What will you (as a villain) say to a hero who is on the brink of death after fighting you, while no one comes to his aid as they watch him die?
'There's no happy ending. Just a hero who trusted too much. And a villain who never stopped caring, even when it was too late.'
The villain stood in the dirt, watching the hero’s chest shudder with each breath, his life slipping away like smoke through clenched fingers. He lay crumpled at his feet, unmoving. His eyes were closed. Whether from pain, exhaustion, or the slow pull of unconsciousness, the villain couldn’t tell. The crowd that had once surrounded the battlefield had thinned rapidly, faces turning away in droves, abandoning the scene as hopelessness settled over them. Only a few lingered, frozen, unwilling to step forwards.
“No one is coming,” the villain said quietly, his voice low and gravelly as he slowly circled the hero, boots grinding into the dirt. “They heard your screams, and they turned away. You trusted them to come. They didn’t even try. You never mattered enough for them to bleed for you.“
The villain stopped circling, standing near the hero’s torso, hands loose at his sides. The final hesitant bystanders had abandoned the scene. Only silence remained.
The villain loomed over the hero as the final hues of dusk slipped away. A pale moon rose quietly above them casting a ghostly light. The villain’s silhouette sharpened against the deepening shadows. His eyes, cold and unreadable, caught the faint, silver gleam. His voice dropped to a harsh whisper, laced with sorrow and resolve.
“I watched you choose them. Over and over. I warned you time and again they wouldn’t bleed for you. That they’d turn away. But you trusted them anyway.” His voice cracked, heavy with regret. “I could have saved you… I tried. But you wouldn’t listen.”
The light faded from his eyes, leaving only a chilling emptiness. “And now look at you, dying with nothing but your delusions to hold you.” He bent over, moving a hand to brush back the hero’s hair. “Look around. No one’s coming. No one cares enough to fight for you.”
He began to straighten, slowly and deliberately, barely lifting when a faint movement caught his attention: a trembling finger twitching near his wrist. The villain paused, heart tightening involuntarily. The twitch grew into a weak, desperate grip, fingers curling slowly around his wrist.
The villain froze. Then — as if dragged from the edge of unconsciousness — the hero’s eyes fluttered open, glazed and unfocused at first. They found the villain’s almost immediately, locking onto him as a single tear slipped free, sliding sideways towards his temple, catching briefly in the moonlight before disappearing into the dirt-mattered strands of his hair.
“You’re scared,” the villain said, voice low, almost amused. “Terrified of dying alone. Afraid of the darkness waiting to embrace you when there’s no one left to pull you out.”
He stared down at the trembling figure, voice softening. “You thought you mattered. That you were enough. But you weren’t. You never were.”
The hero’s lips parted, trying to speak. Trying to form something, anything, but only a rasping, choking sound caught in his throat, blood bubbling faintly at the corner of his mouth before spilling down his chin.
His eyes turned glassy and frantic, terror clawing its way up from the pit of his chest from the realisation.
He couldn’t speak. He could barely breathe. This was it. The end. No last words. He waited for footsteps. For shouting. For someone. Anyone. But there was nothing. No one was coming. The ones he trusted, the ones he had bled for, fought for, had turned away. Pretended not to hear his screams as the villain had broken him piece by piece. Not one hand reached out to him. Not one voice cried out his name.
And still, some small part of him refused to believe it. Maybe they hadn’t heard. Maybe they were on their way.
But the villain’s eyes said everything. They weren’t. They never were. His thoughts spiralled, flickering between horror and disbelief. Maybe this was a nightmare. It had to be. Maybe he would wake up. But the cold was real. The blood choking him was real. The flickering edge of consciousness was real. All real. His heart pounded, too fast and too weak as fear took hold of him. He didn’t want to die. Not like this.
Alone. Forgotten. Betrayed.
Bloodied and battered, his fingers clung to the villain’s wrist. The last thing left that hadn’t abandoned him.
The villain’s breathe hitched. He told himself this didn’t matter. That the man’s fate had been sealed long before this moment, that it was deserved. But something about the way the hero was looking at him — not with anger, or hate, but pure, undiluted terror — made it impossible to walk away.
