The Only Thing We Have To Fear

Redundantly Titled Part 25: Part 25, The 25th Part

The black scissors Frieda had used just twenty-three minutes prior to cut away the fabric of Roman's pants to sew up his wound now stuck through her throat, pinning her vocal cords so she couldn't make a sound. Her last words had been a confirmation that she trusted Roman precisely two seconds before he stabbed her in the back metaphorically, and through the throat literally. Hot tears welled in her eyes as she attempted to breathe, suffocating on her own blood. She tried to speak--to tell Roman to go to Hell, or to ask for help, or something--but it was useless.

Roman turned to the spiders. "There!" he huffed, dissociating himself from what he'd just done. He pretended he was acting in a movie, and he was going for an Oscar. "The sound is gone. If anyone else wants to die, I'm taking requests. If not, get out of here before I change my mind."

Having just witnessed a sixteen-year-old boy covered in spider blood murder a human girl so indifferently, all four of them froze.

"Now!" he shouted.

The spider in the front flinched and stumbled backward, tangling its legs with the one behind it. The pile of spiders hastily backed away through the door.

Pepper stared at Roman. He was so strange. That's what she liked about him. It scared her slightly that his complete indifference didn't do anything to change the way she felt about him.

Roman didn't try to make excuses for what he'd done; he'd already done it, and there was no taking it back. He felt, for that exact reason, that he shouldn't feel too bad about what he'd done. He'd move on with his life.

A smile tugged at his lips. The irony of the whole thing wasn't lost on him: in his quest to get back at the people who almost very indifferently let him die, he'd killed another with that same indifference.

Pepper noticed the fleeting emotion cross his face and a pit opened up in her stomach. A feeling of dread swept over her. Somehow, she knew choosing to stand by Roman instead of killing him without hesitation, the way he'd done to Frieda, would come back to bite her.

The two of them attempted to shake their feelings out of their heads. The younger of the two took the first step towards the door, but the other grabbed his head.

Roman flinched and pulled his hand away. He decided, when Frieda had done it, he didn't want to hold anyone's hand.

Pepper flinched at his reaction. The size of the pit in her stomach doubled.

"I'm sorry," she muttered.

"Whatever," he growled, stomping right through the doorway.

"What next?" she squeaked, jogging to catch up.

"We kill the King of the Monsters," he responded blankly.

Pepper swallowed hard. "What does that mean?"

"Remember Mr. Fish?" he mused.

Pepper opened her mouth to respond but Roman cut her off with his next thing.

"I'm going to tear him to pieces," he chuckled.

The pit in Pepper's stomach dropped down deeper than it had still. She wanted to protest. She wanted to do something to stop him, but she clammed up and did what she always did when her anxiety won: she turned her brain and her emotions off and simply said, "Okay."

Roman liked it when Pepper didn't have a personality. When she was like that, she was whatever he wanted her to be. He smiled at her and said, "I'm going to save the world."

She nodded blandly.

"I'm going to save the world," he repeated again. "Then the joke's on them. If only they'd known... they wouldn't have left me to rot."

Pepper should have changed forms then and took a swipe at him. She should have hit a nerve, knocked him out, something, but she didn't.

Roman would have been drowning with emotions if he had ever learned how to properly deal with them. Instead, as anxiety, terror, disgust, shock, and awe loomed over him, he actively chose to ignore the warning flags, treating them like flags marking the race course. Everyone when faced with an impossible situation such as this one where terrible monsters are actively trying to kill them should feel some form of fight, flight, or freeze. They should also know when to quit. In a moment of quiet, when the enemy has become aware their enemies are no longer afraid, they should run and thank God they are alive. Not Roman Tally. Roman was a man of ulterior motives, schemes, and logic-defying plans.

Roman was not aware Mr. Fish wasn't simply a monster.

Roman was not afraid.

Roman, in a moment of insanity in which he felt a false sense of clarity, was prepared to face what might as well have been a god.