Heroes Never Die


                                            Six miles.

                                            Ari had no idea how long it took her to walk six miles. She left her phone in the car just in case. But she left at the crack of dawn and now it was broad daylight in the woods. But still, she went on and on, her hands buried deep inside her hoody’s front pouch pocket as they always were.

                                            Her feet had never hurt this badly before. She had mud coming halfway up her pants. She didn’t know how she’d make the six-mile return trip. But it would all be worth it.

                                            Already she felt victorious as at last the woods she’d trudge through ended and she found a road and beyond that a town.

                                            Ari felt her strength return! She wasn’t sure if she’d even get this close!

                                            The pandemic shut everything down, even the roads. Ari swore half the roads in America were blockaded at this point. They likely would have blocked every road if they had enough people. But they didn’t.

                                            And on the flip side, it also meant no work. She had unlimited time to go on this little adventure. Ari spent days slowly circling and tip-toeing around the police trying to get close to her target– a town with a serious outbreak of ETS.

                                            They did [i]not[/i] want you getting this thing, but it was starting to look like Ari might really be able to pull it off anyway.

                                            Ari stepped out onto the road, hands deep inside her pockets as she kept her eyes open for… hopefully one of the flying ones.

                                            The last report she got was that ETS would soon be over. But it was also transforming people much faster now. So maybe, just maybe there was still some hope. Hope that Ari could be…

                                            “Pony!” Ari stopped in her tracks.

                                            It was one of them! A glaringly pink ‘pony’ with wings… the very thing that the pandemic transformed you into.

                                            This one was up in a tree when she found it. It hopped out and looked around when

                                            “You, pony!” Ari ran towards it, keeping her hands pouched. “Over here!”

                                            “I don’t want any trouble!” The pony pleaded, backing up slowly. “They’re going to end the ETS in a little while! Just don’t come closer and you’ll be fine!”

                                            “No, no! I want you to infect me!”

                                            The pony froze in place.

                                            “Wait. What?” She asked. Probably the opposite reaction she normally got.

                                            “Please! Just cough in my face a few times.” Ari stopped right in front of her. She knelt down to be on the pony’s level. “Come on! Do me up! Hurry!”

                                            The pony could only stare, confused.

                                            “You know they’re going to end ETS like… pretty soon, right?”

                                            “Which is why we gotta do this right freaking now.” Ari rustled around in her pouch pocket.

                                            “We don’t know what will happen to people who are still transforming when they end it,” warned the pony. “You might just end up halfway to a pony, unable to use your hands.”

                                            Ari rolled her eyes at the pony’s ignorant presumptions.

                                            “Here.” Ari had some trouble hooking the money around her good finger. It took a minute, but she pulled it out with a wad of cash held tenuously and trembling in her ring finger.

                                            The pony looked at Ari’s left hand with an all too familiar look. The ‘I’m disgusted but I don’t want to say anything rude’ look. Which was good enough.

                                            Her hands were hideously deformed. Her fingers were all knotted and gnarled, most of the bones in her hands fusing. The result was her hands being bumpy, misshapen lumps with random jags all about them. A stranger likely wouldn’t even be able to tell where each of her fingers began or ended.

                                            Only one finger between her hands was even mobile. Her left ring finger could flick up and down, but only just. She couldn’t hold anything with it for long.

                                            And her right hand was even worse.

                                            This wasn’t what hands transforming into hooves looked like. The pony knew right then that Ari was already like this.

                                            All these people complaining about ‘losing their hands’ didn’t know how good they had it! Heck, Ari barely used her hands as it was. She had a legion of accessibility devices all over her house. She was 100% ready for this!

                                            So it seemed almost like a sick joke that ETS hit the west instead of the east coast, the far said of America.

                                            “I have one thousand dollars in cash.” Ari held it out.

                                            The pony frowned, showing she was looking more at Ari’s hand than the money.

                                            “Well.” The pony, at last, relented, bowing her head. “If you want to take the chance. You can keep the money.”

                                            The pony then proceeded to hack in her face for a solid five minutes. She gave Ari one of her hairs to swallow because that was the most infectious part or something.

                                            Ari walked away at least feeling like she’d done all she could. At least she wouldn’t have to go her whole life wondering what would have happened.

                                            She felt satisfied for the moment. The return trip was faster and easier than the nerve-wracking walk here.

                                            Whatever happened, she’d fall asleep in the car, though. Truth be told, Ari was considering just taking a nap by a random tree. She finally got to the car, feet throbbing, legs numb.

                                            But the sight in her rear-view mirror made her forget all the pain, forget everything.

                                            Green! A stripe of hair just off to the left was turning green right in front of her eyes!

                                            “It’s working!” Ari laughed. “I got ETS!”

                                            The stripe managed to go all the way from scalp to tip, then began to thicken.

                                            “I guess I’ll have green hair?” Ari never smiled this much before. “I wonder what color my fur will be. Hehehe!”

                                            Better yet, a second green stripe joined it on the right side of her face. Her hair would be fully green in under a half hour at this rate. And then…

                                            “It’s going so fast!” Ari cheered. Overcome with joy she flapped her arms about as the second stripe completed itself. “Yes! Yes! Yes!”

                                            If she could just hold out a few more hours! That was doable, right?!

                                            This was all making her unreasonably happy!

                                            “This is the happiest day of my–”

                                            The sky erupted into light! A beam of pure white rushed over Ari and the entire world as it exploded outward to cover the globe.

                                            At that moment, Ari knew the magic was dead…

                                            She desperately looked at her hair, desperate to be green just moments ago. It wasn’t changing anymore.

                                            She bit her lip and trembled. Tears formed in her eyes.

                                            Her head fell forward, onto the steering wheel. It probably honked the horn. Ari couldn’t’ tell.