Inktober 2026 - 21 - Hero

Theirs was the only car on the road, so he risked a quick glance at the little girl sleeping in the passenger seat. That’s what she was: a little girl. A child. According to her missing person’s poster, she had barely been eleven when she had disappeared. Or rather, had been taken, as he had now confirmed. She was around fifteen today, but she was still far from being an adult. Not that any of what had happened to her would be any easier to stomach if she had been…

Getting back to his driving, a random beam of light they came across allowed him to catch a glimpse of his own reflection in the windshield, and he winced. There was some blood on his collar and at the corner of his jaw. He managed to wipe his face against his shoulder, but his clothing would not be so easily made clean. Shrugging, he zipped up his jacket to cover up the evidence.

His passenger woke up abruptly, in a sweat, and only relaxed once she remembered where she was. She would probably do that for a long while.

“Can I put on some music?” she asked, her voice still a bit drowsy.

“Sure. Maybe we can catch a radio signal around these parts.”

They both reached for the dashboard at the same time, and he snapped his hand back quickly, before they made contact. She was taken aback, but still finished what she had endeavoured to do. She did not set the volume very high, because the sound quality was not very good, but a quiet melody did offer some background music.

“You’re disgusted by me,” she stated, as an interpretation of his reaction.

“The opposite, kid,” he corrected her too swiftly to be lying about it.

“The opposite?”

“You’ve just been through years of hell, and it all just ended with me killing seventeen men in front of your eyes. I don’t think you should get too attached to me.”

She shook her head, as if struggling to wrap it around his reasoning.

“You’re right. I was in hell. And you got me out of there, by slaying the demons that held me there. Those weren’t men.”

“And yet, they were.”

“Barely. They did not have souls. You know who had souls? The children that they killed after giving them to me.”

The car almost swerved.

“You gave birth?!” he asked in horror.

“No. It never went that far. Those unborn children had souls, though. Those other girls that did not make it out had souls too. Those ‘men’, as you so clemently call them, did not. You did nothing wrong.”

“I wish had been there earlier. I feel like I was too late.”

“Not for me you, you weren’t. And if you really believed that, why come at all?”

This stranger had just given her back the future those monsters had attempted to steal. As far as she was concerned, he was nothing short of a hero.