Only a superhero

   I could see the city, all of its lights moving beneath me. The avenues looked like serpents, wiggling about in all directions. And people were undistinguishable in the darkness of the night. Street lamps illuminated some of the areas but not all of them, so it was pretty obvious that there were patches of greater darkness within the city. In one of those, I had been caught and brought to that place, to the highest point of a tower that overlooked everything, like the mighty lair of some comic book villain.

 But the person that had brought me there was not exactly that. He was actually one of the people you might call “a good guy”. It was me who was being thought of as a villain. According to him, and to the organization he worked for, what I did could be understood as an act of treason against my own country, for which I could be detained and processed, ultimately landing in some awful prison where my fortune would be sealed. I had already gone through it in my mind, again and again.

 However, I hadn’t predicted him to bring me to that place. True, the building held several offices for his government entity, but ordinary criminals would never go there, least of all to be incarcerated there temporarily. It was obvious that something else was going on and I had no idea what that was about. So I had to pretend I was very certain of everything and the best way to do that was avoiding answering questions that could let them know how much I didn’t know. It was some sort of cat and mouse game.

 Him and his partner, a younger woman, tried to interrogate me for what seemed like hours but I was too good for them. They couldn’t get anything from me, nothing more than what they already knew. I couldn’t pretend I hadn’t been the one to hack into many of their offices, but I wasn’t going to tell them anymore than that. After all, I lived in the shadows; I knew how to move among the scum of the Earth. They just thought they knew how, but they had barely seen a glimpse of what the world hides beneath the surface.

 They left me alone after a couple of hours. They held me in a room that overlooked the city. It must have looked like a normal office from the outside but from the inside it was pretty much like any other cell. It had bars and a bunk bed and somewhere to piss if I wanted to. It even had that kind of door that has the little window in order to pass food through. That reminded me I was very hungry, but I didn’t ask for anything because that could be used by them to try to pull things from me. So I decided to take a nap instead, trying to take advantage of the lack of sound around the cell.

 It was the next day when his companion came and brought me something to eat. She was very nice, very cute, obviously with no experience whatsoever in her field. Maybe she had passed the tests and all of the training, but it was obvious she wasn’t exactly the top agent around. As I grabbed the tray with food, she sat on the other side of the bars and told me that some others had been captured. I just ate, pretending I hadn’t heard her. But I did and I wanted to know everything. It was important to know.

 She told me about the raid on the warehouses we operated from and how many of our computers had been seized. Yet, she knew very well no one would get one document from all of those. Of course, we always knew when they were close and our systems would erase themselves in an instant if that were the case. But it was intriguing that she knew so much, for such a rookie agent. I kept on eating; it was toast and scrambled eggs with a small yogurt and a glass of orange juice. Much like a plane meal.

 I drank a bit of juice as she stood up and got closer to the bars, just looking at me. I looked back at her, defiant. I didn’t trust her at all and it was obvious she was posing as this silly little woman, when in reality she could be even more dangerous than the guy that had actually caught up with me. So I finished my meal as soon as I could and then just put the tray on the place in front of the little window. She looked at me for a bit longer and then grabbed the empty tray and left. I could hear her heels walking away.

 Lying on my back, I wondered what she could be up to. Maybe she had been set by her partner to intimidate me in some way, but it didn’t make any sense. He was the one with the experience to do so. Even if he wanted to throw me off, I believe he was the kind of man that wants recognition for getting things done. Besides, it was obvious he had a certain obsession with the whole case. There were men and women killing and raping all over town and he was obsessed with a few hackers trying to make things a bit better.

 When I began hacking computers, I did it for fun of course. In order to help friends get better grades in school or maybe just blackmail someone in order to give me some money. Yes, it was illegal and wrong and stupid. And I will never say those were my best moments. However, I discovered another layer to the whole thing when this chick in college introduce me to several of her friends and got into the real hacking world. Big bank accounts and the most private and so-called safe websites in the world. And we could just enter and take whatever we wanted. Just like that.

