I heard the truth inside that pool as my subconscious slapped some sense into me.
You don’t think I changed Doc? Look closer because I’m not the same boy you kidnapped months ago.
A weak, pathetic child tortured by the idea that he could never be what everyone else needed him to be. He drowned in that pool.
The man who emerged, strong, confident, complete. He is the hero that you are going to rue the day you ever crossed his path.
Because this whole proving heroes are corruptible isn’t a power play or just because we won’t bend the knee
It’s because being a hero is something you cannot comprehend. Because fighting for anyone but yourself is completely alien to Doom.
And that’s why you will fail. Because I fight for everyone in Arcadia, I am the hero they deserve.
My name is James Jackson and you will forever remember it as the Doom you brought on yourself.