Cour·age- noun
The ability to do something that frightens one.
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In Vigilante, the first thing they teach you is courage.
They teach you to face the blinding tip of rage on a hot sword head on, to embrace the fire-licking fear up your sides-
They teach you to soldier forward, regardless of the fear.
But fear, for me, comes in the shape of her wide eyes, the color of darkened honey.
Bring on the bullets, the free-falling, the curling pain of learning to swallow your pride even when the words bite-
I was trained for that-
-trained to endure the heaving breaths and the shameful feeling of wishing for death to calm the meandering pain-
What they never taught me though was how to overcome the fear of loss-the fear of emptiness.
Because when you strip down the cowardice, the selfishness, and the hesitancy caused by the fear of death, you strip the person of the desire to live for themself.
“Life is expendable and death is only what you make of it, because sacrifice is giving your strength to those who need it-“
You enforce expendability as a beautiful act of bravery, as an awarding act of turning courage into bravery,
But standing here, my fingers skimming hers, strands of her hair brushing my cheek, all I can think about is how much courage it takes to become brave.
All I can think about is how much courage it takes to soldier through the bullets with the idea of expandability and the feel of her beside me-
Because I can overcome the fear of me dying-
but it takes a lot more bravery to overcome the fear of losing her.
YOU ARE READING
The Night Vigilante
Teen FictionIn a city filled with corrupt government systems and underlying threats, Grace Summerland can’t accept the fact that the mysterious ‘Night Vigilante’ is as bad as everyone makes him out to be, not when he has the same eyes as the boy who saved her t...
