[SIDE STORY] How to be a Hero - part 1 - Henriettas past unfolded

[Hello everyone, once again I am here with a little comment. First of all, sorry for the few chapters the last days. I started a new job and I just can't find the time to write as much as I used to. Second, I am sad to see that the co-written chapters did not get so many likes or views as the other chapters did. However, keeping it short: This chapter (both parts) was all me again. As will be the next arc, that hopefully will start coming monday!!! And I plan to release every 2 or 3 days from now on, just to see how well I can manage that. Maybe I can somehow arrange my schedule. Also I will try to stick around 1000 words each chapter from now on. The ones back then were shorter, the ones now are too long. Please leave a comment stating which length you liked best. I hope you are still with me in these stressfull times. Thank you for your supportive words, they are the main reason I am still writing at all by now. I love you all. No homo, though]

"Henrietta Vehgrass, will you finally tidy up your room for god's sake!" her mother was bugging her again with this. Could she not let her just play this game for once? When would she understand: You can't pause an online game!

"Yes, I'll do it right away!" This would at least buy her a few more minutes. Maybe she could manage to finish this round and then link out for a bit. Not that she would get back to playing it again anytime soon. She knew what would start once she left the PC. Clean your room, learn for school, do the dishes, help your brother. The curse of being the oldest child.

It wasn't so much that she didn't need the time. Her studies were slacking, her grades below average and the only thing she was really known for in her social life, besides being a nerd, was that she once got drunk and puked on a guys dick as he tried to **** her into a deepthroat. Not quite the reputation she wanted, but hey, at least she wasn't a nobody that got ignored.

But if she was being honest with herself, she didn't really mind. Her real life was in the books and games she spent hours with. It didn't matter if she was flying with the wings of an angel, spitting fire as a dragon or slaughtering nameless enemies with a single stroke of her blade. As long as she had her fantasies, she would be happy. So it was only a matter of time, till those fantasies would find her.

It was on the way back from soccer training that she was a bit too nosy. As a man in a black suit came flying out of a back alley, straight over the street and into a bush on the other side, Henriettas eyes went wide. Only a second later said man simply stood back up and walked towards the place he came from. He only stopped in front of her to look at her face for a second, before continuing his way. She knew he was remembering her. To kill her later? To hunt her down like in an action movie? This seemed interesting, but rather unlikely. But she did believe in the option enough to go for it. She walked after him until she saw him suddenly disappear like he was teleporting. She screamed for only half a second, quickly covering her mouth to prevent herself from being spotted by whatever it was that had sent this man flying.

For the next three minutes nothing happened. She simply stood there and waited, but noone appeared, nothing exploded, no magic missiles were shooting out of the sky. She was back to boring. Or so she thought for the last 30 boring minutes of her life.

Because the very second she came close to her house she was baffled. Two guys, equally suited up as the one she saw earlier, were standing at the doorstep, talking to her mother. And this was the 'We are from the MIB, would you look at this silver dildo that erases your memories' kind of talking. Shit.

Every other day she would have sneaked closer and tried to listen in to whatever they were talking about, but the recent events changed this. She had seen too many movies about this to just accept anything as normal by now. In a moment of clear mind, Henrietta turned around and decided to run for it. If they were normal salesmen, she would have no problem coming home late. But if they weren't, then she had to hide.

She managed to get about 3 feet far, as just as she turned around, she bumped into someone standing behind her. Fuck. So much about the glorious escape and her action adventure, running from the mysterious men. If this would have been a series, then this scene would be the teaser they put in front of the intro. Good to catch tension, but horribly boring if considered to... no. Wait, bad brain. She had to focus on the task at hand. Man. In front of her. Bumping into him. Talking required. Now.

"Oh, I'm sorry." And in a futile attempt she tried to press herself past him, but as expected, she was grabbed by her arm.

"Keep the voice down, little sidekick, or they might hear us." She blinked a few times and looked up at the man. He was looking ridiculous. A blonde afro, black sunglasses, pale skin and to top it off a freaking white suit. If he was planning on not being spotted, he chose the wrong look.