 At the start, they only wanted to go in for the money. And yeah, as a kid that had no money to pay for a decent school, I wanted to have my pockets filled with bills and coins. But then, I realized I could do so much more with all my skills. My first move was to get rid of my money problem, and I did that in a semi-legal way. I hacked into several stock market systems and found out the best way to make money in there. So I invested some money and saw it flourish in a few days. I can say I’m rich now, but I don’t.

 Because my next step was the one that got me where I am now. It was the step that made me run away from home and live with a bunch of strangers in filthy storage warehouses. I decided it was time to give something back to the community that I had use in my advantage. So I grabbed my keyboard and started going around the dark web, taking jobs as a hacker for hire. I would only do things that I thought were “good” or that they will make things fair and make justice prevail above all.

 I guess you could call it my Batman phase or something. The point is, I did that for at least two years. I helped parents get the men and women that had assaulted their children, I helped children find their parents in the midst of war and I even helped people get out of very difficult situations. I couldn’t be with them the whole time but it was my job as a hacker that saved their lives. I cannot shy away from the truth: I did save lives and made the world a better place. And yet, I end up in a cell.

 Maybe my earlier mistakes are too serious or maybe they just don’t like people being better than them. However, none of that explained why I was in that building or why was it taking them so long to send me to an actual jail. I was getting impatient and that’s not good for a person that expends his days sitting down in front of a computer, playing superhero on the information superhighway. When I heard the heels again, I stood up in a second and waited to see her face, her voice taunting me again.

 But she didn’t. She opened the door and asked me to step outside. Then, she asked that I follow her. I could have overpowered her but there were so many agents around, it would have been impossible to escape. I was free from shackles or handcuffs, but I was still a prisoner walking who knows where.

 She brought me in front of a bunch of people, mostly men, lead by the agent that had caught me. He was looking very pissed. It was the woman who talked. She said they were offering me work, in exchange for not putting me in jail. My reaction surprised more than one person there: I laughed out loud, proud.

Conviction

   I just had to do it. That’s what I talk the officer when they came to my home one sunny Saturday afternoon. The day had started so bright and beautiful, but my body somehow knew something else was going to happen. I had been living in that cottage for more than a year, never really feeling safe. And my past, my actions, had finally caught up to me. It was very scary but, at the same time, a relief. I didn’t have to keep running from everyone and I could finally breathe in relative peace, even if it was inside a cell.

 They came in and talked to me. We didn’t even tried bullshit, as we all knew what we were doing there. I wasn’t a danger to anyone, so they avoided using harsh language or force. They didn’t even use handcuffs. I asked why because, as you always see in TV shows, handcuffs are supposed to be mandatory. They said they would make an exception for me, because they didn’t really wanted to upset the villagers, they didn’t want them to know what was happening. The less they knew was best for everyone.

 It was clear they also wanted to avoid been noticed because they weren’t dressed like officers. They looked like a nice couple, touring the beautiful towns of the English countryside. But they weren’t a couple and I never knew if they were really nice or not. They just wanted to do it all without a fuss, avoiding any kind of commotion and, especially, any possibilities of the news leaking to the press. I guess they wanted to be the ones revealing to the world that I had been captured, without any resistance.

 They let me call a fellow villager, a friend I had made with time. I told her I would be leaving because of an emergency and that I would need her to take care of the plants and animals in the house for a while. I had two cats and a dog, as well as a very well cared garden with all kinds of flowers and herbs. It had been my everything for this time. She asked why I was leaving but I just insisted on the reason being an emergency. She didn’t say anything else, maybe understanding that I was, somehow, under pressure.

 We then walked out of the house, letting me close with the key and leaving it beneath the welcome mat. I didn’t grab a coat or a sweater, because what good would it be for me to do that if I was going to spend a long time in a cell. I hopped into the officers’ car and we rapidly drove off. I couldn’t get myself to turn around to look at my house for one last time. I broke right then and there, my eyes swelling up with tears that rolled down my cheeks. I didn’t clean my face until much later, preferring to taste the saltiness of the tears, to realize what was happening, to make it real.

