Fiction Contest Story: The Accidental Hero

Thank you, The Accidental Hero, for entering the contest. Here is their story...

"Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp,

Or what's a heaven for?"

(Robert Browning)

In a world torn apart by chaos, disorder, and moral entropy, there seems to be little place for human virtues like love, compassion, and hope.

What can a mere individual with little by way of social or economic influence, lacking in prodigious talent, noteworthy abilities, or physical prowess, do to make a difference, let alone fix the problems of the world?

It would be mere hubris to think that I could be an agent for positive change. Me: just one of over seven billion souls.

When the first wave of alien invaders - known as The Legion - landed on Earth, we were in no way prepared for them. We weren't even able to take care of ourselves, let alone deal with an external threat from a species far more advanced than us. The invaders were looking at us with bemused condescension as they trampled on our social and political structures, crippling our ability to defend ourselves, deconstructing our world.

My first encounter with those invaders was something that I will never forget for the rest of my life, being imprinted as it were deep into my consciousness.

When news of the first landing in New Amsterdam went viral on every conceivable form of social media, my instinct was to run and hide.

Then I thought, "what could they possibly want with a nobody like me?" With that, my initial panic subsided a little, although I still felt that we were all doomed anyhow and nothing could be done.

It is a peculiar quality of human nature that when all hope seems to be lost, a cathartic sense of calm, relief even, sometimes fills the soul, a vague sense of transcendence that comforts, albeit fleetingly.

For me, that brief moment of being sparked a desire to actually *do* something for once. To do what I could to save what was left of human civilisation; for if we did not even try, what was the point of existing in the first place?

Plus I had nothing to lose, for a nobody cannot be negated any further. My life, until then, added up to nought.

But, what could I do? I, of no talent or ability. Why have the yearning to do something that is seemingly impossible?

When the alien invaders launched their first wave of attacks, they were far more insidious than physical destruction: they sought to implant the seeds of moral degeneration that would lead to our downfall. In our case, though, the seeds were already there in our unvirtuous existence; The Legion only needed to put in place the catalysts for destruction.

This they did in the form of alien symbiotes that controlled their human hosts. The targets were people of influence: politicians, policy makers, senior government officials, and the like.

I was none of those, so I was "safe". Or so I thought.

*****

I woke up one morning to the sound of banging on my door.

It was the military. It seemed that our city was under attack and they were evacuating everyone to convert my suburb into a forward operating base.

I sensed that something was not right. There did not seem to be any strategic advantage in choosing *this* suburb as FOB. Plus the whole operation seemed reckless. Nobody seemed to be in charge; everyone was just following orders, refusing to answer any questions. The residents of the neighborhood were packed into three-tonners and promptly taken away.

Then it was my turn.

No time to pack, I was told. Put on this mask because we were driving through poison gasses from the aliens.

I obeyed, but reluctantly so.

As the truck headed off into the clouds of poisonous gasses (alien Morphon particles, they were called), we huddled up together in fear.

Then it happened.

The truck hit a fallen tree and swerved into a ditch, throwing me off and into the ditch. My head hit a rock, smashing my mask, leaving me exposed to the Morphon gasses.

I blacked out.

When I came to, I found myself, along with everyone else, encased in cocoons, our spinal cords connected to tubes that led to a massive contraption that throbbed slowly. Everyone else was unconscious, except me.

Then everything went blank again.

The next thing I knew, I was back in my house.

It was a bright sunny day outside; people were going about their own lives, gardening, cooking, walking their dogs, jogging. Children in the playground having fun. Elderly folks by the park benches reading, playing chess, smoking their pipes.

Everyone seemed so happy.

I looked at the daily paper. It was a Monday. On the front page, headlines proclaimed the first anniversary of the defeat of The Legion. Celebrations everywhere.

Could it be true? What happened? How did we win? Where was I all this while?

I stepped out into my front yard. The sun was so bright it almost blinded me. I didn't want to look up but was somehow compelled to. What I saw I can never forget.

There was a tear in the sky. Or a crack that ran right across from horizon to horizon revealing an empty darkness. What was so weird is that I could actually see behind the blue sky and clouds into the black void beyond.

I gestured to my neighbours, pointing frantically to the sky. Nobody noticed me as if I were invisible. Everyone went about their own business, blissfully ignorant in the tear in the fabric of their reality.

Everything went blank again. Total darkness.

I came to in my cocoon once more. Not knowing what was going on, if it was all a dream or a hallucination. Everyone around me in their own cocoons still unconscious.

Then I heard a voice. *My* voice.

"Resist," the voice said.

Slowly, bits of my memory came back to me: the evacuation, the truck, the accident, me falling, my head against a rock, the mask broken, Morphon gas filling my lungs, the excruciating pain, then the light.

The gas did not kill me.

Instead, it did something to me. To my mind.

"Resist," the voice repeated.

Suddenly, I felt my consciousness awaken within me, as though it had been dormant all my life. Until now. It was like a warm light, dispelling the darkness around me. It connected me to other consciousnesses, at once strange and foreign, and simultaneously familiar.

The curious thing about an enlightened consciousness is that it wants to be free. Free from all constraints of time and space, free of all fears, free of all limitations. Despite ourselves and our mortality. Despite our apparent weaknesses. Despite our human condition.

I realised then that the human spirit - our willpower - knows no bounds. It wants to reach the heaven that is around and inside us.

Perhaps the exposure to the Morphon particles enabled my latent spirit to manifest itself as willpower. Perhaps we all have it in us already; it just needed to be awoken. To be freed from the banal existence we have been trapped in.

In any case, I knew my journey had only just begun. I summoned all my will and felt the bonds

around me dissolve away. The cocoon that entrapped me melted, and I was free. I did the same for all the other cocoons around me, freeing their captives. One by one, they came to and regained their conscious memories.

We were all still faced with The Legion threat, but no longer were we their prisoners.