Before elementary school ended for Ladon and middle school started, Ladon had stopped having Birthday parties. Parents stopped forcing their children to go, and the few that did only came to have their son or daughter drop off a present and endure a game or two before they found a way to leave. Ladon had started hating his birthdays at that point, and eventually, started to make the excuse he was too old for them way before he was. For the first party-less birthdays after, his family would share a cake, he'd get a few parents from his family, and the show was over. Maybe a movie of his choice, but the streamers and tacky Party hats and signs were never present. Soon, Ladon couldn't even stand that. It was defeating, and he sometimes wished it never came around. Any other day was better, but each time he fell victim to expect a little too much, something different or new to make it a celebration, to prove something, and in the end, it never came. That was when Ladon decided on going out into the woods on his birthday when he was allowed to camp by himself. He would take his sleeping bag, a rolled up tent, a few things and food for a few days (just in case), and his phone along with hsi coordinates. The hike there kept him busy along with setting up his things, and it was there that he felt closer to something bigger, to the trees and the sky, and the sun before it settled, and it was here tat he felt that living alone, being alone, wasn't so bad. Each year, Ladon gave up.

This year, alone more than ever, he knew no one was showing up. No one knew what day it was, and he wanted it that way. He knew that if he let it slip to the others, someone would try, but it would only leave him sick, and he wasn't up for it. His body and eyes were raw. Everything felt too rough to him, and he needed to get away. Even his bedroom, one 'their' bedroom, was killing him. The ring he found. The ring that sat on the coffee table of two wolves. Forever linked for eternity. It made him want to break it between his teeth or send through a garbage disposal or even out the window, but it sat there. Mocking him. Never forever. Always a joke. It was never real and yet his words range in his head to the contrary. The liar. Another pin on his shoulders to break his back. How much more? How much more did it take?

There was no one to miss him. No one to ask where he was going once he his apartment. No one who would notice if he just vanished.

He didn't go to the usual campground. He was too tired for chirping bluebirds and pretending he was a normal boy on summer vacation who complained about school coming up and how his mother would nag him once he got home for getting hsi clothes dirty. He left his mother. He dropped out of school. He wished he could go home now despite the choice he made. To walk up the front steps and watch the door open, and wrap his arms around his mother and apologize for leaving without a clear reason. However, he knew that was impossible. It was mean. He wanted her to forget about him, and coming back would do a major injury to her. He also had work. The Negaverse. The only thing left.


The rumble crunched under his sneakers, and he stepped over cross-beams and thick steal beams that stuck out like broken ribs from cement torsos. The sound of distant city traffic, of humming semis and the hard breaking of abused bikes floating in the sky, but they were far off, away, ignorant this place. It wasn't even dark. The sun shined overhead, sharing no difference in mood to today or the next. Who cared where he was or how he felt. It was annoying, like a chipper girl yacking in your ear before you fully woke up. Ignoring it, he continued on, crawling up little mounds of gravel and dirt and mesh fencing that had been torn down. It was all shredded to bits, this place that once caged him. The forgotten factories that kept him prisoner for 2 days, out of sight despite being beside the city. Right under their noses. The room he was kept in was gone but the evidence was cemented into his mind. The shiver was fitting as he remembered what happened here, one of the few who was witness that survived.

It was only fitting that above a mound of brick, he noticed the graves hidden in the sloping once-walls that angled down to the patch of dirt that now made one of the many Negaverse graves. He noticed only because he had been told, but there was no headstone. No down-facing angles to show that someone, here, rested. No last words written in stone. No date reminding of a short life given up for a cause. Nothing. It was the tradition of their kind. No funeral. No prayer spoken over the bodies.

Ladon stood before the patch of dirt, feet touching the dirt and looking down. It was on this day, he always felt the worst, and he dropped to his knees to sit, staring at the spot. Thinking of their bodies, all capable captains who had shown connections to others, important, and promise. Lieutenants that had value and died too young because they were just green and unable to take the abuse. Made examples for those present to talk because the BMC though they were important. That he was somehow important enough to maybe let something slip, but not important. No. He was an added, unpredicted extra that was there for the show. The others had the real information to give. And then the General. He heard about his death only by a few passing whispers that he was gone and died here. A General King of all people, a leader of their entire group that protected and lead. He proved himself in more than one way, and he was dead.

And Ladon was alive.

Though all his dumb mistakes. Through all his uselessness. Though all his nativity. It was another year, and he learned nothing. It was one year as a Nega, and he had survived a lot, but surviving wasn't enough. Witnessing wasn't enough. Bearing through it wasn't enough. But all of it wore him down.

He curled down. "Why did you all die? So many of us have died. Really good people. I've seen so many of you all die from so many enemies. From Senshi. From Monsters. From weird comas created by magic. From wizards. From us. So, so,so, so, so many. And I'm still here and I keep saying that it has to be a reason why...............there has to be a reason why...........but I'm starting to think there isn't. I'm starting to think that ..............you all............the good ones...............are the ones that die because you do something.....but then when you die, more of us die without you. It's just on and on and on and I don't know how to stop seeing all these bodies. I'm so stupid about ssssoooo much. I keep finding out more and more and I don't know what to do about it. I thought growing older would make me better. Stronger. More...sure.....More like you guys."

He swallowed hard, one barely open as he looked at the damp ground. "Why? Why? Why? Why? Why are I still here if I can't do anything? I should have died. I should have died long ago. Wiseman should have killed me with those other officers. Senshi should have killed me countless time. I should have been carved on that table instead of that girl. She...probably was more important to us."

He curled down, brow touching the Earth as he gripped his hair. "I don't know what to do anymore. I just don't. I know we're supposed to fight. I do. I don't want you all to die in vain, but I'm no good. I don't even know why Charonite even corrupted me. I can't even ask him now." He wiped his eyes. Another man he greatly admired for his leadership and ability gone. "....they're all gone." The Negaverse had changed so much and yet he still felt like that little lieutenant that Nealite used to talk to and ruffle his hair like a child. She had told him back then that he would become something. If she could see him now, she'd be disappointed.

"I thought giving up everything would be enough. Leaving home. Leaving school. I gave it everything, but ....it's just not enough. I don't know what else to go from here. Everyone else is getting promoted, making their names, and I'm just ...........I'm just so lost." His shoulders shook as he started to loose some steam from his sobbing. Open sobbing. Here. In broad daylight. Even that felt disrespectful and if they could see him, if anyone could see him, they'd agree to what he already knew. He was nothing. "They didnt' even remember my name. None of those senshi. They picked me up and ...all that time I patrolled and fought.........not a one knew who I was. I'm not even on their radar. I'm nothing to no one."


Nothing to Billy either. The boy had seen it from the start, hadn't he? Saw some naive boy desperate for anyone and decided to play him for the fool. To do things for him and just when it didn't suit hsi style, when loving him was too much of a burden. A pain. He left. There were better people out there. Some of them alive. Some of them dead. And he was here.

"I wish I could trade the day I was born for someone else to have lived." And then he laughed, face streaked in hot tears and nose running, as he stared at the dirt. "...but we don't have that magic, right? We're just human beings." His laughing returned to sobbing. "...........and I'm just some stupid boy running around in a costume he doesn't deserve to wear."

There was no answer. He didn't have that gift, not even today. It was quiet, and no one turned in their grave at what he said. The place was the same, and he was the same, and nothing was different. It was another year, things were so different, and he was still the same.