To the hero of this story,
You think you're so good, don't you? You and your innate goodness, likability, and powers (whether they are super or natural). You seem blessed. Everybody loves you. You have it all.
And then there's me: the villian, the one doomed to be jeered at and ultimately fail, even marginally, because that's how the story goes. Good triumphs evil. Love is lost to me because it belongs to you, and you're my exact opposite.
I'm not looking for sympathy. I don't want that shit, and I doubt I'd get it, anyway. I'm breaking the unwritten code we villians follow by writing you a letter that isn't either vowing to take over the world - despite any actions you decide to take to stop me - or personally threatening your life or the ones you love. I'm on temporary hiatus from those duties. Right now, I speak out of character, free of any manipulation or peer pressure that I know you also have to tolerate as the quintessential hero.
The fact is, I truly think I am the hero. That is why I do heroic things. Alright, I know that in your eyes my actions aren't all that heroic, but if you look at most villians - and I mean really look - we aren't acting completely out of spite. We believe that we have a cause worth fighting for. We may not have a choice in being evil, due to it being programmed within us, but we have a choice as to why that is, and how we see it. It hurts to know that nobody appreciates our efforts to change the world in our unorthodox ways; we may be bad, but we are trying our hardest with the job that we were given. How does that make us so different? We are like your folk. We are kin.
We're also disliked because our actions are usually seen as selfish. Our stories are completely overlooked, and nobody cares to know WHY we don't live as normally as they do, even if our history is spelled out to them plainly. The typical response to a caught madman preparing to shoot up a city is "whack him in prison" - but is there a single person trying to reach out to this sniper, asking if there is a reason why he is acting so radically, before he is incarcerated? And before a psychiatrist is talking to him in a guarded room, is there anyone finding out that in his childhood he was chronically bullied, or acknowledging that his father was a strict liberal with a hatred of greed and lust and impressed his opinions upon his only son? Of course he's going to shoot up a city. He believes everyone is inherently bad, and it's the only way to fix a world gone wrong. You may think it's disgusting. I think it's sad. But we villians have a job to do, and that job is is to be the bad guys that you heroes defeat.
Contrary to popular belief, we are people too. Everyone has light and dark inside of them - you can't deny that you've had your own dark thoughts or temptations. That sniper cried like a baby when he completed his therapy, because he realised that he had been brainwashed and that good people did exist: not him, not you (an oh so very arrogant figure of idolisation), but the person who reached out to him and told him that to start anew, he needed to forgive himself. Because, right after he had satisfied his objective, he would have turned the gun on himself. As a villian, he was aware that he was violent, but we recognise that it is not necessarily something to be ashamed of, because everyone is. Our causes may be different, but violence and guts are needed to carry out the plans of what we want; unlike you heroes, who, in the end, can only do what is expected of you.
I must admit most bitterly, though, that our fates cannot be escaped. We're two very different people - you are the manifestation of light, and I am the manifestation of shadow. We were born together for a purpose, and used thus. You may not find it easy to change, but you are loved; I may be hated, but I can change who I am. And as you are used even more than I am, and you have less freedom to do as you please, I pity you, hero. Things can't be all that great for you, afterall.
Yours truly,
Your living, breathing, feeling mortal enemy.
P.S. I had contact poison applied to this paper. You will die within minutes. Enjoy. Oh, and for your decision to take the innermost thoughts of a villian's mind to your grave, you have my sincerest thanks.