 I fell asleep on the ride to the city. The officers told me they had to take me there first, to be processed and for a judge to see me. They would even give me a lawyer, but it was clear I wasn’t going to use one. The only thing I was clear about was that I was going to plead guilty and I would pay my sentence, no matter how long it was. I didn’t want to defend myself in front of anyone; I didn’t want a jury to get their nose into what had happened. The fastest way to put everything behind was just to accept my fate.

 The moment I woke up, I realized how life would change for me. As the car crossed the gates of the main police station, I started missing everything from my life before. I missed Paws the cat and the way he like to play on the window when it rained, thinking the water drops were small fish. I thought of Captain, my dog, and Cinderella, my other cat. The three of them had been my companions for a while, at nights and in moments I thought the only exit was killing myself, running directly into a truck passing by on the road.

 I would also miss my times in the garden, caring for the plants and the flowers and cutting and putting things on pots. It had been a lot of work but it was always fun and exciting. I learned a lot about life from those plants, a lot about myself and how I can be a better person. I thought of mentioning that to the judge but then I realized they wouldn’t care about what I had done while on the run. For them I was just another murderer that had to pay the price for what he had done, no matter how many plants or animals I loved.

 The officers finally put me on handcuffs and helped me down the car. We walked through various corridors and climbed up stairs. I thought the place was like a labyrinth and that it was an intentional thing on the part of the creator of that place in order to confuse anyone and make them feel anxious and insecure. It was kind of working, right to the point where they sat me down on a bench and asked me to stay put. Of course, I complied. There was no place I could be and running away made no sense at all.

 I waited for an hour or so before one of the officers came back and told me I had to stay overnight in a cell beneath the station. Apparently, not all papers had gone through and some others were needed for me to be properly sentenced. They guaranteed me it wouldn’t take more than a few hours but the judge was only available until the next day. So we took the elevator, he filled some more papers and I eventually got to a cell, alone in the dark. I couldn’t sleep at all, so I just waited, trying to avoid becoming insane. I realized how hard it was going to be for me, even doubting if I could endure through it.

 Thankfully, everything happened early in the day. I declared myself guilty in front of the judge and he revised the case carefully before stating his sentence: I was going to be in jail for ten years. My so-called lawyer was ecstatic, as she thought it was going to be way more than that. Apparently, I could have been sentenced to life in prison, but as I only killed one person and never really shown tendencies to indicate I would kill again or that I had killed before, they decided to be a little nicer to me.

 Yet, a ten-year sentence was still a lot. I was going to come out in my forties, without any real chance of getting a proper job. I would be more of an outcast that I had ever been, and that didn’t bother me at all. I knew it was not the norm but I thanked the judge before he left, before I was taken down to a van were they would carry me to prison. It took a while, more paper work, but we were on the road about two hours after my hearing. The trip was going to be pretty short, as the prison was not to far from the city.

 When I got there, I have to say every single detail seemed extremely important. I had my eyes wide open, as well as my ears. Apparently, it was a medium security prison. They gave me a uniform at the entrance and I had to strip down in order for some guard to do a cavity search and then watch me dress up. It was the most humiliating part of the whole process and I have to confess I wasn’t expecting something like that to happen. I just thought about the ocean, my flowers and my animals.

 More paperwork. Then, a big muscular guard took me through several corridors until we had reached the third yard. Some more paperwork and then another short walk, this time to my final destination. The cell was a little big larger than the one in a police station. I had a small window, a toilet, a sink and a bunk bed. I was kind of surprised to see someone lying down on the top, staring at me as I entered. The guard took off my handcuffs, closed the door and left me there with my cellmate.

 I didn’t want to speak first. Apparently he understood that, because he waited for a while, as I looked at my surroundings and then sat down on the lower bed, feeling the fabric of the blanket with my hands, its roughness and brutality. He then asked what I had had done to end up there with him.

