"What do you think it means to be a hero, Mat?"
His elder brother, Alec, asked the question while lounging on the windowsill, moonlight gleaming off the twin horns that protruded from either side of his head. The horns caught the silver light and seemed to glow with an ethereal quality. He was picking at the peeling paint on the window frame—a nervous habit their mother had been nagging him about for months.
Mat picked at a loose thread on his worn t-shirt, avoiding his brother's gaze. Through the glass, he could see the orange glow of the Hero District's patrol lights sweeping across the skyline, same as every night. The Meridian Heights Residential Complex was supposed to be safe—twelve miles from the designated conflict zones, protected by the new perimeter shields they'd been hearing about on the evening broadcasts.
"I don't know?" He responded with feigned indifference. "Stop disasters? Fight villains? Be flashy and have cool powers? What else is a hero supposed to do?"
"Ugh, you're looking at it all surface level." Alec pressed his hand to his forehead dramatically, his signature move whenever Mat failed to grasp his profound wisdom. But there was something softer in his expression tonight, less condescending than usual. "That's why you'd never make it as a hero. Well, that and your whole..." he gestured vaguely at Mat, "situation."
Mat swallowed the bitter retort rising in his throat. "Thanks for the reminder."
"Hey, I'm not trying to be mean." Alec's voice lost its theatrical edge, becoming genuinely apologetic. "I just think you're selling heroism short. It's not about the flashy stuff."
Outside their window, a news drone buzzed past, its LED display scrolling the same reassuring message they'd been seeing for weeks: TERROR CELL PUSHED BACK 50 MILES—MERIDIAN DISTRICT REMAINS SECURE—EVACUATION PROTOCOLS SUSPENDED.
"Heroes do one thing, and one thing only." Alec straightened his posture and placed his hand on his chest resolutely, his voice dropping to the theatrical baritone he practiced in the shower when he thought no one was listening. "They save people."
As if on cue, the air became still. The constant hum of heat pumps outside their window ceased, and the flickering bulb in their ceiling fixture went dark. Even the news drone's buzzing faded to silence. The world seemed to hold its breath, as if waiting for Mat's response. Or perhaps something worse loomed on the horizon.
"I want to save people too," Alec said, his lips curling into a lopsided grin. "All I want is to keep people from danger and make them safe. That's all I want out of life."
That's such a boring dream, Mat wanted to add sarcastically, but the words died in his throat as the corner of his vision exploded into blinding white.
His pulse quickened in microseconds, his brain desperately absorbing information even as his body remained frozen. Even if he could have moved, it wouldn't have mattered. The situation was damned from the beginning.
Searing heat pressed against the left side of his face, like someone had taken a blowtorch to his skin. Before his nerve endings could fully register the pain, the brick wall beside them shattered. Chunks of concrete and plaster slammed into his side, lifting him off his feet and hurling him through the gaping wound in their apartment.
Falling.
The realization struck him with more force than the explosion. He was falling through open air, twenty-three floors above the ground. Cool night breeze mingled with acrid smoke, filling his nostrils as he tried to cough, but the breath hooked in his throat. Wind rushed past his ears with increasing velocity as gravity claimed him.
Mat tried to twist his body to see what remained of their apartment, but his senses had gone haywire. His equilibrium shattered, unable to distinguish left from right, up from down, front from back. His brain offered only one coherent thought: An explosion. That's what happened.
A jagged mass of concrete debris caught up to him mid-fall, colliding with his left arm. The bone snapped with an audible crack that somehow pierced the rushing wind. White-hot pain radiated from his shoulder to fingertips. Through tear-blurred vision, he caught glimpses of fire and smoke, of red and black.
"But why?" he whimpered, tears streaming upward from his eyes, abandoning him just as life was about to do the same.
His thoughts fragmented in the chaos. One moment he had been in that cramped apartment in Building C of the Meridian Heights complex, arguing with his brother about heroism while their mother worked her night shift at the hospital. He was supposed to start high school next month. Alec was supposed to take the entrance exam for Atlas Academy, chasing his naive dream of heroism.
So why why why why—
Why had this happened to him? "Why me?" The question pounded in his skull with each passing second of freefall.
