Flash Fiction- 1000 Word Hero's Journey

It took me exploding to realize I hadn't done everything I needed to do in life.

One second I was withdrawing eighty from the ATM, and the next eighty kilos of C4 blew a hole in the bank and killed me.

The first thing I saw was several people standing over me- tens of people I had known, all of whom were supposed to be dead. One of them, my cousin who had died of cancer, flipped my the bird and walked off, uncaring. I struggled to stand up, but was unused to my spectral body and couldn't move an inch.

No! I hadn't done all I needed, hadn't fulfilled my life, and still needed revenge!

The desire put jumper cables on my brain and restarted my life.

I was definitely in a human body. It looked vaguely like my own but was definitely not me. It wasn't powered by my attached soul, but by desire. In my hand was a glowing light, a soul perhaps, which I instinctively placed on my shoulder. Forthwith came a whispering noise, guiding me, referring to me as a revenant, whatever that meant. I needed to fulfill my purpose, and giving up on it would make me crumble to dust, with no second chance.

I staggered through the streets, dragged by anger, ignoring the many odd stares I garnered. I realized I had no idea of the time that passed, as I had died at about noon on a cloudy day, and saw that clouds still covered the sky in a grey blanket.

I was pulled by ambition directly to the still-damaged bank, knowing instinctually that the killer was inside. Against my will, I was forced to pass my grizzled corpse and shamble into the madhouse which the bank had become.

There were around two dozen tied hostages with bombs strapped to them. The clock said one-thirty, which meant that death had not held me down long. The killer was a man in his mid-thirties, with hair already going white, Hitler mustache and goatee, and a frenzied look in his eyes. He held a machete, and given that the tellers were slumped at their desks, he'd killed at least three others. My righteous rage exploded, and I snapped.

I came back into lucidity with a whispering spirit in my ear, and a bloodied man with a greying mustache and goatee holding a detonator under his thumb grasped in my hands, with veins pulsing in the back of my hands. I knew, suddenly, from the spirit's guidance, that he had a dead man's switch connected to all the bombs, and if he merely lifted his thumb, each person would go up from three kilos of C4. I gave up and let go of him.

The villain smirked, grabbed a gun, and aimed at me. Somehow, I blocked all the shots from the magazine with one hand. The hand began to heal. He then kicked me in the head, snapping my neck and knocking me directly to the floor in that one strike. As I writhed on the floor, he kneeled and whispered in my ear.

"Stay down, motherfucker," he warned me, "Or everyone here explodes and you have saved nobody. Not even yourself."

I put my hands in the air to indicate surrender. He took me at my word, bound me, and strapped on the C4 everyone else had. I'd given up and watched incredulously as my arms began to turn grey and crumble to dust. That was my weapon. I knew that without ambition I was doomed, so I channeled my apathy to the place where my bonds contacted my body. It started working, getting me out of the bomb straps. My torso fell to the floor, legless, armless, and half-burnt, but it gave me new strength seeing exactly how evil my killer was.

I had odd stealth abilities in revenant form, after willing my guide to shut the fuck up. I was able to sneak behind the robber and tie him, strapping the explosive on underneath. He was not powered by the force of will, so I could easily bind him without fear of escape. I untied his victims, told them to run. Then, when everyone else left, I lugged the C4 to my killer, and, in one final act of defiance, forced his thumb off the detonator.

For the second time in a day, I felt the searing heat of death by explosion. I had been, more or less, atomized with him, leaving but a smoldering crater where the bank had been. I was once again a ghost, now at the edge of a world, one of yellow flowers, with no relative nearby but a very pissed-looking cousin. I had no strength, couldn't move, and my arms were singed.

"You're back," my cousin spat as if the words hurt him. "I never liked you, you know that? You were too kind, reflecting in a funhouse mirror the cruel and spiteful world. Since you loved that world, travel it eternally as a ghost!"

I took all of my strength to plead, and failed. All I could do is ask for mercy with a betrayed look in my eyes.

"All the people who were kind backstabbed me," he growled. "You were the exception, and I was waiting for the other shoe to drop even as you comforted me on my deathbed. As the world doesn't deserve your mercy, I say to you, goodbye."

I couldn't even mouth, "you're fulfilling my dream." I was kicked over the edge, and as I fell, I contemplated what might happen next, to a spirit that died.