 I told him, in a very clear voice, that I had assassinated my best friend’s father.  He asked why. So I told him, staring at the pearl white wall in front of me, that he had raped me repeatedly for years, so I decided to stab him in his sleep one night, when he least expected it. My cellmate felt silent. So did I.

The tower

   When Samuel woke up, the first thing he felt was the stone cold floor of the tower. It was made out of huge rocks that had probably being recovered from the river down below. The sounds that the water made stumbling down from the mountain could not be heard at such heights. The cold wind blew and he was finally awake to see the horror of his situation. He had been trapped and put in a tower, far away from anyone that would be able to ever rescue him from his ordeal.

 Before losing his consciousness, he remembered a gentle smile and green bright eyes. He almost remembered huge yellow eyes and fire. But nothing else. Only those four things and when he put them together in his mind, they didn’t make any sense at all. It was as if he had many fragments of one story in his head but not the whole thing. He could put them in any order and try to make sense out of it, but it was useless. Even if he came up with the right idea, he wouldn’t know it.

 After waking up, he walked to the balcony and saw the land beneath the tower. There was an immense forest, larger than any he had ever seen or heard of. His motherland was located near the ocean. He had seen mountains only from afar and now he was surrounded by them. He had water so close he would fish every single day with his friends, for his parents and the townspeople in general. Now, the river was only a glistening thread that sometimes shone beneath the trees.

 Sam walked back to the tower’s interior and saw his new kingdom: a straw carpet on the center of the room, a bookshelf with many dusty volumes, a large wooden table with some fruit going bad on a basket on top, a chair, and a something resembling a bed but much smaller. It was uncomfortable even looking at it. Only one pillow and one thin blanket on top. It wouldn’t be enough for the nights on such a high place. The final touch was two doors: one half broken, going to the terrace, and the other made of solid metal, leading elsewhere.

 He ran to the metal door. He tried to push and hit and kick the door. But nothing happened. It wouldn’t even make a sound. It was just there, impervious, being the frontier between his cell and the rest of the world. He banged at the door, crying and yelling, desperate all of a sudden after realizing some mad man had imprisoned him. He begged for his life and for his sanity but no one came. He put one of his ears against the cold metal but couldn’t hear anything besides the wind. He was probably alone in that damned tower.

 Samuel tried to look for something else around the room, something to help him, but there was nothing there than what he had already seen at first glance. It was just that room, with those objects. No magic or mystical thing behind it all. For a moment, he had felt like one of those imprisoned damsels on children’s stories. But his situation was far worse than what those ladies had gone through. His captor was not even there. And he only had bad fruit to eat and nothing to drink.

 He decided to grab an apple and bite a chunk out of it. He felt the need of food in his stomach and maybe it would be best for him to think with a somewhat filled stomach. But he ended up eating the whole apple. In his rage against himself, Sam threw the apple’s heart over the balcony, and looked how it fell several meters before disappearing among the trees. After he saw that, he started crying and sobbing. He was going to die for sure and he had no way to ask anyone for help.

 Night fell soon enough. He closed the wrecked wooden door but it was useless, as the freezing gusts of wind entered through the huge cracks. He got into bed, with all of his clothes on, and just lay there, trying not to fell the cold that pierced through the thin blanket. Besides, it was too short, so either his feet would froze or his chest. He decided to get up and use some of the bigger books on the shelf to cover his feet. They were more dust than paper but his idea worked. However, the sadness he felt prevented him from falling asleep quickly.

 From afar, he heard the noises made by the forest. He closed his eyes and tried to remember the faces of his family and friends, his adventures to the beach and how he was congratulated for a week after having caught the largest lobster ever in that area. He had been so proud and had provided for his family for a whole month because of that feat. The pride lit his heart and that made the perfect temperature to fall asleep and visit his home in his dreams. He needed it badly.

