It came to this, as it always did, as the screaming of the choirs heralded. They’d been chasing her for the past week, ruining her life one life taken at a time. She was sick of her journey as a hero; she was sick of being beaten by fate itself and taken along on this trip without her consent.

She was sick of it, and she wasn’t going to take it anymore.

“A hero? Hmm?” said the usually leering monster, his bald head glimmering. His eyes were full of dark, ill-gotten blood magic. “Going to give us some noble speech?”

“I don’t know why you feel the need to stereotype me.”

The first of the minions was split in half, blood seared on the wind in a frozen moment.

And the villain of our short tale was stunned into silence, the sword he carried in a cocky grip at his hips loosened.

“You killed? He had a family.”

A blur zipped along, severing half the head of his sub-boss, his second in command.

And the girl landed. Magic swords in both hands. Skin and blades coated in blood. Her hair stuck to her face and her eyes had a wildness to it that you’d expect from a person left out in the woods for years and years.

“I don’t fuck around with that.”

The villain staggered back as he parried off blow after blow. His own magic kept sputtering as his own fear inhibited it, cracked it away, crackled it to the air.

“You’re aiming for death blows,” he shouted, unable to turn away from her. She was a flurry of a woman.

A blur again. She wasn’t there.

And a breeze behind him.

“Have you not been in a fight before?”

The villain spun, his blade darkened with poison, the same poison that had killed her family only a few days prior.

And his head, no longer attached, didn’t finish the spin as his body did.

Her face was not triumphant. She was soaked and sore and damaged and broken and sad and depressed.

She’d completed her heroic journey and became a justified murderer, and there wasn’t an inch of the child that cuddled stuffed animals and cried over boy bands left.

That version of her had been sacrificed to the altar of storytelling.

—

Special thanks to: Melissa Potter

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Want to read something longer by me? How about a whole novel! 

“Just Another Chosen One is a blisteringly paced, action-soaked debut from author Brandon Scott, sure to appeal to those who’ve gotten tired of reading the same old stories about the child of prophecy destined to save the world.”