"Who the f... are you?" She barely stopped herself from cursing. Her father's stupid idea of creating a swear jar really worked. She cursed him mentally for the fact that he managed to get her to control herself instinctively. Even though he probably did the right thing with it. Wait, again, not important now. Back to the topic at hand! "What are you doing here?"

"Oh, right, you don't recognize me. We met earlier on the street and you seemed interested in what was going on." Henrietta tried to think back, but she clearly would remember meeting someone this weird. "Oh, yeah, sorry, I forgot to mention that I shapeshift." And to prove his point, his skin turned into a darker shade. "So I just thought I might give you an option. You seemed like a cool gal, so why not go for it. If you wanna know... wait, no..." He stopped mid sentence and turned away from her.

Henrietta witnessed the blonde hair being pulled into his head, his skin turning even darker. What was he doing? He ended up a black bald man, but as he turned around back to her, her eyes went wide in surprise. This was Morpheus! He had shapeshifted into Morpheus from the Matrix movies. Including... wait, no, he was not really doing this, was he?

"You take the blue pill, the story ends. You wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes." Fuck him! Fuck him with a cactus! He literally popped out two pills and offered them to her. This was too much. One does not simply recreate one of the most well known scenes from the Matrix simply for a conversation.

But he seemed to be serious. Of course she would go red. Wait. No, she couldn't. If she would play along and reach for it, he would just go with 'all I offer is the truth'. And she was not willing to play along in his ploy.

"Yeah, hand me the red one then." She just told him to break his scene. He looked unhappy about it, while giving it to her. Served him right! While holding it in her hand, Henrietta suddenly gained doubts about that choice. Sure, in the movie it was the right choice. But if she thought about it more clearly, would she want that? Neo took the pill because he had nothing to lose, he lived alone and on top of that he already felt something wrong with the world as it was. He wanted to break out of it before. But was she feeling the same?

"Alright, we will talk this evening then. I'll see you then. Make sure to swallow the pill before you go home. Oh, and just a quick heads up, don't tell anybody about this or you will die. See ya." He teleported away again, leaving nothing but a small burning mark on the ground where he had stood.

Now she was alone with the question again. Did she want to swallow this pill? Was she willing to lose her family to go on an adventure? No, wait, that was the wrong question. She shouldn't ask if she wanted to go. She already was in it. The Lord of the Ring didn't start with Frodo leaving the shire. It started before that. She was already in it. So even if she wouldn't take the red pill now, she refused the blue one. So forgetting everything was out of the picture. Could she live the rest of her life, knowing that she had passed this up?

Thinking of this made her rethink the question of Braveheart. What would she give to stand at this point again, if she chose not to, for the rest of her life. No. She wouldn't shy away. She would take the pill.

The second she put it in her mouth, it liquified and got absorbed into her skin. It felt really weird and she had to cough repeatedly, sadly alarming the two suits that were talking to her parents.

"Oh, young miss, you must be Henrietta, we have some questions for you." He reached out with his hand, offering it for a handshake. Her parents were still standing in the doorway, smiling friendly without saying anything. Reluctantly she took his hand and shook it only to instantly regret everything. The first feeling she had was the inside of her mouth burning, just after that she blacked out.

As Henrietta awoke, she noticed two things. First she was in her underwear. Which was bad, because on that day she had not worn a bra, so she was basically only in her panties. Second, she was in her room on her bed. Who got her here? The last thing she remembered were those suit guys burning her skull from the inside and then... nothing. To hell with his red pill. Sure, it totally showed her all the depth of the rabbit hole. Her head still hurt from whatever it was.

Wait. What if it did work? She had to test it out before she cursed him more. But... if that wannabe Morpheus was telling the truth, she couldn't tell anybody or she would die. So how could she check it then?

Half a minute later, Henrietta was walking down the floor, clothed again, and into the kitchen, where she found her mother, cooking peacefully. Okay, weird, considering what happened, but no proof yet.

"Hey mom, say, when I came home today, did I have my green shirt on? Cause I swear I did, but I can't find it in the pile of things I took off earlier. Have you seen it?" It was a weak thing, but should do the trick.

