Unheroic Life of a Certain Cape-Chapter 48 Blood in the Water

Chapter 48
Blood in the Water
The television blared in the background, its sharp, clinical voice filling the living room.
“This just in,” the er said, his tone steady but tinged with the excitement of breaking news. “There was a massive disturbance at the Markend docks yesterday. Eyewitnesses that the Great Sea Serpent — the Captain of Seamark, one of Markend’s most notorious figures — went berserk. Authorities believe the incident was incited by none other than the newly-emerged cape known as Eclipse.”
The screen shifted, grainy, pixelated footage replacing the talking head. Even with the distortion, my silhouette was unmistakable, the porcelain mask, the coat, and the way I moved. There I was, scrambling across the serpent’s slick, scaled body as it tore through the boat beneath me. The camera shook violently, probably a phone recording from someone hiding behind a shipping container, too terrified to steady their hands.
“Viewer discretion is advised,” the er warned grimly. “The following footage contains extreme violence.”
The video cut to the moment the boat capsized, the camera losing focus as the water churned. The footage cut in the middle, followed by an explosion. It ripped through the still frame with a thunderous flash, the sky and sea splitting into chaos. Blood and flesh, large, wet chunks of meat,  rained down in dark arcs against the light.
I leaned back into the couch, arms crossed as the room dimmed around me. Silver’s soft hands worked silently at my back, pressing adhesive pain relievers onto skin that burned with every slight movement. I hissed when her fingers brushed a bruise that had already turned a sickly shade of purple, but she didn’t stop.
The footage looped again. I should have turned the television off, but I didn’t. Something about it was… wrong. It was too convenient and too polished, despite the shaky angles and poor quality.
“It reeks,” I thought, jaw tight. “Someone wanted this out there. Someone wanted the world to see me on that serpent.”
The anchor’s voice cracked as the live feed resumed. He looked pale, almost sickly, his eyes darting off-camera as if someone was barking orders through his earpiece.
“W-we, uh…” He coughed and started again, his voice trembling now. “We’ve just received an… update. A video, anonymously submitted just moments ago.”
From somewhere behind the camera, a man shouted, “Just tell them already!”
The anchor blinked rapidly, his composure fracturing like thin glass. “Why not just—” He stopped mid-sentence, muttering to someone off-screen. “Fine. Just play it.”
The feed cut, and for a second, the screen went black. Then the image appeared.
A dark, waterlogged dock, illuminated only by the faint glow of floodlights. The Captain stood there, or at least… what was left of him.
He wasn’t clothed. His naked form was pale under the harsh lighting, half of his torso grotesquely ruined. The left side of his body was a mangled mess of shredded flesh barely clinging to bone, his ribs visibly cracked. From his chest downward, thick, bloody fissures spread like jagged lightning, a gaping hole in his stomach revealing raw, shifting tissue. But what held me in place, what froze every thought in my head, were the tendrils.
Thin, writhing strands of muscle and sinew weaved through his wounds, stitching his body back together piece by piece. The sight was obscene, horrifyingly deliberate, like watching a spider methodically repair its broken web.
Then he looked straight into the camera.
“I am going to find you, Eclipse,” the Captain said, voice steady, guttural, and sharp enough to slice through the static of the recording. His eyes glowed like molten iron, bright and merciless. “And I will devour you.”
The screen flickered to black, leaving the room in a suffocating silence broken only by the faint hum of the television.
I didn’t move. I couldn’t.
“Enough with that,” Silver said, her voice sharp but trembling as she snatched the remote from my hand and turned off the television. The screen went black, leaving only our reflections in the glass… hers stiff, lips pressed tight, and mine was unreadable.
I leaned back into the couch, exhaling slowly, letting the weight of what we’d just seen sink into my bones. “Just like that,” I muttered, voice flat but heavy, “I’m on a collision course with one of the most dangerous capes Markend has to offer.”
Silver’s hands trembled, though she tried to keep her tone steady. “There’s nothing to be afraid of. It’s not like he’s the first big boss you—”
I moved before she could finish, my hand covering her mouth in one swift motion. “What did I say about this thing?” I whispered, soft but sharp enough to slice through the fragile air between us.
Her eyes widened, a flicker of hurt breaking through her usual calm. She swallowed hard, then mumbled against my palm, “Sorry… I didn’t mean to.”
I pulled my hand back slowly, the tension coiling tight in my chest like a spring.
We didn’t know who might be listening.
We could talk about the ugly parts of my life all day from the blood, the jobs, and the deals that ended with bodies in shallow graves. But not this. Not Royal. That name, that day, it was a line we didn’t cross unless I was sure there were no eyes or ears around. For all I knew, someone had a telepath tuned into my frequency, a bug hidden under the floorboards, or a whisper-catching drone parked outside the window.
When I finally glanced back at her, Silver was already retreating, her shoulders tight and trembling. Her eyes were glossy with unspilled tears as she stepped back, her silver hair fading into an inky, liquid black that rippled down her shoulders. She didn’t say a word, but the transformation said enough.
