Stories I Never Finished

Scythe

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p r e v i e w

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For Ashton, life had always been relatively easy. Sure, it had its ups and downs, and not every day was as good as the last, but he believed he made it through alright.

Maybe having a strange power was helpful, he could admit that. Highschool was a lot easier when he could shapeshift into other people or objects to escape the ruthless onslaught of bullies, and life at home was a lot easier when he could disappear into the shape of a pencil among many to avoid his mother's vicious screaming.

In reality, Ashton was certain the only thing that kept him sane through his horrible years of growing up was the insane power he somehow managed to possess upon birth.
He wondered sometimes if his mother had ever seen him shapeshift when he was younger, if his baby years had been spent with her frantically trying to find where he had gone while he sat in his crib in the shape of a teddy bear he owned, now two exact copies of bear sitting conspicuously together.

But, for the most part, Ashton had never heard his mother speak of anything superpower related. The closest he got was when she would swoon over news headlines, gushing over villains with too many tattoos and hands that could crush her throat. Ashton never saw the appeal, to him they were menaces, destroying property and slaughtering innocent people for the sheer thrill of it all.

Though, he supposed he was a bit of a hypocrite. Growing up, among his mother's insane mood swings and the hell hole that was school, he always remembered one thing that kept him afloat, one thing that made him feel as though life wasn't all bad. As though he wasn't some secret freak people would hunt if they found out he wasn't all human.

The Scythe.
He had been Ashton's favourite headline, every night Ashton would sit in front of the T.V while his mother ate some god-awful microwave meal and he munched on a carrot stick or five—whatever he could grab his little hands onto, really—and he would wait in anticipation to see if Scythe had saved the city that day.

From age eleven, Ashton had always looked up to the mysterious man in full black. With his black boots, pants, shirt and long coat that always reminded Ashton of the Grim Reaper, and his beautiful scythe of sheer pitch black and glimmering metal, he was Ashton's only shred of hope.
Because if a man plagued with the power to kill with just the right twist of his magical blade could out and save the world then maybe so could Ashton.

A man betrothed with the darkest most morbid powers Ashton had ever seen was saving the world. Using his evil for pure righteousness. And Ashton was an awe struck kid hoping and praying one day he would meet them.

Until... one day, Scythe disappeared.

Ashton could remember the day like it happened only hours ago. He was nineteen, sitting at home with a bag of chips in one hand and his T.V remote in the other, jobless, hopeless, and waiting for his mother to return home from work. As the clock struck 6:23pm, the anchorman on screen turned to a solemn tone; and for a moment in time Ashton swore the world had gone dark, shrouded in terror.

A brutal man hyped up on energy powered through his machine armor had destroyed all of downtown, slaughtering over fifty seven people—women, children, husbands, sons, partners, loved ones. They would never return home, left battered, massacred, on the pavement as banks lay in flames and baby strollers dripped with blood.

After hours of the beast battling with heavily armed police, a group of unknown people in coloured masks with powers Ashton had never seen before started to take over; bringing the beast to his knees.