Hero Villain

5.

As he walked for a long time in the thick snow that covered the town centre, Silas felt a sense of unease growing inside him. With his hands in his coat pockets and his nose buried in his scarf, he lifted his head and took a deep breath that froze his lungs. Small snowflakes flew over the city, landing where they could without sparing the young man's shoulders. He was tired from the long walk and his head was in pain. The sky, white as endless milk, did nothing to ease his headache. He had lost his sense of direction and seemed to no longer knew where he was, the white landscape confusing him.

Guess I'll wander until I find a train station.

As he walked along a pavement near a park loaded with the white mass, children's cries of joy erupted, wild laughter and exclamations testifying to their excitement at seeing the little snowflakes falling from the sky to the earth. He noticed that they enjoyed throwing snowballs at each other's faces before holding their stomachs in sadistic giggles. He couldn't help but think that these children were both innocent of their existence and guilty of the world that had given birth to them. They're laughing, but for how long? How long before they realise what life's really made of?

He flickers, not knowing whether it was the cold or the children's laughter that has sent shivers down his spine. 

It reminded him of himself, how he'd been unlucky all his life. He had learned too early what life was all about, even before he could read properly. Maybe that was a good thing; he didn't had to be delusional, like these ignorant kids. He never had to experience disillusion or false hopes. He never had to think that life was colourful when it never was. But even so, Silas knew that too much, even so, deep down he knows that he would have preferred to save his childlike soul a little longer.

A familiar passenger bridge beyond cut him off from his deep thoughts. A little bridge he knew all too well, as he spent most of his time crossing it on his way to school, and sometimes admired the view of the horizon from it. He remembers that this was his favourite part of the way, because the bridge separated him from all the misery in the world. It was a barrier that divided the path home on one side and the path to school on the other. The structure stood there, unshakeable, like a guardian of his peace, offering him a brief escape from the chaos of life. Crossing it, he always had the impression of entering another dimension, where, for a moment, the problems of the world could not reach him.

As he recalled these few memories that kept him sane during his teenage years, his heart raced as he made his way towards his old refuge. It hadn't moved in all that time, but it looked so different to the young man. It seemed smaller, more fragile, not as vast as before. You too have aged in a not-so good way, huh. That thought made him wince.

He lightly touched the bridge railing, cursing every passenger who passed by sticking their disgusting gums on it and tagging the ramp as if it were a sheet of scrap paper.

Silas stood in the middle with both hands resting on the cold and sold iron of the bridge railing, staring at the same old view he liked so much younger. Below him stood a large brick of ice, trapping the water that had once been a river. A trail of bare trees surrounded it, having lost their precious leaves last season. The view seemed to get older too.

What if...

He thoughts for a second of something delusional, but not that impossible.

What if everything ends here?

He looked down, noting how high off the ground he was.

What if I jumped? I'd die, surely.

But he still stared at the solid ground that seemed to be waiting for him. He stared for so long that the young man forgot how scared he was of heights.

I shouldn't, should I?

He thought of the children playing nearby, imagined them arriving there, crossing the bridge, enjoying the masterful ice below, only to find a frail body lying there, dripping blood, very blue and cold.
Silas shuddered to the think of it. He'd always wanted to die, but he'd never dared think about it, never even imagined himself dying. Today, for whatever reason, maybe because he couldn't go on, or maybe the loss of his job had something to do with it, Silas couldn't take it anymore.

He only felt a true hatred towards everyone on Earth, and the only thing he could do to express it, was to frown deeply.

I have no place here, anyway. In a world like theirs, being different and outside the standard becomes a fault, or worse, it's as if you have failed in life. I have failed in life. But I don't regret it. I don't need them. I don't need them, at all.

Silas knew deep down, but would never admit it. It was the other way around: he needed them, but they didn't need him. 

Suddenly, Silas felt a pain in his chest, like a sharp burn, as if he'd been stabbed. For the first time in his life, he felt like crying.

For the first time, he wanted to cry like the innocent child he never had a chance to be before.

For the first time, he let down his neutral guard to let tears of regret flow. 

For the first time in his life, he wanted to let pain and sadness enter his heart, breaking through his wall of indifference he had built up over all these years.

For the first time in his life, he wanted to cry out his deep and bitter frustration;

- I hate them... I hate them all! This people... are only pathetic automatons raised to be trivial... who live only to entertain and enrich themselves. They don't deserve anything except pain and only pain! I hate... to be part of the same world as them...

Silas climbed the bridge railing, his eyes irritated by the tears and his throat chilled by the scream.
There was no going back, and he knew it.

And yet, with the same deep sigh he always does, he takes a step forward where lies the utter nothingness.