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In and out of consciousness on the twenty-second free-falling descent, I managed to flip over and saw the red carpet on the ground coming up to me so fast that I braced for impact by crossing my arms across my head and face. The orange glow that emanated from my body exploded creating an energy force that knocked some bystanders over, it cushioned my impact. I slowly stood up and turned, to a frenzy of flashing cameras and reporters shouting out my name.
“You're bleeding!” they shouted.
“iLUMiNO!” they shouted.
A small piece of metal was stuck in my left carotid artery. My body was trying to push it out as the foreign object that it was, and I could feel it slowly emerging. I gave it a hand and pulled the shiny metal shard out, placing my hand on the wound; blood spurted out and a photographer fainted.
My wound healed fairly quickly; the blood still evident on my costume.
“What happened?” a reporter shouted out. “Are you ok?”
I was just about to answer when Darcey Dyson approached taking the piece of shiny metal from my hand and placing it in a clear bag.
“I’ll tell you what happened, our dear friend iLUMiNO has got a lot of explaining to do. Creating an explosion to boost one's persona, is quite frankly terrorism, and for that, he should be arrested right now.”
The frenzy of the cameras started flashing again, and the crowd of reporters and fans were all shouting at me.
I didn’t know what to say. I was shocked, horrified that people would think badly of me. I could see what everyone else could see. Me, iLUMiNO, bleeding in public, near the site of a bomb. It was a media frenzy. I needed to leave, now.
People began to pour out of the doors of the cinema like a tidal wave sweeping a sandy beach, I pushed against the grain. Pain thumped inside my head. I knew that in all likelihood I had a concussion. You pick these things up when you work as a porter. I had to get back in side, Barkley would be looking for me. I imagined the inside of the auditorium, and in creating the golden portal, I stepped into it and instantly everyone disappeared along with the noise. Inside the theatre was relatively quiet and the last few people were leaving the building, the film was still playing on the big screen. I looked around sheepishly as I slowly morphed back into myself. Rubbing my head, I had what felt like the worst hangover ever. I started to make my way outside like everyone else, but before I did, I was tapped on the shoulder.
I turned around and it was Barkley.
“Looking for me,” he asked.
I looked at him, he looked at me. He knew.
I looked down at the floor. My heart sank. My friend knew that I was a liar.
***
BOMB GONE WRONG, AND similar headlines, were now covering the front cover of every single newspaper. As was the main story on every single news station. A picture of me. Well, of iLUMiNO, standing atop the red carpet outside the premiere in London with a piece of the bomb in my hands covered in blood. When the news reporters compiled all the available footage, you saw iLUMiNO flying in the air above the city then reappearing seconds later as a bomb blast shakes the whole city. The footage was damning. The headlines all relayed the same information. WANTED: iLUMiNO. All because Darcey switched the angle of the story. She was milking all of the attention, of course. Barkley was shellshocked by the whole thing. He closed all communication with me. I didn’t know if he hurt because I lied to him, or he believed the lie that Darcey had implied to the world. I was dying to tell him that it was all a big mistake. That I was the hero and that I saved them all. But that felt like an impossibility right now. We were all living in the aftermath of the bombing, many of the patrons of the cinema including Keanu Reeves were having a crisis of faith after their brush with death. Little did they know that they would have died, had the ‘most wanted’ criminal not intervened.
I read the words in horror. Each word sent a shockwave down my spine, the headline dominating the page.
FROM HERO TO VILLAIN. Towards the capture of the world’s most hated creature. I read on.
What happens when a hero turns villain in front of your very eyes? Well, exactly what is happening to iLUMiNO. The creature once hailed as a hero has fallen beyond all repair after a bomb blast in the City of London. Damning evidence shows iLUMiNO holding the weapon of mass destruction above the celebrity-filled cinema, before vanishing into thin air in an action that sends chills through every person who watches the video. The questions grow and grow.
What caused our hero to fall from grace? What message is he trying to send? Did he have a change of heart? Or did the plot go wrong?
Our reporter spoke to Darcey Dyson, the famed news anchor who has had run-ins with iLUMiNO in the past. “I am frankly terrified and astonished by the actions of iLUMiNO to tell you the truth. He saved my life, and the lives of others, but now he is trying to take them. This detrimental development puts us all at risk until he is captured and brought to justice. If you’re reading this iLUMiNO, do the right thing and come forwards. Don’t put anybody else at risk from your volatile actions.”
That’s quite a change of tune from Dyson but nobody knows iLUMiNO better than she does. Originally leading the mission to track down and identify a hero, she has now placed herself at the head of the charge to find the UK’s most wanted criminal.
They thought that I was guilty. They think that I tried to kill people, or at the very least that I was trying to make a statement. I wished I could tell them the truth but who is going to listen to me, the most hated person in Britain. The social media tirade was worse. I wanted to crawl into a hole and never come back out. God knows what I would do if they found out it was me. There was a constant barrage of faceless people calling for my incarceration at the very least, or my execution at the very worst. The current social media spin on the story was that iLUMiNO had placed the bomb intentionally outside of the cinema in order to ‘fake’ save the masses and hail himself a hero, but that something had gone wrong in the process and he’d either got cold feet or programmed the bomb wrong, leading to it self-destructing mid-air. And, to be honest, the videos did appear to prove this. Without a shadow of a doubt.
Aside from the hatred I was facing, I was concerned about the fact that somebody had placed that bomb and they’d gotten away with it. Out there, free as a bird, was a person who had tried their damndest to kill a cinema full of people. And, they would have been successful too. Switching out my coffee for a large gin and tonic, I stared out of the window trying to figure out my next move. I could call in an anonymous tip to the police that iLUMiNO didn’t cause the explosion, but who was going to believe that? Plus, they’d trace the call back to me, I was certain. I could hunt down the bomber myself, but I had no idea where to start. Or I could trust that the police conducting the investigation would be unbiased and not just pin this on me. Not knowing what to do, I signed up for extra shifts at work, hoping that as my mind was occupied, I might have a light bulb moment and come-up with some crazy-good idea that was going to save me and bring the actual perpetrator to justice.
As it turned out, the hospital wasn’t the best place to get away from the situation. Our fallen hero was the talk of the town. Both patients and staff did nothing but talk about it. iLUMiNO had replaced the weather as the most covered topic. I managed to meet Leigh for lunch during one shift out of five. It tended to work that way, only when our schedules worked out. Sitting at our usual spot, sipping luke-warm coffee, she chattered away like she always did. I wasn’t really listening and she noticed, almost straight away. I say almost because Leigh could talk to a brick wall if she wanted to.
“So, what do you think of this iLUMiNO thing?” Her words broke me out of my stupor.
“What do you mean?” I answered, aware that I sounded stupid.
“You know. Do you think they’ll catch him?” Leigh’s face contorted with concern. She absentmindedly rubbed her growing stomach. I could tell that she was worried about bringing a baby into the world. Many people, both online and in-person, were talking about what it would mean for an actual real-life supervillain to be on the loose. I did my best to remind them that he’d not been found guilty yet, but couldn’t get too defensive or I’d be sussed out.
“Do we know for certain that he did it? It seems out of character for him, doesn’t it?” I asked, feigning ignorance.
“I mean, the video is pretty bloody clear! Don’t you think? The guy has shards of the bomb in his hands.”
“There could be another reason for that,” I hedged.
“And what might that be?” Leigh laughed at my poor attempt to remain impartial.
“That he found the bomb and was trying to save people?”
“You sound like Barkley! He’s been saying the same thing since it happened. It’s like he doesn’t want to believe that the guy that saved him has turned bad. When he definitely has!”
“Barkley said that to you? Those were Barkley's actual words?” Leigh nodded her head at mine. “You know what’s funny...” Leigh carried on. “I was certain that you were iLUMiNO for a while!”
I was being bated. Leigh was digging for information in her usual way. She wanted me to fess up for myself and was giving me the opportunity to do that. I think she knew the possibility of me actually being iLUMiNO was far beyond crazy, and that would keep me safe for now. I needed to keep my identity from Leigh for a little while longer or until I’d figured this out. Maybe there would be a point in the future where I could tell Leigh who I was but now wasn’t the time. Maybe when things got back to ‘normal’, if they ever did, me and Barkley can recover from this. I didn’t tell Leigh that Barkley had stopped talking to me. I vowed to myself at that exact moment that I would tell them both everything. Once my name was cleared. But not now. Definitely not now.