He knew who caused these explosions. The so-called "villains" who had been waging their civil war against the government for the past two years. But what did Mat have to do with any of that? They were just ordinary people living ordinary lives. The news had said the terrorists were contained, pushed back beyond the safety perimeter. Meridian District remains secure. That's what every broadcast had promised.
So why were they so damn unlucky?
As he rocketed downward, weightless and helpless, the muted booms of distant explosions grew clearer. Now he could hear the screams. The sirens. The sounds of a city in chaos. And cutting through it all—a sound that made his blood freeze even as he fell—an inhuman shriek of rage or pain that echoed from somewhere far below. It didn't sound like any person he'd ever heard. It was something else entirely, something that spoke of power and fury beyond human comprehension.
The terrible cry faded as quickly as it had come, but it left Mat's skin crawling with dread.
Which meant he was getting closer to the ground.
Mat held his breath, hoping at least for a quick end, remembering Alec's words from just moments ago:
"Heroes do one thing, and one thing only. They save people."
People like him couldn't become heroes. His brother had a mediocre quirk that wouldn't fare well in fights with literal demigods who could chuck buildings with ease and fly into the sky at a moment's notice. Alec's power was just horns on his head—practically useless unless you wanted to ram enemies to death.
And Mat's own power? Not even worth mentioning. So pathetic that he'd rather let people assume he was powerless. What good would it be against explosions and falling buildings?
So where were they? Where were the real heroes with their earth-shattering powers and lightning-fast reflexes? Why couldn't they stop the villain that had caused this? Why couldn't they do their damn job?
Then why couldn't they save Alec? he thought.
And why couldn't they save me?
He expected his world to turn black, or perhaps red, depending on how quickly he met his end. In the awful clarity of impending death, he imagined his skull cracking as he fell headfirst onto the pavement, his bones fracturing and protruding through skin, his body twisted into unnatural angles like a discarded doll.
The screams grew louder. The smell of burning flesh hit his nostrils as the ground rushed up to meet him.
He waited for the pain. Waited to feel his brain leaking out, his spine severing as his body crumpled.
He waited. Waited. Waited.
Was it over already? Was death so quick that he hadn't even noticed the transition?
Is this the afterlife? Heaven? Hell? Or those places in Greek mythology where he'd be processed for reincarnation? Asphodel? Elysium?
"Kid! Are you awake?" A sharp voice called out, sounding faint in his ringing ears.
It was then that Mat realized what had happened. He couldn't move freely—not because he was paralyzed or dead, but because he was stuck.
A thick film of viscous fluid had engulfed his body at the moment of impact. His quirk. The one thing that made him different from others. The ability that he had always considered useless—gross, embarrassing slime that only appeared when he was about to die. Now he could feel the dull thud of the dampened shock from the collision with the ground, his bones creaking as hands pulled him out of the gelatinous mass.
"Looks like that ability of yours really came in handy here." The person who had called out to him said. Mat blinked through the slime to see a paramedic with a scraggly beard and shifty eyes that darted from side to side, scanning the chaos around them.
He wore a blue and green vest with reflective strips that caught the firelight. The Meridian Emergency Response logo was barely visible through the soot and debris that covered his uniform. Mat had seen people like him on the news—the ones who stayed behind when the heroes couldn't make it in time.
Mat tried to sit up, but the world spun violently around him. His stomach lurched, and he barely managed to turn his head before vomiting onto the rubble-strewn pavement. The taste of smoke and bile filled his mouth.
"Easy there," the paramedic said, steadying him with a firm hand. "You've been through hell. That was a twenty-three story fall—your body's going to be in shock for a while."
"I... I don't understand." Mat's voice came out as a croak. Everything felt surreal, like he was watching someone else's life through a fog. "What happened? Where...?"
"Terrorist attack. Multiple explosions across the residential district." The paramedic's expression was grim as he examined Mat's injuries. "Building C took a direct hit. You're really lucky to have survived."
The words hit Mat like physical blows. Building C. Direct hit. The reality of what had happened began to sink in, piece by terrible piece.
"My brother," Mat whispered, his throat constricting. "He was... we were together. In the apartment."
