2024 Story Collection

Giving The Villain a Second Chance

She watched him, hidden behind the archway. She knew the monster he would become. She knew his story. She'd read the book a hundred times and unlike most that read it for the story of a hero's saving their kingdom, she read it for the villain, for Eric.

To her, it was a story of how a young man abused and forgotten was taken in and loved. It was a story about how when that boy went to those around him for help when he needed it the most, they turned their backs on him. It was about how he was worn away into nothing but a shell that soon became filled with only the desire for revenge against those who turned on him when he needed them the most. It was a story of how he failed and died at the hand of the person he used to trust the most.

To the majority of readers, it was an inspiring tale of how a hero was born, but for her, it was a tragedy. Of how one man with so much potential slowly lost himself, and in the end, died a useless death.

When Eric was little, he was kidnapped and sold to the highest bidder, an abusive duke from a rival kingdom who paraded Eric around like a bruised, beaten dummy.

It had taken his older brother years to finally be able to negotiate Eric's freedom. By that time, the young, optimistic, loving, bright, kind brother was gone. What was left was a hard, cold, seemingly soulless child. He didn't smile, laugh, or joke around. He didn't play, and he didn't care for sweets. He only cared about becoming stronger. Whether that meant physically through training multiple times a day, pushing his body to its limits, or mentally through his studies and constant reading and researching. He was always looking to become stronger and was very aware of everything going on in the kingdoms of the northern lands. Knowledge is power, gossip is leverage, and anything can be a weapon if you know how to use it.

He was whip smart and deadly with or without a weapon. He was a great strategist and negotiator. He was well rounded in every aspect and yet still, he couldn't win the people's favor. 

That was all his brother. His older brother, the future hero, Douglas.

His brother had the love of the people, especially since he so valiantly rescued his lost brother from the clutches of that evil duke. Sure, he wasn't exactly what you'd call smart, but he got along fine and maybe he was only an average fighter at best, but he was kind and his smile was bright enough to light any dark room. His laugh was said to be a gift from God.

Eric couldn't help but agree. While he could've thought of a hundred different ways his brother could have saved him sooner, what mattered was that his brother saved him.

But as the two brothers, 10 years apart, got older, the people of the empire began to compare the two more and more.

"Eric is so cold, I don't care if he got a perfect store on that test, and is as strong as a hundred men and rich. I would rather die than be his wife."

"Douglas is so wonderful to be around. No matter how bad my day is, if I get to see him it gets so much better," a duke's daughter had said.

"He is a warm tea on a sore throat," her friend had said. "Eric being the sore throat."

"Have you heard that prince Eric is cursed? That all those he touches gets sick and sometimes even die?"

The rumors got worse. At first, he didn't mind them. After all, he knew they weren't true and his brother treated him well, but when people would avoid him and his brother began distancing himself from Eric at social gatherings, he began to let his dark thoughts spiral.

Could it be that I really am cursed? he'd asked himself.

At some point, people began to fear Eric so much that he was having to fight assassins almost every night. As his sleep got less and less, his mind became more and more clouded until one day, he received a threat unlike the others.