As smooth as water over stone, Onyx emerged. Her dark hair caught the dim light like polished obsidian, and a slow, dangerous smile curved her lips. She tilted her head, the laughter already bubbling in her throat, unrestrained and sharp.
“Oooh,” Onyx teased, eyes glittering with cruel amusement, “you hurt the little baby’s feelings.”
I didn’t look at her. Instead, I tilted my head back, staring up at the ceiling, a sigh dragging its way out of me as the tension in the room shifted.
Onyx didn’t care. She never did. She crossed the room in three quick strides, her weight settling on my waist with feline precision, her grin widening as if she’d just been handed the punchline to a private joke.
“So,” she said, leaning forward until her breath ghosted against my jaw, her voice a silken thread laced with mischief, “what’s the plan, oh my lovely, dear master?”
“I did tell you to stop calling me that, right?”
Onyx tilted her head, that infuriating grin curving her lips. “I can’t help but want to tease you,” she said, tone light and airy, like this was all just a game to her.
She slipped off me with feline ease, bare feet padding softly against the floor as she made her way to the fridge. The cold hum of the appliance filled the silence while I stayed on the couch, letting the tension seep out of me in uneven breaths. She came back holding a cylinder of cookies-and-cream ice cream and two spoons, her dark hair swinging like a pendulum behind her.
Without a word, Onyx dropped onto the couch beside me, flicked the TV back on using her foot, and shoved one of the spoons into my hand. She popped the lid, dug in first, and hummed in satisfaction as she took a bite. Then, still balancing the remote in her toes, she started flipping through channels, pausing here and there, not quite satisfied, until finally settling on some mindless sitcom where the laugh track felt louder than necessary.
One of her legs draped lazily over mine, warm and careless, as she offered me the tub. I took it, holding it steady for her between bites, the sound of canned laughter filling the quiet room.
I’d been wrong to lash out at Silver. The thought settled in heavy, sharp around the edges. We’d talked plenty about Royal, but never about what I did to him. Never about how I put him in the ground and didn’t look back. Even the smallest slip, the faintest implication from her, had sent me snapping like a live wire. I’d lost control, and it wasn’t her fault.
“I don’t know if you’re listening, Silver,” I said quietly, keeping my eyes on the screen even though I wasn’t really watching. “But I’m sorry. I was wrong for lashing out at you.”
Onyx didn’t say anything. Instead, she leaned her head against my shoulder, the warmth of her body grounding me as I let the apology hang in the air. For a moment, the only sounds were the muted sitcom laughter.
Then, softly, a voice… It was quiet, and trembling just enough to betray the emotion behind it… She whispered, “You’re forgiven.” I turned my head, and she was there, not Onyx anymore, but Silver, her hair now a soft curtain of shimmering silver, her emerald eyes bright but wet, filled with longing.
“You can’t just eat my sandwich, Greg!” the man on the TV yelled, his exaggerated frustration filling the living room.
The canned laugh track exploded a second later.
“Then maybe don’t leave it in the fridge with my name on it,” the woman shot back, flipping her hair in an overly dramatic gesture that got another round of artificial laughter.
Silver stayed curled against me on the couch, quiet, spoon dangling loosely in her hand. The soft glow of the TV danced across the room, flickering in muted blues and whites, while the hum of the air conditioning and the occasional clink of the spoon against the ice cream container filled the spaces between the laugh track.
I wondered, what if I have that life?
Not the sitcom, not the hollow caricature of perfect people laughing their way through every minor inconvenience, but the normalcy of it. The way the biggest problem in their world was an eaten sandwich or a missed date, nothing more than a thirty-minute crisis that always resolved with a hug and a joke.
If superpowers weren’t real, if the world wasn’t rotting from the inside out, maybe I could’ve had that. Maybe I could’ve been that… some regular guy with a shitty job and a cheap apartment, eating takeout and fighting with a girlfriend over who left the light on in the bathroom.
The thought stung. Because even as I imagined it, I knew it was a lie. People like me didn’t get normal. Not anymore. Maybe not ever.
The laugh track roared again, filling the hollow quiet in my head, and then the screen flickered.
“Breaking news,” the anchor’s voice cut through, sharp and jarring, as the image on the TV shifted to the newsroom. The words LIVE glared red in the corner of the screen.
“This just in—” the anchor paused, clearing his throat, his voice dropping into a somber tone “—local cape Blackout was found dead early this morning. Authorities have yet to release the full details, but sources confirm she was discovered near the northern industrial district. Blackout, a known activist hacker, college dropout, and independent cape, had been active in the city for three years.”
The screen shifted again, grainy photos flashing, blurry stills of her in costume, the trademark hood with a hologram technology that obscured her face. Besides the phot of the cape, Blackout, was another her. She was unmasked, younger, softer, and smiling for a photo that must’ve been taken before the city chewed her up and spat her out.
I froze, my breath stuttering. My heart lurched violently, like it had forgotten how to beat for a split second.
“Blackout.”
I knew her. Not well, and certainly not enough to call her a friend, but enough to know the way she thought, the way she fought, and the way she stayed out of the spotlight for the sake of survival. Now, she was gone.
…Dead.
The word tasted bitter in my mouth.
“That could’ve been me.”