"I just don't understand why you read that junk," he told me with a smirk, sliding the comic book out of my hands and flipping through its colorful pages just to annoy me. "And you've marked every single page involving him? That's just weird."
To point this out, my brother held up one of the dog-eared pages and gestured toward the thin, dark haired character standing in one of the panels. He was holding a gun in his hand and using it against the comic's heroes.
"Give it back," I muttered grumpily, yanking it out of his shaking hands. He was laughing so hard he didn't have the strength to stop me.
"You are aware that he's the villain, right?" Joe asked me as I rose from the living room couch and headed toward my bedroom in the hopes of escaping his cruel remarks. "Why are you so obsessed with him?"
Normally, I would have slammed the door in his face and escaped to the welcoming world of my favorite series but this was the third time this week that Joe had bugged me about this. I couldn't stand it anymore.
Feeling my cheeks burn at what I was about to say, I turned my head far enough to glare at him and spoke. "Because if you'd gone through what he went through, you'd act the same way." Actually, Joe would probably act worse.
"Stockholm Syndrome!" my idiot brother called as I gave up and locked him out. Joe wasn't a bad guy, he was just too immature to put himself in other people's shoes. He'd grow out of it eventually, I hoped.
"He has a point though," I muttered under my breath as I sank into the fabrics of my bed. Anyone who looked around at my posters and book collection would know that I cared about the villain of this series a little too much. His face was plastered all over my walls.
"I wonder how much money I would have saved if I hadn't become a fan of his." As I placed the comic back on the shelf with its twenty-four siblings I slid my fingers over the various covers.
"Manica: The Moon Revenge." "Manica: The Adventures of Jala and Ace." "Manica: The Mysterious Stranger."
They were all great books, don't get me wrong, but the most worn book in the series, the one I'd read five times in a row when I'd first bought it, was the one titled "The Origins of Dark".
Dark was the name of the series' most notorious villain, the wealthy, charismatic playboy with a dark past and an unpredictable personality. He became famous for being over the top and acting sweet to cover up his dark intentions.
When I first heard about Dark I didn't think much of him. He seemed like a stereotypical villain and I wasn't really the type to go for the bad boy since I knew guys like that would most definitely cheat on me. It wasn't until I stumbled across the origin book, which I'd found on sale for five dollars, that I started to care about him.
The tale went that Dark used to work with the story's main characters and he hadn't been that bad of a guy. He had a few issues, sure, as he'd been forced to live with his apparently insane grandmother and had an awful boss but other than that he had been somewhat likeable. He had always struck me as the type to cover up his insecurities with humor and that was why he'd become so popular with readers.
The only reason Dark became so evil was because his wife ended up dying and his "friends" later turned against him because he was so unstable from it.
Seeing so much happiness and sorrow come out of the same man, one who everyone hated and loved because of his villainy, struck something in my heart. I'd never been sure what it was about him that turned my heart but whatever it was had been enough to make me fall for him.
...Well, as much as you can fall for a fictional character.
One thing led to another and I became obsessed with the entire series, spending more money on merchandise than I should have. Infatuation can do that to you. And here I thought I was a logical girl.
Anyway, that was why I was rethinking my life choices as I stared at Dark's cartoon face and bright colored attire. Honestly, he wasn't even that handsome in my eyes. His looks were an acquired taste, I think. It was just his personality that drew me in.
"I need to stop thinking about you and live my own life in the real world," I told him, jokingly pointing a finger at the poster. "I'm graduating this year and have to actually fall in love with a real man."
I might have kept talking to the piece of paper like a madman if Joe hadn't passed by and yelled my name, letting me know that he could hear my weird, one sided discussion.
Sighing, I yelled for the fool to go away and decided that, from now on, all conversations would continue in my head. "Dark, I am sorry for everything that happened to you...even though you are fictional...," I thought to myself. "And I wish that the writers hadn't been so against you. They really threw every evil plot device imaginable at you."
If the authors hadn't already known that Dark was going to become the villain, the story definitely would have played out differently and he would have been fine. He might have even ended up nicer than the other main characters.
But, alas, that was not how stories worked.
"I wish your wife hadn't died," I whispered mournfully. They hadn't shown her in the books but since Dark's daughter had been so nice the mother must have been sweet too. "If she'd lived, I don't think you would have lost your mind the way you did."
Chest rising and falling, I raised my cell to my face and scrolled through some of the videos I'd collected from the cartoon show based on the comics. Dark had been a side character in it and I'd memorized all the parts he was in.
...Goodness. I really was obsessed, wasn't I?
"I suppose I should start deleting these." It would be the first step to ending my addiction. But...Nah.
I shoved the phone in my pocket. I could always do it later. After all, it wasn't like I was going into college tomorrow or anything. I still had one more year left.
"Yes," I sighed, lying flat on the bed and running my fingers through my straight, blonde hair. Tomorrow. I could do it tomorrow. Right now I'd just allow myself to indulge in the thought that Dark was real and deserved my sympathy.
As I lay there, letting my mind run through the events of the most recent episode I'd watched of the show, a sudden thought came to mind, one I'd never allowed myself to think before.
"What if I had been Dark's wife?"
The question came as a shock even to me. Sure, I'd loved Dark as a character but I'd never thought of my obsession as a crush. The thought of marrying him had never crossed my mind.
But now that I was on the subject...What would it be like? Would I have been able to save him from himself? Even if I didn't marry him and just helped him avoid those traumatic events in his life would he have stayed good? And would that have been enough to keep the main characters from killing him at the end of the series?
I shouldn't have thought about it. "What ifs" are never good, even if they're about something that never happened.
But it was fun to think about.
So, as I lay on my mattress with my eyes closed and hair splayed across my pillow, I daydreamed about what I could have done. During that time, all my worries seemed to fade away and it was almost like I was transported to the magical world of Manica itself. I could almost taste the fresh air and warm breeze.
Of course, all comfort vanished as soon as I opened my eyes and looked up to find that, instead of my bedroom ceiling, a blue sky hung above my head and I could see a large moon dangling among the clouds. It looked way bigger than our moon on Earth.
That's when the panic set in and I sat up, forgetting how to breath as I spun around to study the grassy field I was sitting in. My lovely bed was gone and replaced with soil and my house was nowhere to be seen.
"Wha...?" This wasn't good.
As I crawled to my feet, trying to keep a level head and keep in mind that this was probably a dream, I looked around to try and get my bearings. A quick scan revealed that there was a small town at the end of this field, behind me, and I could see a few blurry people and cars passing by which meant I could probably ask someone for help.
But...that moon. It was just so wrong and out of place. It didn't belong on Earth...which meant this was not my home.
A quick, painful pinch on my left arm also revealed that this was not a dream and that was enough to send spasms through my legs, making them threaten to drop out from under me and never work again.
I was in another world! I wasn't dreaming! And...
"Are you doing okay?"
My head jerked toward the unfamiliar, deep voice and, with it, my heart dropped into my useless legs when I saw who it was.
Standing before me with a grocery bag dangling from his hands was Dark! His dark, Brazilian face was scrunched up in confusion. He must have witnessed my arrival.
His dark chocolate hair and tight, blue shirt looked identical to my favorite poster of him but he didn't have the same dark look in his eyes. They seemed brighter, less plotting and manipulative. It was similar to how he'd looked at the beginning of his origin story before all the awful things happened.
He must have been passing by on the street and spotted me freaking out over here. How kind of him to check on me.
...What had he asked me about again? I'd forgotten.
"Hey." Hesitantly, as though he was worried that I might be dangerous or unstable, he took a step forward and held out a hand to steady me. "Are you okay? Do you need to go to a hospital or something?"
I'd always hated when the girls in stories would clam up and act like rag dolls when they see a guy. I found characters like that super annoying, especially when they were normally level headed. But being in this situation and knowing it wasn't a dream just sent all rational thoughts out the window and all I could do was stare at him with my mouth slightly ajar.
After not receiving an answer, Dark looked over his shoulder, probably in the hopes that someone else would take me off his hands, then he shrugged and grabbed my arm, snapping me out of my daze.
"I'll take you to a hospital," he informed me and began to drag me through the field, keeping his grip firm just in case I fell over or something.
As I allowed myself to be pulled my stupid brain started formulating a plan. If this truly was real and my wish really had come true, maybe...just maybe, I could actually do what I'd joked about earlier.
I didn't plan to marry him, obviously, but if I could become his friend...If I could prepare him for all the disappointment he'd face in the future...
Maybe I could keep him from going insane.
Maybe I could rescue Dark from becoming the villain.
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Author's Note
Hi. I just wanted to thank you so much for giving "To Rescue a Villain" a chance. I know how valuable your time is and appreciate that you gave it up to enter one of my worlds.
If you did like this chapter feel free to give it a vote if you wish. Voting gives me an opportunity to thank you personally for reading my work.
Thanks again for reading and I look forward to seeing you in the next chapter. I update every Wednesday and Friday so I'll see you then (hopefully).
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