As if unsure he belonged there, the villain eased down to his knees, the jagged rubble biting through the tattered remains of his gear, but he didn’t flinch. The pain grounded him. His hand drifted forwards, hesitant at first, then steadier as it brushed across the hero’s cheek. The skin was still warm. Still alive. Carefully, he let his hand settle over the hero’s bloodied grip. The knuckles were split and raw, fingers twitching in an instinctive plea not to be left alone. The villain’s fingers curled around the hero’s shaking grip, steadying it, even as the life beneath it dwindled.
“I shouldn’t still be here,” he whispered, voice breaking, barely more than a breath. “I warned you. I tried. And you didn’t listen… I should’ve walked away.” But his grip on the hero’s hand didn’t loosen. He reached up with the other, fingers tracing away a tear that made its way down the hero’s blood-streaked skin. A tear filled with pain, with the desperate hope that the villain wouldn’t leave. “But maybe,” he said more to himself than the hero, “maybe I couldn’t bear the thought of you dying thinking no one ever cared enough to stay.”
And then, with a trembling breath that cracked straight through the mask he’d worn for so long, the villain leaned down, pressing his forehead to the hero’s. His hand rose to the hero’s hair, moving with an aching gentleness as though clinging to what warmth remained. He held on like touch alone could anchor the soul slipping away beneath him for a little while longer.
“Don’t be afraid,” he breathed. “Not yet. I’m here.”
He didn’t notice the tears until they slipped down his face, pooling quietly on the hero’s skin. Their breaths mingled, shallow and uneven, dragged from lungs worn thin from everything they’d endured.
The villain stayed. Not for forgiveness. But because in that final moment, something inside him broke.
The hero’s grip twitched, tightening just for a heartbeat before it began to loosen. A tremor ran through him. His arms shifted slightly, trying to lift up, to wrap around the villain, to hold him. But his strength had already slipped too far. His fingers barely made it to the edge of the villain’s sleeve before falling away, trembling uselessly.
The gesture shattered something in the villain. He stilled, not by surprise, but by grief and an emotion he didn’t want to name. Wordlessly, he moved, easing the hero forward, wrapping both arms around him and pulling him gently into his lap. One hand supported the hero’s back, the other cradled his bloodied side, holding him close. The hero’s head came to rest against his shoulder, hair brushing his collar. And there he stayed, the villain letting the hero feel the warmth, the presence that said: you are not alone.
The villain’s gaze flicked downwards, unable to quite meet the hero’s eyes. Eyes once fierce now dimmed by pain and exhaustion. It was as if looking into them would shatter something inside him he wasn’t ready to face. Instead, he swallowed hard, turning his face just enough to press a trembling kiss to the hero’s temple.
A wet, choking gasp rattled from the hero’s chest, thick with blood. It bubbled in his throat spilled from the corners of his lips, hot and crimson, staining the space between them as the villain held on tighter, helpless to stop what was happening, but refusing to let go.
“Stay,” the villain whispered, voice barely holding together, pressing close. “Please… just stay.”
The hero sagged further into him, as though if he just stayed close enough, he could linger for a moment longer. His hands gripped again, weak and frantic with the fear of vanishing alone, of slipping into the darkness alone.
The villain clutched the hero’s form tighter, his voice dropping to a hush. “Don’t… don’t go. Not yet.” And then, softer still, he breathed the hero’s name, like something sacred he wasn’t ready to lose.
But no words came. Only a broken breath caught half way between trying to speak and drowning.
The hero stilled in the villain’s arms. He was gone.
And the villain — the one who had stayed when no one else had — held him close, as if his arms could somehow how keep the hero’s fading warmth alive against the night.
After a long moment, he finally shifted, gathering the limp form fully into his arms, then slowly, with deliberate care, he laid the hero down. His hands moved to straighten and adjust the limbs so they rested more naturally. The small, unfamiliar act felt heavy in the silence.
His eyes caught the hero’s battered face, bruised, streaked with dirt, blood smeared across his chin and lips. The eyes were half-open, glazed with a distant stillness. The villain reached up, brushing his rough hand over the hero’s cheeks and chin, wiping at the grime and blood in slow, uncertain motions. But no matter how he tried, some stains remained, testaments to the battle and the pain.
Finally, with a last lingering glance at the figure that had broken through his walls, the villain rose.
His breath caught as he finally let go.
He buried the ache deep, behind the same mask he’d worn for years.
Then he turned and stepped into the darkness where no one waited.