The paramedic's face told him everything before words could. The man didn't think anyone else could have survived that direct hit. Mat was one of the lucky ones—his quirk had saved him when nothing else could.
"I'm sorry, kid. I really am." The paramedic's voice was gentle but firm. "If your family survived, you'll find them with the people we rescued from the other buildings. But if we stay here any longer, you won't be alive to find out. We need to get you to the evac zone."
Above them, several buildings burned like massive torches, painting the night sky crimson. Entire high-rises groaned and tilted, promising more destruction. The street was littered with rubble, shattered glass, and—Mat's stomach lurched—bodies.
He expected to see the city's superhumans dashing through the chaos. Some using their ice powers to extinguish the flames. Others transforming into giants to prevent buildings from collapsing. The heroes that featured on his brother's posters and action figures.
But the only people offering any help were paramedics and civilians, tending to the wounded and dragging survivors from wreckage. Where were the heroes now?
His left arm throbbed with pain where the impact of the explosion had broken the bone, but Mat forced himself to focus. He had to find Alec. He had to know for sure.
"Wait," Mat choked out, struggling to his feet despite the paramedic's protests. "I need to... I have to check. Maybe he got out. Maybe—"
Another explosion tore through a nearby skyscraper. The massive structure began tilting with an unearthly groan, preparing to fall and cause another cascade of destruction.
"We have to go now!" The paramedic grabbed Mat's good arm, all pretense of gentle bedside manner gone. The man wanted to save himself too.
Mat relented, taking the paramedic's hand as they ran toward the nearest evacuation vehicle—a battered emergency transport with Meridian Emergency Services markings. But his eyes remained fixed on the burning ruins of his home. How far could they run? What if the entire city was under attack? What if there was nowhere safe left?
They had made it perhaps fifty yards when Mat saw it—a single horn glowing red from the heat, partially buried under a pile of rubble near what had once been their apartment building. He knew instantly where—who—that horn had come from.
Time seemed to slow. His heart hammered against his ribs as a cold certainty settled in his chest.
"No," he breathed.
Mat broke free and ran back, ignoring the paramedic's desperate shouts. He dropped to his knees beside the rubble and gripped the horn tightly, even as it singed and burned his palm. The heat was almost unbearable, but he wouldn't let go. Couldn't let go. It was all he had left of his brother.
Tears welled in his eyes but refused to fall. A strange numbness spread through his chest, replacing the panic and fear with something colder, harder. The grief was there, vast and crushing, but it felt distant—like it belonged to someone else.
Why? Why did he have to survive while Alec didn't? It was so unfair. So cosmically, cruelly unfair. Alec, who had dreamed of being a hero. Alec, who actually had a visible quirk, even if it wasn't much. Alec, who had a future, who was supposed to take the Atlas Academy entrance exam next month.
Alec, who had wanted to save people.
The paramedic's hand landed on his shoulder. "Kid, we really need to—"
"He wanted to be a hero," Mat said quietly, his voice hollow. "He was going to save people."
"I'm sorry. I really am. But if we don't move now, his sacrifice will be for nothing. You'll die here too."
Mat looked up at the man's soot-streaked face, then back at the horn in his hands. Something was crystallizing in his mind—not just grief, but purpose. A cold, sharp clarity that cut through the numbness.
Alec had wanted to save people. That had been his dream, his whole reason for living. And now he was gone, buried under tons of rubble while the heroes who were supposed to protect them were nowhere to be found.
But Mat was still here. Mat had survived when he should have died. Maybe there was a reason for that.
Standing slowly, Mat clutched his brother's horn against his chest and turned away from the ruins. The paramedic was right—they needed to leave before the next building fell. But as they ran toward the evacuation zone, dodging falling debris and stepping over the bodies of the innocent, Mat made a vow.
He would avenge his brother. He would become what Alec had wanted to be—not just a hero, but someone who truly saved people. Someone who would be there when the real heroes failed to show up.
And to do that, he would have to hunt down every last villain in the country. Starting with whoever had destroyed his family tonight.
That was how he would atone for his survival. That was how he would honor Alec's memory.