"I don't know, I wasn't here when you got home, I only just came home myself." Her mother had left the house before she got dressed for soccer training today, so she wouldn't know which shirt Henrietta was wearing, unless she remembered her coming home. And the fact that she didn't was proof enough that some kind of meddling was going on here. Henrietta rushed back into her room.

Okay, no need to freak out. She had been saved by that weirdos pill, so all was good. She couldn't tell anybody, but still. All was good. Only that suit wearing people came into her house and mind wiped her parents... so nothing was good. To heck with it. If all it took for someone to make her black out and change her mind was a handshake, then what else could they do to her? Obviously undress her and put her in her bed without anyone caring. Oh god, what if they did more? No, wait, not possible. No blood on the sheets and no pain between her legs, nor in her ass. She was still virgin. At least there was that then.

She decided to take precautions rather now than when it was too late and sat down at her computer. After she turned on the camera, she started recording herself.

"Hello, my name is Henrietta Vehgrass..."

After she finished listing everything she would not want to forget it had started to dawn. "Not a bad idea, given your knowledge, but useless in the end. I'll teach you to protect your mind, so you won't need that anymore." A guy spoke from behind her. She spun around, glaring at the intruder. Of course she knew who it was, even when he was wearing a new body now. This time it was a punk, pink hair, short, piercings in the nose and lips, eyeshadow was heavily applied and he had become quite a bit smaller.

"Sorry, didn't get to introduce myself. I am the Hero Maker. Long story short, there is a shadow organization called the abyss. They don't like me, 'cause I saved their asses the wrong way. The people who came for you were helpers of the guys who tried to kill me. They sent them to cover it up. Now, since you are already involved, how about we power you up a bit. Or wait, I can do that better!" He spun around again, but Henrietta stopped him.

"Don't you dare to give me the 'believe in yourself' speech. You are not Morpheus and you are ruining his lines like that!" His shoulders sank a bit. Was he really that emotionally fragile?

"Fine. So, here is the deal. Either I **** feed you the blue pill. So yeah, you will forget it all, but then again, you won't notice it gone. I take that tape of yours and edit out the parts where you talk about today. You will never remember..." She cut him off short.

"Or? I already swallowed your pill, no need to offer it twice." He smiled.

"Or you become a hero. Heroes gain abilities from me, but you will have to pay a price for them. I can't tell you what it is, or how you will pay it, but it will be a lump sum at once, and then everytime you use it a little bit more. And I want you to think about this clearly before you accept the deal, because I REALLY can't tell you what you have to pay. I will be open with you, some of the people I try to turn into heroes die shortly after, because the price is killing them. Imagine the price being your lungs, so they disappear. Or your ability to breathe. Or I already found someone who killed himself, because his price was okay, but his power was that he could blow himself up by saying the word 'go'. So this is a giant gamble. But if you win in it, you can make sure that you and everyone you care about stay safe forever. On the other hand, if you die due to taking the risk, I promise that I will make sure that the abyss won't come after them myself. So either way, if you take the deal, your family is safe. It's just about you. Feeling lucky?" He raises his hand towards her.

This was too much. First of all, she was a burned child after all she had just blacked out from shaking a guys hand. Second, and way more importantly, he was offering a coin flip on her life! And he didn't even explain it well. Just 'I power you up but it costs you'. How was she supposed to think about this? Supposed to even compare risk and value of this offer? She needed more time. Needed more ways to consider if her family was even in danger anymore. If she needed to keep them safe, or maybe it was all fine. Sure, playing the hero was a cool thing, but if she would die just by trying to become one, that would suck. She needed...

"Ah screw it, here, what's the worst that could happen, hm?" He pressed his hand against her forehead and she felt it explode inside her brain. Thousands of lights went off in front of her eyes. The red pill was one thing earlier, but this was more. It was hell being created inside her brain.

"You stupid assclown, what the fuck are you doing!?" She screamed at him, finishing it up with an agonizing loud scream in pain before finally, the darkness embraced her again, taking her into a deep slumber.