Random stories

I was very fortunate to get and well qualified for the Care Enricher Actor at ‘Valhalla, Retirement Home of Heroes and Hero Associates.’

As a former criminal and wanna be super villain finding employment after serving my time was difficult. I was so ashamed that I attempted to use my illusion casting powers for a quick buck. During my stint in super detention, I was able to think of literally hundreds of legitimate jobs I could have taken and made a lucrative living. That was all down the shit hole now. No one would trust a former villain.

That was until the hero that put me away mentioned that his mentor had been escaping Valhalla and causing a ruckus in the city. Valhalla had multiple openings for good paying honest work, and they were desperate enough to hire reformed villains. Normals were too scared to apply, heroes thought the work beneath them, and those who did have powers often found easier employment elsewhere. That left former desperate villains for the job.

More often than not, I found my job was just to be a willing, listening ear to people who had given some if not their all to make peoples lives better. Often their family life had been sacrificed (sometimes literally) in the name of this noble pursuit. Friends were few as normals feared supers and super friends had a high mortality rate. This left the lonely inhabitants to languish forgotten here. It was no wonder that they often would have a notion to escape, not realizing the harm that they could cause to themselves and others.

It didn’t help that Valhalla felt more like a prison to them because it looked like one out of necessity: thick concrete/steel walls, reinforced glass and too many cameras to count. At the start of my shift (or when I often volunteered) I would place veneers of pleasant scenes over these drab features. A lake up in the mountains was a favorite. This simple act had caused incidents to decrease to near zero.

It had been nearly six months since I started my work, actually the best six months of my life, when the Brute had an episode. 650lbs of super enhanced muscle hadn’t warded off that penultimate of villains dementia. A roar was soon followed by the sound of demolition as he effortlessly tore through the walls like tissue.

Carl even at the age of 80 was unstoppable and in his rage along with his condition there was no talking him out of the wonton destruction that followed. Supers were hesitant to go full powered on the elder and normals hadn’t a prayer. He would tire himself out in a hour or so but lives could be lost and property destroyed.

From my interactions with Carl, I remembered a photo he had on his desk of a little girl riding piggyback on the behemoth. Some of the few sentences he would ever mention during our infrequent talks was about Laura. I rushed and grabbed the photo. I took in the dimples, the brown hair and green eyes. Making my way out into the carnage, I focused on those features and created the image of Laura.

Carl had picked up a car full of people when he came to a sudden stop, seeing the image from the past. Tears in his eyes he laid down the vehicle and just started repeating “Laura” over and over.

A half hour later Carl was back in a room asleep.

The next day I was surprised at Valhalla by a grateful looking woman in her fifties with a few streaks of brown in her mostly grey hair. Her green eyes were filled with tears as she started hugging me tightly saying, “Thank you, my hero.”

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Submitted by oliverjsn8 on Thu, Jun 15, 2023 to /r/WritingPrompts/

The prompt

You work at a retirement home for superheroes who've gotten too infirm and senile to continue their work. The hardest part of the job is keeping them here, instead of gallivanting off on a foolhardy quest to relive their glory days.