Shadow-Man

6

With each night, I began to get better and better as a superhero. The self defense classes were doing wonders, and I was begining to minimize the amount of injuries that I was getting. I was stopping muggers, murderers, and rapists left and right, and I was fairly happy about it. To be honest, my reasons for continuing to be a superhero were not entirely unselfish. The truth is, I loved the feeling I got when I beat up a criminal, and relished in the attention I was getting on the news, and on social media. Being Shadow-Man gave me a lot of confidence, despite the fact that only one person knew that it was me.

Speaking of that one person, Gill continued to support me through and through. Every day at school he would talk excitedly with me about what I had done the night before. I didn't always have something exciting to tell him, because, surprisingly enough, crim was not something that I came across nightly. However, even when I didn't have an action packed night, Gill was excited to hear about anything that I did do that night, even if it was just walking around in the dark.

Things changed very dramatically for me one night, when I was walking around my city, not too far from Clair's apartment complex, when I heard a loud noise that sounded like a slap from beside me. Upon looking over, I found a blonde woman in tight clothes and tall heals struggling against a man who appeared to have the woman pinned roughly against a wall. I turned and looked at them, ready to save the woman.

"Excuse me ma'am? Is this man bothering you?" I called out. Both the woman and the man turned and looked at me. The woman had big, pleading eyes that made her look desperate for help. The woman's bruised, and swollen face nodded subtly at me, and I didn't wait another second before attacking the man.

I punched him hard in the face, knocking him to the ground. The man got up, and tried to fight back. I ducked quickly as the man swung his fist, trying to hit my head. I punched him hard in the gut, causing him to double over in pain. When he did, I grabbed each side of the man's head, and slammed his face against my knee, breaking his nose. The man fell over onto his side, and I stopped, knowing that it wasn't fair to continue to beat up the man while he was on the ground. The man showed no signs of getting up, so I turned to the woman.

"Are you ok?" I asked her gently. The woman nodded, scared.

"What's your name?" I asked her.

"Miranda." The woman, Miranda, responded quietly.

"I'm Shadow-Man. Do you have somewhere you can go? Like, your parents, or a friends house?" I asked.

"Yeah. My friend lives a little ways away."

"I'll walk you there." I said. Miranda and I began walking to her friends house. Along the way, Miranda kept stumbling over her shoes, causing her ankles to turn in ways that looked horribly painful. I opened my mouth to suggest that Miranda just take the heals off, when I noticed all f the water, and broken glass on the ground, which meant that taking off the heals wasn't an option. Instead, I stopped walking, causing Miranda to stop too. I stepped in front of her, and squatted down. 

"Hop on." I said.

"What?" Miranda asked with a nervous chuckle.

"You're going to break your ankles in those shoes if you keep walking in them. Hop on, I'll carry you the rest of the way to your friends house." I explained. Miranda seemed to hesitate for a moment, before climbing onto my back. She wrapped her arms around my front and I grabbed onto her legs as I stood up.

Carrying Miranda to her friends house was more difficult than I thought it would be, but only because I wasn't physically cut out for carrying people long distances. However, I tried not to let it show that carrying Miranda was hard, because I didn't want her to worry or feel bad, but I was very relieved when Miranda finally informed me that we had made it to her friends house. I made sure that Miranda would be ok before I left to go help someone else. I made a mental note to stop by Miranda's friend's house the next day to make sure that she was still ok, and to see if she needed anything, then I ran out into the night in search of crime.