I ask myself sometimes why I keep doing this, rushing in like a dumbass with no plan and leaving with nothing but scars and questions.
Just a stupid kid playing dressup, pretending to be hero and falling ass backwards into trouble.
I think it used to be that way but it’s become something more. Become something that you tried to teach me long ago.
The kid looks over as we see him at the foot of a bed while someone sleeps peacefully beneath the sheets, presumably The Burned Man.
Every action you take has consequences, every choice you make leads you down a path that forges the man you will become.
But the biggest choice you’ll have to face is the influence of others and why you do the things that you do.
The kid gets up from the bed, slowly walking over to the closet as he opens it to reveal three masks. One Red, One Black and One Yellow. He picks up the red one, staring at it for a moment with sorrow in his eyes.
When I first took up that mask, I thought I was continuing a legacy. I thought it was the only thing I could do, that I needed to be just like him. This perfect hero who made Arcadia better with his very presence. But I wasn’t a hero, I was a kid dressing up in spandex copying his dad. So at every turn I failed and faltered not knowing which path to truly take.
He throws it away, turning back to the closet and picking up the black mask which he looks at with disdain.
Loss turned to despair and despair turned to anger as I looked to follow in the footsteps of someone much more sucessful then my father had ever been. But still I faltered, still my resolve wavered as this darker rage didn’t feel right. It wasn’t me. Because once again, I was becoming what someone else wanted me to be.
Sounds familiar doesn’t it Digger? A broken man following the most vile monster in Arcadia out of pure loyalty and respect.
But you know deep down that path isn’t one you want to tread.
I get it, he took you in, gave you a purpose, give you a reason not just to survive but thrive. But anyone can tell your heart truly isn’t in it. You aren’t Tombstone, you aren’t even Malakai. You don’t like doing what you do, you don’t have the resolve to truly give yourself into the hatred and darkness.
As in the quiet of the night, you ask the one question you fear more.
Who do you fight for?
Because you keep following in his footsteps and the only grave the boy will dig is the man you were meant to become out from under his shadow.
While failure or not, everything I do is because it’s my choice and mine alone. As I choose to show you the right way. Not as the boy hero, not the teenage Doom fanboy.
The kid reaches in, grabbing the yellow mask before placing it on his face with a wide smile.
But the King of Hope.