Not Your Average Hero

•7• death of a loved one

In movies, there will be a moment before the protagonist dies, that their life flashes before their eyes. All of their happy and sad memories, jumbled up into one second of a flicker before the next one comes onto the screen.

That's what was happening to me, only I wasn't the one dying- dead.

Almost every day of his life, Alden reminded me and everyone of his friends, that when I was three, I had a nightmare and ran to his room scared out of my mind. He let me sleep in his bed even though my pants were soiled with pee; and he never let me live it down.

When I was five, we were playing in the park. Once the swing was at its highest point, I flew off and sprained my ankle. Even though I could walk on the other, Alden insisted on carrying me bridal style the whole fifteen minutes home.

When I was ten, a boy in my class was bullying me. Alden was the first to find out, and the first to teach him a lesson. The kid, who Alden later explained had a crush on me, never teased me again; in fact, he never talked to me again.

When I was fourteen, I brought home my first boyfriend. Alden and Axel were both tough on him, but Alden was the one who wouldn't let us go into a room without supervision. He stuck to my side like glue the whole night, even sitting in between us when we watched a movie.

On the day of his death, he warned me not to go to the mall. He asked me to stay home. If only I listened, I could have spent more time before it happened. I could have said goodbye, could have told him how much I love him.

But now he's gone, and I can't. He's been gone for the past week. I need to accept that he's not coming back.

I can barely remember his laugh. I have memories of the way he's chest rose and fell when he cackled and snorted, but that's it; there's no noise.

You never think the last time you hear someone's laugh will be the last time; you think there'll be more. You think you have forever but you don't.

It was only after the metal monster killed Alden that the other Westlake supers showed up. They obviously felt the distress but didn't get there in time to save him. Save my brother.

Redux told me he'd take care of Alden; clean him up so that his death doesn't look as bad as what it actually was for if we were to have a funeral. I let Redux take him. I was too numb to do anything; my heart was too crushed.

Amaris was barely responsive when we dropped her off at the hospital; Redux didn't have the juice to heal her. She spent the weekend there with a concussion and foggy memories of what truly happened on January 29th.

Redux dropped me off at home that day; it was the last time I've heard anything from him since. He has dropped off the face of the earth as far as the media's concerned. They've already started making up conspiracy theories up as to what happened to him.

Apparently, everybody knew about the Orbux bromance. Friends from the very beginning. Some people say Redux turned to the dark side, some say he's hung up the spandex; most say he offed himself, that the pain of losing his best friend was too much to bear. A tragic Romeo and Juliet case scenario except for the fact that they weren't in love; not in the romantic way, anyway.

I dreaded breaking the news to my family, I even considered not telling them at all, but they deserved to know.

I started off by revealing Aldens' alter ego. Mom already knew about his secret, she knew something could happen to him at anytime so she was prepared for the dreadful conversation. Axel was another story. His face lit up when he found out his older brother was the all mighty Orbit; he only realized, however, that something was wrong when I broke down.