 As he dreamt, he saw the yellow eyes again and the fire but he also remembered something more: a laugh. Soft, almost imperceptible, but capable to chill every single fiber of one’s being. The laughter wouldn’t stop. It got louder and louder and louder. Until the green eyes appeared, the sound of metal was heard and everything became silent and peaceful again. Then, saw a smile and felt his heart filling with heat again. But this time it wasn’t pride that was doing the job. It was something much more powerful. It was love.

Samuel woke up all of a sudden. He had felt so good but then something had changed and his eyes just opened. But no one was in that place with him. He was still alone and the wind was still entering through the rotten door. But it was day outside. Not only that. His blanket had been replaced with a thicker and larger one, with many bright colors all over. And the moldy fruit was replaced with baked goodies and fresh fruit. The books though, were still as dusty as before.

 It was obvious someone had entered the room. He stood up in the middle of the room, looking for more changes, and he realized he had overlooked something very obvious: he wasn’t wearing his boots anymore. Those were outside, the sun shining bright over them. And his vest had been put on the chair next to the table, nicely folded. He could finally spot something, the only thing, out of place in the whole room: a pair of wool socks made into a ball, on the bookshelf.

 He walked towards it and grabbed the ball but, just when he did it, a piece of paper fell down to the floor. The bad thing was that the damn wind pulled it over to the balcony and through the biggest crack on the wooden door. Sam raced after the paper and was able to catch it just as it was flying over the edge of the structure. He pulled back so hard out of fear that he fell on his behind, hitting the stone floor hard. He couldn’t get up so fast, so he decided to read the note first.

 It was short and very concise. It read: “Nights are cold. P”. That was it. Nothing more. No explanation of who the person was or why he or she had imprisoned Samuel on that tower. Nothing more than a kind thought made into a pair of woolen socks. They were new and Sam learned they worked wonders in order to try to keep the cold at bay. But it was a pain in the butt not to know who had been there to leave that present. Not even the actual pain could put his mind to rest.

 The man from the coast stayed in that tower for a long time and each night, new food and objects would appear out of nowhere. Sometimes, he would get a new book; some other times it was board games he could play by himself. He even got more clothes, all which fit perfectly.

 In time, he learned to live in the tower. He doubted his host less and loss until, one day; he eventually met the person who had put him there. And the first thing he did was to cry. And then, he looked at the horizon, and knew exactly what to do.

No one

   The floor was cold and the room was very humid. No light entered the tiny space where he was trapped. He had forgotten his name long ago, maybe because of the many beatings he had received or maybe because it wasn’t something that was important anymore. A name didn’t help anyone survive such a horrible thing. Then again, he wasn’t sure he wanted to survive. He just wanted his awful situation to change, one way or the other, it didn’t matter at all.

 All the days were the same so remembering each one individually was difficult and also useless. There was no point in having a good memory when the schedule every day was the same: early in the morning he would be woken up by a plate of water sliding towards him or by cold water coming out of a hose. It apparently depended on the humor of his captor. Then, he was kept there all day unless his captor wanted something else from else, usually to work for him in the most awful way.

 He would knew it was a “work” day when an old mattress was put inside his cell, alongside the water plate and also some food. The food was never good, some sticky stuff that looked like mashed potatoes, but wasn’t exactly that. He ate it anyway but his stomach always complained. Those days, he would have to wait all day until his captor’s client would come. It was and excruciating wait that didn’t get better after it all ended. Of course, he wouldn’t see any of the money the client paid.

 Actually, he had never seen the face of the man that had kidnapped him and kept him there. He always wore a ski mask, so he had no idea what his face was like. But what he did know was that he was a very strong individual. After many beatings, using both punches and kicks, the captured had learned how heavy the captor’s body was. He had an incredible force in his arms and legs, probably because he exercised a lot. But the man was losing his eyesight living in the dark, so he could only go by what he felt was the truth.

 The beatings took place randomly. It was the only thing in his cell life that changed and, of course, it wasn’t something he would look forward to. When it happened, it almost felt like part of a sick and awful routine that had survived for far too long. The man in the cell knew he had been there for a long time but he had no idea how long that was. More than a year? Probably. Five years? Maybe, he didn’t really know. What was true was the fact that the violent man would never use him as the clients did, which the captured always thought was strange.

