Cadell skidded across a rooftop and wondered why the hell he was on a rooftop. For the superhero, rooftops were the best, his bread and butter. There was no Psycho without rooftops and no rooftops without Psycho.

The latter half was of course not true but the point remained the same. Why the hell was he on a rooftop? Wasn’t he a retired superhero who couldn't hold a knife without screaming and and weeping like a whiny baby?

Cadell shook his head. He was in a vicious self-deprecating state and it was taking a turn for the worse and, naturally, The Voice loved the negativity, cheering him on while simultaneously begging him to slaughter everyone within a five mile radius.

Why are you naked boy? The Voice hissed. Do you have no shame? Aren't you cold?

The question was valid to some degree. He had clothes on but without the super suit he might as well have been naked.

Tall buildings, a cool super suit and the Psycho identity was a treasured combination-- a special deluxe wombo combo if you will-- but without the Crazed Vigilante in action and the super suit, you were just left with rooftops and, well, Cadell. That was like having a burger with no meat or seasoning: bland and tasteless.

As usual, the sky glowed crimson. It was a unique hallucination because it only occurred at night, which was why Cadell believed the city to be cursed. There was no logic behind the reasoning but there didn’t need to be. He could create portals and travel across dimensions. Logic and reasoning was overrated.

Below the bloody sky, a multitude of colours painted every surface. From a normal perspective, there was nothing particularly special to see, only countless similar tall buildings, bright city lights and no signs of nature. But for Cadell, he saw an abstract painting. Colourful swirls, stripes and shapes overwhelmed the city like an infection.

The detail was too intricate not to be real and yet it wasn’t. Triggered by human stimuli, the hallucinations were the one superpower that Cadell couldn’t fully control. They helped him see the world from a lens no human could, allowing him to deduce personalities, emotions, temperaments and even hidden agendas. ‘Aura’ was probably the best way to label it, even if it made him seem like a phony fortune teller.

Truthfully, Cadell stood on the rooftop in an attempt to gather courage. Every two nights or so, the superhero was here, gazing at the city from a random skyscraper. He gazed at the crimson sky as he thought of Maya’s words of encouragement.

He thought of knives.

His right hand trembled which was quickly seized by the other. Fear was something the superhero was no stranger to but this? This was a foreign, psychological struggle that seemed too much to handle, even for him. The trauma just ran too deep into his psyche.

The Voice was right. He was a coward.

Buzz, buzz. Cadell took out his phone.

“Congratulations bro!” Elijah boomed. “I knew you had it in you.”

“Eh?”

“Stop playing. You’re back to cleansing crime, aren’t you?”

“I’m not doing anything.”

There was a silence. “Oh,” Elijah said. “There’s been a few reports of you doing your thing. Apparently you stopped a few stabbings outside a gas station- ehhhhh?”

“What?”

“Well,” Elijah said, one octave higher than usual. “It seems we have a copycat.”

“What do you mean?” Cadell asked, entering a portal into Psycho’s Asylum.

He dropped his phone.

A hologram displayed shaky camera footage of a fight between eight knife wielding attackers and an individual wearing a costume clearly inspired by Psycho the Superhero. The mysterious vigilante quickly dispatched the enemies with only their fists, somehow narrowly avoiding every knife attack.

“Turn it off,” Cadell whispered, eyes focused on the knives. “I said turn it off!”

The hologram disappeared.

Cadell controlled his breathing. Terror dissipated and anger took its place.

Someone’s copied your flow, boy.