Ships are my passion

Her hand cupped my face. I had never been touched like this, with mercy. It almost burned to the touch, it was acidic.

“Bea, we’ve been doing this for so long… Can't we stop? I know who you really are. And you’re not a monster”, she said, “You’re just a girl.”

She kissed me. I had never been kissed before. “How dare you?”, I thought, once my brain rebooted, “What’s your gain doing this?”

Don’t you use my civilian name! Don’t you dare pity me! I don’t wanna kill you!

For a moment, I even considered she had poisoned her lips, but Aurora was not one to play dirty.

“I'm not pitying you. It doesn’t have to be like this”, she whispered.

But if it wasn't pity, it was something else I still couldn't fathom, what else are you going to feel for your archenemy? Disdain and loathing, on her part. Hatred, from mine. Simple, wasn't it? Things were black and white.

It wasn’t pity, it was love. How was I to know? I had never been loved, never planned to. Especially if that love was coming from her. She was superhuman, and I was just… How could I ever deserve something like that from her?

No. Aurora was supposed to hate me. We were nemesis. She: superhero, me: supervillain. Black and white. Easy. My brain couldn’t grasp any other concept. Loving thy enemy? What does that even mean?

She mistook my confusion for consent, I suppose, because she closed her eyes and approached me, to kiss me once more. She was flying while I stood at the edge of the building. She could fly. How could a superhero as angelic as her ever look at me with anything other than repulsion?

Before our lips met again, before she even opened her eyes, I shot her with my paralyzing ray. I wasn't good enough to be gazed at by those green eyes. Neither with mercy, nor love.

Her wings were paralyzed, she couldn’t fly any more.

I watched her fall in slow motion toward the street, fifty stories below. The almighty Aurora, defeated by her own Judas Kiss.

I don’t know what else is left to say. I didn’t come here to cackle evilly because I achieved what every supervillain desires: control of the city, the death of the hero. Honestly, I don’t feel like laughing ever again.

I’ve only felt emptiness since I ran down those fifty stories, chasing a fallen angel, an injured bird, and I couldn’t distinguish her white clothes, her golden hair, her green eyes amidst all the blood.

The world hasn’t been the same ever since. Everything is a cacophony of newsreels, people crying, supervillains congratulating me... I should be happy, they tell me, but I'm not. My ears are ringing. At school they mourn Aurora and the blonde girl who died the same day under "mysterious circumstances." Want a hint? Alice Adler's coffin, at the funeral next door, is empty.

Sorry, I didn't come here to give away her secret identity. Nor did I come to gloat over Alic--Aurora's death. I brought flowers. I’m wearing black. I am grieving. More than many of you, who only pretended to know her to feel special. I truly knew her. So much so, that to me she was see-through. I knew every bruise and scar on her skin thoroughly, because I was the reason for their existence, and she was my canvas.

I knew everything about her. Our relationship was close, filled with deep hatred, at least on my side. It was the only sincere relationship I ever had, and I lost it. There couldn’t be anything other than hatred between us. I didn’t deserve more from her. Now, I deserve even less.

I killed Aurora, and in return, I got a credential from the League of Machiavellian Villains of the West. Coupon holder included. Murder the only person who made you feel alive, and you get one ice cream for free at the parlor.

I killed her because I loved her, and I didn’t realize until her green eyes turned red as they hit the pavement. Too little, too late.

I killed her to finish her road to sainthood; for only a saint could ever love me. Only then did I understand that her attempts to get close to me had not been sabotage as I had first thought, but something purer. But I couldn't allow her to feel that way about me, so I killed her. To save her from myself and to save myself from her.

I killed her, and now I don't know how I'm going to be able to feel again.

Aurora is dead. You could put the blame on me, but she’s guilty as charged, because she was wrong about something: