It's Not Easy Being Green

Written by Anakin McFly

"It ends when you are eaten."

The whispered words sparked in my memory, still tinged with the fear they once held. I could not remember who had spoken them, or why, but all my life the words had haunted me with their prospect of something worse than death. If death was possible, in the first place. Could I die? When my insides were scooped out and eaten and the empty shell of my body tossed aside; would I die? Or would it just... end, in the aching loneliness of some city corner, useless, abandoned, like so much trash.

And now I stood there and watched the city go by. The time had come. My purpose had been served. I had brought joy to some and agony to others, and now it would end.

But then he came.

Despondency in his steps, anxiety in his face; he sat down by the opposite wall, and then he looked straight at me.

It couldn't be. Why would he care? I was nothing. I was garbage, useless junk, whose time was over, neglected, used.

But then he stretched out a caring arm to me, and a strange power seemed to emanate from his fingertips.

He was looking at me. There was no doubt now, not in the way his whole being was focused on me, a yearning concentration etched on his face below eyebrows that were decidedly huge.

I was filled with sudden hope. Perhaps this was not the end, after all. Perhaps I was still wanted. Perhaps I still had worth...

I quaked in despairing expectation. And then I took off from the ground and flew towards him, straight into his grasp.

He looked at me, a glowing triumph sparking in his eyes. Because of me. He'd wanted me. Me. I would have cried, had I the tears. He had summoned me, and I had come. He'd loved me even as I was empty inside.

My gratefulness welled up. He had rescued me from the garbage and presented me with the possibility of new life, a new chance to start over. Perhaps he would fill me once again and make me whole, and bring me to his home where we could be happy together...

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Sylar stood up and chucked the empty can of spinach aside. It was time to get down to business.

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