 But that was only when he wondered about his situation, which was really that often. Instead, he loved to sleep. It was the only way his body felt actually rested and, when he managed to sleep long hours, he was able to dream. Even when nightmares slipped in, it was a good thing for him. After all, he had forgotten what having an imagination was like and seeing all those images that make no sense inside of his head was a sign that there was still hope for him, in a very sad way.

 In the dreams, he was sometimes free. Not every time and that was very strange. One would think that his obsession was to be free in the world. But a recurring dream happened to be a redecoration of his cell, with more light and nice furniture, as if he was restoring his childhood bedroom, which he didn’t really remember anymore. When he dreamt of freedom, it always ended on a stark note, like a remainder that he wasn’t really free and that he might never be free again.

 What he did want, at least judging by his dreams, was to be able to talk to someone. Once, he did have the chance to do so, when another person was locked in a cell beside him. He had thought for long that he was alone wherever he was and that discovery was the best for him. Except the other person was not very interested in talking, instead crying and demanding an explanation to why they were there. Soon enough, their captor moved that other person somewhere or who knows.

 Voices were rarely heard. In their daily routine, not the captor or the captured would talk, even when one would pull the other by the hair or when the beating was especially brutal. No words were heard, as it was an unspoken rule to actually say something. It was better not to taunt danger, not more that was usual. So words were something inside their brains, wondering around and trying to get out in any way possible. He was afraid he would forget how to talk and behave.

 Many of his dreams and nightmares were an exercise on precisely that, trying not to forget every single thing about himself. He would sometimes remember, for example, the faces of his family. He knew who they were but not their names. It didn’t matter because “mother” was “mother” not matter what. So were “father” and “sister” and “brother”. He would normally wake up soaked in tears when he dreamt about all of them but, in a certain way, it was worth it. Because he still remembered, which meant he hadn’t been completely broken down.

 A day came in which his captor did not come. For an entire day, the poor man was locked in that cell with no water or anything that would indicate the presence of another human being. It felt pathetic and sick but he wanted the man to come and, at least, smack hard. At least that felt real, it felt as if it was happening. But having no one, deep in the dark, was very cruel, even more than the usual. That happened for what seemed like an eternity, but were actually five days.

 Then, someone did open the door. He would normally raise his head and wait for the captor to get close but he couldn’t do that anymore. He was too weak, feeling sick and preferring to sleep and dream about something less depressing. With his eyes tightly closed, he dreamt about an enormous bird carrying him to a magical land that was made of many colors and shapes. He hadn’t dreamt hat before and it was the happiest moment for him in a long time, as he felt loved, in way.

 He woke up several more days later. When he did, it was very dark, like in his room, but he realized he wasn’t there anymore. There was a machine besides him making a sound and he was lying on nice mattress, with clean covers and sheets. He saw the light from a corridor near him but, as his head felt too heavy to bear, he fell asleep again. The last thing he would hear were the steps of several people passing by his room. Or that was what he thought it was, he wasn’t sure.

 When he woke up again, it was day. A thick curtain diminished the light, which was a good thing because the sunlight felt like acid on his skin. He felt very tired but also dry and clumsy. A nurse came in and brought a drink in a bag with a straw. By the flavor, it was obvious it wasn’t water but it didn’t taste bad at all, so the formerly captured man drank it all. The nurse didn’t say a word the time she was there. And he wanted her to tell him something, anything at all.

 However, he would have words to share the following days as doctors and policemen visited him. The first group told him what his physical state was. To sum it up, it wasn’t good but he would be able to recuperate in the future, he just needed to be patient. Go figure.

 The second group, the enforcers of the law, explained to him his captor had been killed by one of his clients and that crime had led them to the cell. Apparently the client was mad because the captor hadn’t let him stay with the man in the cell when he wanted. He never understood that part.