“What if I told you that you could just go home?”
Toby almost believes the words… until he remembers it’s a villain speaking them, and he shakes himself. He forces a laugh, but pain stabs through the wound in his side, and he stops laughing with a gasp.
“Do you think I’m stupid?” Toby pants. “Or are you so pathetic that you’re scared to face an injured opponent?”
He expects the evil Lord Hastur to sneer. Instead, he looks at Toby with a grave expression. “I have no desire to fight a child. I’m trying to help you.”
“Ha!” Toby coughs. “How could you possibly help me?”
“By offering you a choice.”
Toby’s retort dies on his tongue.
“A choice is more than you were given in the beginning, is it not?”
Hastur lifts his hand and Toby braces for an attack. Instead, the open space next to the villain shimmers and warps, folding back like curtains to reveal…
Toby almost drops his heavy sword. “That—” He gasps. “That’s my room.”
Hastur nods. “Just as you left it.”
It’s true—lava lamp still glowing next to his unmade bed, pages of his science test strewn over the sheets, unfinished toast sitting on his desk—a striking contrast to the war-scorched world on which he stands now.
Breakfast. How long ago it seems now; how much he has grown and changed over the past few months. Has time not passed since he was last home? Could he really…
No.
Toby pushes the homesickness down. “You can’t trick me!”
Wordlessly, Hastur steps through the portal into the room. Picking something off the desk, he turns back and tosses it at Toby’s feet.
Toby recognizes it immediately. It’s Jake’s favorite toy car!
Panic flickers through his chest as Hastur steps from the portal again, half expecting the doorway between worlds to collapse behind him. But why should he care? He can’t accept the offer!
…can he?
“The princess told you only the Fountain could open a doorway to your world.”
Toby tears his gaze from his room and looks at the villain.
“The princess lied.”
Toby kneels and picks up his younger brother’s race car. It’s real, all the way down to the scratches in the paint. His little brother had begged to play with him that morning, but Toby had his test to finish…
He clenches the toy in his fist.
“No! The princess warned me about your deception! She said you’d try to tempt me, and here you are, proving her right!”
Hastur growls, finally sounding the like the monster he is. “And where is your princess now?” he demands. “It was she who taught you to wield that blade, so tell me: why doesn’t she face me herself?”
“I—” Toby falters, then forces himself to stand straighter, despite the pain. “Because I’m the hero! It was prophesied that I—”
“And who gave that prophecy?”
Toby struggles to remember. “He…”
“Is long dead,” Hastur finishes. “Someone you will never know and who will never know you.” He takes a step closer. “Tell me, Hero, has anyone in this world even taken the time to actually get to know you?”
Toby opens his mouth, but the words die on his tongue. Faces flash in his mind, people—friends? —he’d met along his journey. Their words echo in his ears…
You are the Hero! Much is expected of you!
You are the Hero! Your story was foretold long ago!
You are the Hero, destined to destroy the villain!
You are the Hero—you must save us all!
“Do you even know why you’re supposed to kill me?”
Toby startles out of his reverie. “Because you want to destroy this world!” That, at least, he has the answer to.
“Correction, I want to remake the world.”
“Same difference!”
“No, it’s not! I want to change this world! I want us to progress, to evolve, to become better! The princess, on the other hand, wants us to stay the same, forever. And she’s willing to sacrifice anyone in order to keep it.”
“Shut up!” Toby shouts. He lunges, angling his sword just as the princess had taught him. But Hastur merely sidesteps the attack, leaving Toby to land with his face in the dust.
In that moment, all he can do is lie there, unable to push himself up. His body is so heavy, every muscle aching with fatigue.
He just wants it all to end.
He just wants…
To go home.
Large hands grasp beneath his arms, pulling him out of the dirt. Toby’s mind screams at him to resist, to fight back.
But everything hurts.
And he’s so tired.
Cradled in the villain’s arms, Toby gazes towards his bedroom through the portal.
“Tell me,” Hastur asks. “What do you fight for?”
Toby takes a deep breath. “The princess,” he says automatically.
“Why?”
“I… I don’t know.” He sniffs, brain muddled from the pain. “I guess it was nice to think I was important… that I meant something.”
“Did your previous life mean nothing? Was it so bad that you’d throw it all away for strangers?”
Tears trail down Toby’s face. “But the people here need me to save them!”
“What kind of people drag an innocent child from his home and force him to fight a war they refuse to fight themselves?”
Toby finds he has no answer.
“Listen to me,” Hastur says softly. “You’re injured. You’re too weak to even stand. If you try to fight me, you will lose. And if you die here and now, then everything you’ve worked so hard for will have been for nothing.”
His mom, his dad, his brother Jake… What would they think happened to him?
“This isn’t your war.” Hastur’s voice grows even softer. “You can’t save this world, so I’m giving you the power to save one person.”
“Who?”
The villain smiles. “Yourself.”
Toby clutches the toy car to his chest.
I’m sorry, Princess.
“Okay,” he whispers. “Take me home.”