The End of a Beginning

Besides the time of his birth, Frederick Wan would only find himself in hospital twice. The first, he lost the powers that he thought had made him the greatest hero on the face of the Earth. The second time around, he discovered he had much more to lose:

"You're too young to die, sweetie!"

"Tsk. Always putting yourself at risk."

But Frederick Wan did not pay much attention to the curly-haired lady with an exaggerated Southern accent, nor the burly man with a menacing look across his scarred face, nor the quiet girl who followed them like a shadow down the corridor of the ER. His focus was drowned out by the loud starkness of the ceiling LEDs and the turning of the squeaky wheels of fate beneath his stretcher. 

"Does he have anything in his pockets? Any metal, jewelry, piercings? " asked the nurse.

They could see that Frederick held onto something in his hand, which was pried away from him. It was a little ornamental globe of Void Man defeating the Abominable Snow Monster of '24 in Montreal, and it rolled onto the floor with a clank, sending fractures through the glass; inside, the figurines, dislodged from their positions, hurtled through the storm of snow. 

***

The story of how Frederick became hospitalized again, naturally enough, begins with his first experience one year ago. Fred remembered waking as if from a long, pleasant dream, after which he was gently placed into the world again. A world where time had paused for the sole purpose of his dreaming. Only after a moment of respite did he recognize the face of the old pirate stitched with a wry smile and an eye patch sitting beside his bed. It was General Eugene. 

"Good morning, Sunshine," said the General. "I knew you'd come around, eventually."

Fred tried to sit up, but was repressed by a pain that was unfamiliar to him.

"Slow up there, Son. You've taken a pretty hard knock. Even if the doctors say you've recovered remarkably well."

In another effort, Fred began raising his arm, repeatedly, and clenching his fist, like a malfunctioning boxing robot.

"That's the other thing," said General Eugene, "your, uh, powers. We don't know what happened to them."

"General!" Fred just now addressed his longtime friend. "What's going on?"

The worn-out old man gave a sigh of pity that told Fred everything he needed to know, and he watched as realization slowly sank in. Fred gazed out at the afternoon sun, which, at that time, seemed to be all there was. It was a while before the General broke the silence again:

"Well," he said as he tossed a backpack onto the foot of the bed, "in here is your new passport, documents, phone, keys to a new apartment, a card to an account with some savings in it, and a contact to a therapist, if you need it."

"You now go by Todd Huang, and you work in hospitality." He continued. "As you know you have some powerful enemies, and it's best you keep on the down low for a while."

Fred ran his hand across his head, only to find no hair there: "I'm... I'm bald?"

"You've undergone some visual changes," the General grimaced. "But I'll bet me leg on it that the hair will grow back. It's the least we could do for you. Unfortunately, the government is often content with the least."

"A funny thing, life is," Fred remarked.

"You're a smart kid. You'll come around," the General gave Fred a consoling pat on the shoulder. "Who knows, maybe ordinary life will even do you some good."

On the way to his new address, envisioning in the autumn twilight how he once vanquished the horde of flying imps with an enchanted bowling ball right nearby, Frederick decided to pick up some groceries in the convenience store situated beneath his flat. He had been assigned there to work night shifts. Just two months later he would bore of watching crime shows and arguing with strangers online about which world-ending threat was the coolest, and call General Eugene again, complaining that his insides felt as cold and soggy as the microwave dinners he survived on. General Eugene would then refer him to the Hero Help Squad. However, it was this place, where the eternal lights reflected softly off the matte white tiles onto the aisles of perfectly arranged shelves, housing everything one could ever need in one little shop, that he thought of, a year later, when he laid helplessly on the operating table. Misty the cashier, and her presence of vanilla perfume, scanned his items while a TV played in the background:

"It has been three months since the tragic disappearance of Void Man," said the news-reporter. "In an extraordinary act of bravery, the young hero flew head on into the beam coming from the snout of the Elder Dragon, who perched itself atop the Tokyo Sky Tree. Neither dragon nor man was seen emerging from the debris following the collapse of the tower, with many fearing the worst for Earth's mightiest hero. His body, however, was never recovered: experts speculate he was incinerated completely; still a minority believe that he will rise again. The mayor plans to honor the memory of Void Man with a statue following the reconstruction of the Sky Tree. Our reporter, Mary Jane, has more for us from the scene..."

Fred looked back and forth from the screen to the cashier, but there was no hint of perception on Misty's face.

"Tragic, I know. But I believe he could still be out there," Misty said without looking up.

"What makes you say that?" Fred asked.

"Oh, I don't know. Just a silly hunch of mine. I don't think the strongest hero in history would go down this easily."

The two souls stared at each other amidst the soft humming of television and refrigerators, smiling awkwardly. 

"Would you like some chopsticks to go along with your purchase?" 

"Oh, right, yes. That will be handy."