Seek {Superhero AU} - Ending 1

2: False Curiosities

NPOV

Track: I Don't Even Care About You, MISSIO

By the time I'm seventeen, I search for her every day, sometimes multiple times a day. There's a map on my wall of the houses that I suspect and the houses that I've already searched. I spend almost every waking moment planning my attacks and learning the schedules of my opponents so that I can get to their houses when I know they're not home. Between identifying suspects, researching them until I find their address, and then stalking them until I have their schedule perfectly in my memory, looking for my sisters is a full-time job.

Most people think of me as a villain, and they have the right to. I break into my suspects' houses. That's pretty villain-worthy.

It's also pretty exhausting. My muscles are sore from fighting as I get out of the shower and towel off. I've been lying to my mother about all of these—she's under the impression that I go on late night runs. It helps explain why I come back to the house tired and sweating so many nights, at least.

I change into a pair of black sweatpants and a t-shirt. My hair is still wet when I walk out of the bathroom and find my mother on the couch watching the news. I sit down next to her, heart beating a little too fast. I always get a little bit nervous when my mom watches the news; if a reporter got even a tiny portion of my face, my mom might recognize me. I'm honestly lucky she hasn't already recognized me.

I do have a mask, so it's not like I'm completely vulnerable to being recognized. See, there was a woman named Hecate who was rumored to be able to accomplish magical things—I spent weeks trying to get her to make me a suit and mask. She turned me down every time because I couldn't pay the full price. I would come back the next week with slightly more money, but never even close to enough.

Her home was a small apartment with crystals covering every surface in sight. Colorful rugs pile up on her floors, and old leather books cover the house like dust. When she opened the door to me for the eleventh week in a row and I still didn't have even one quarter of the funds it would take to get a suit, she sighed and invited me to sit with her. She made me tell the truth about what I'm doing, and to this day, she is the only person I've ever told. Is Hecate, a random woman who I know nothing about, a trustworthy enough person to tell my most important secret?

Probably not. But without her, I would never be able to go after Hazel at all. After hearing my story, she gave me my money back and told me she would make me a suit under the condition that I never seriously hurt people in the process of trying to save Hazel.

So I get a suit and mask and powers that go along with them. And one day, when I find Hazel and get a job, I am going to pay Hecate enough for one thousand suits to thank her.

But for now I'm sitting on the couch with my mom, and my suit is stuffed under my bed because I was too lazy to hide it more thoroughly.

The news report flashes to the reporter who usually covers my case: Aphrodite Lookgoode. They have a short video of me leaving a small yellow house empty-handed, flying away into the night sky and disappearing among the stars.

Lookgoode emphasizes for the thousandth time that they know I'm looking for something, and then she moves on to talking about how grateful she is that we have heroes around to put a stop to wrongdoers like me. I roll my eyes.

"I wonder what his other life is like," my mother wonders out loud. "Do you think he's not happy at home, so he leaves and does this?"

I stand up and head to my room now that the video of me is over and I know my mother hasn't been able to identify me yet. "What, you think the Ghost King is just some kid having a teenage rebellion against his parents? I doubt it."

"Do you think it's possible he was bullied at school? I mean, maybe this is a result of him not knowing how to deal with other aspects of his life," my mom asks, and I can feel her stare boring into my back as I round the corner to go down the hall to my room.

"Maybe!" I call, extremely tired of the unintentional psychoanalysis from my own mother. Aphrodite Lookgoode is bad enough—I don't need this ridiculous conversation to pervade my own home.

"We might never know what the Ghost King is after," says Lookgoode from the TV in the other room, "but we do know, however, that he needs to be stopped. Luckily we have Sunburst here to save the day. Everyone, I am Aphrodite Lookgoode, and this is WWN-WorldWide News reporting the terrible crimes of New York."

That's the last thing that I hear from the TV; my mother turned it off. I shut my bedroom door behind me and groan, finally allowing myself to try to stretch out the aches in my body. My arms are especially bad today; that happens sometimes when I overdo it with my shadows.

I didn't have much of a choice today. Sunburst was so extremely bright today, burning through every shred of darkness that I sent at him.

Maybe he'll be too tired to fight me tomorrow.

Oh, who am I kidding? I don't have good enough luck for that.

WPOV

Sometimes I think maybe I should try not to think so much. This paradox often comes up while I'm trying to think about the Ghost King. (That's such a narcissistic name. He doesn't even have ghost powers, and he's most certainly not a king.)

The thing is, nothing about the Ghost King makes sense. I want to understand what he's trying to do. The better I understand his goals, the more effective I'll be at capturing him—like, really capturing him, not just chasing him around and ultimately failing to pin him down anywhere long enough that the police can take him away.

Sometimes I think he's probably just doing it all to cause mayhem. But that doesn't make sense because everything he does is so carefully calculated—he knows exactly when each family will be home and when they'll be gone. He knows how long he has to search the house before he'll get caught by police, and sometimes he even seems to have a basic understanding of the floorplan of the house. His stalking capabilities make me shiver.

If it was just to cause chaos, why go through the trouble of planning everything out? Wouldn't it be easier to smash some windows, take some valuables, and get out?

That's the other thing. He never breaks anything on purpose—our fights have led to a few accidentally broken windows, and I always write apology letters—and he never robs any of the houses. He just gets in, snoops around, and gets out.

Sometimes I think he might be collecting information on everyone. Why else would he leave everything intact? He doesn't make any sense, but the whole thing creeps me out big-time.

I go in circles thinking about all of it when I lie in bed at night. When I'm not fighting the Ghost King, I'm thinking about him.

It's ten PM, and I am exhausted from fighting the Ghost King. I turn over in bed and try to stop thinking so that I can fight again tomorrow without feeling exhausted. Unfortunately, despite my perfectly warm blankets and perfectly cool pillow, my eyes remain wide awake.

To absolutely no one's surprise, my questions don't leave me, and the Ghost King permeates my thoughts against my will for another hour before sleep finally takes me. 

Word count: 1339