The Watchman | Teen Ink

The Watchman

May 11, 2012
By Kyle.Kriskovich BRONZE, Heart Butte, Montana
Kyle.Kriskovich BRONZE, Heart Butte, Montana
1 article 0 photos 0 comments

"The Watchman... That is the name I was given..." A small breeze picks up, blowing cool air all around him. He thinks to himself as he sits down on one of the spires on the building, "My real name is Jake Wardlaw, but I am not known to the public by any name except that of The Watchman."

He lets out a long and drawn out sigh, "It really is sad to have watched one of your former friends pass into corruption and chaos, and to have to try and bring them back to the light that they once knew and loved... My friend Mark Cien and I grew up together, we were raised in the same neighborhood, and we both had a tragic loss on the same day..." A single tear darkens the mask beneath his left eye. "His rapid decline from the levelheaded, cool, and justice loving man that he used to be, to a seemingly mindless wreck who couldn't care less about a victim's life compared to the criminal's life, was stemmed from this event. He used to be just like me, always taking care of everyone around him, always looking after the underdog. But there was one event that changed us both forever..."

Another tear darkens his right side. "You see, I used to be a little more careless, kind of like how he is now, but not as bad." The Watchman looks all around him really quickly. "Thinking about this reminds me of the first day I noticed I had a "special ability"". You see Mark has been able to use his abilities since he was very young, so they just came natural to him, but I didn't get mine until I was about 10 years old." Another sigh... "Neither of my parents were superheroes or villains, so we had no idea I would ever have this random super-gene in my blood-lines. It seemed almost like fate had chosen Mark and I to be a part of the next generation of super-beings on Earth." Another tear darkens the mask even more... " ...... And yet... it seems we were destined to take different paths in the end..."

The tears begin to stream a little faster, darkening the mask farther down his face... "I never expected that we would end up with this gap between us..." The wind suddenly picks up blowing a cool breeze across his semi-bare chest and hands, the figure shivers a little as the wind seemingly licks the tears away... "When I was younger I used to think that no one cared about me and that I could do anything I wanted with my powers and get away with it, and I did get away with a great many things, but in the end, all of this came to a halt, and a sudden change. All when I heard three words from two people that were close to me, as I watched helplessly and couldn't do anything to save them... Those words, the only ones I had ever really wanted to hear from them... "We love you." When I heard those words, everything about me was rewired and I changed to be the way I am now."

One last tear pierces his mask, this one finally able to escape to the ground thousands of feet below him... "But the same wasn't true for Mark... He was already the good guy, but his parents weren't there to say that they loved him... His parents were pronounced dead on the scene, while mine lived until they reached the hospital. They had all been part of a fatal accident involving scaffolding. They were at a coffee shop that was near a building being built. The scaffolding came off and... well..." CRASH!! BANG!!! BOOM!!! A sudden flash of explosion and chaos in the distance disrupts the Watchman's thoughts. "It looks like he has finally made his move... Maybe it is finally time for Mark to see some reason... To finally relinquish his title as... The Shadow..."


The author's comments:
I wrote this piece for an online English Class I took this past year. It was a very fun exciting and revealing story for me.

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