An Everyday Hero
There once was a boy who aspired to be someone’s hero. It didn’t have to be the entire world but just one person whose life he could change. He spent hours imagining ways he could help people.
Unfortunately, fate didn’t make his ambition any easier. On his ninth birthday, he fell off a building while playing tag. He luckily survived this event, but he was now feeble and could barely walk by himself. He spent most of his time laying in his bed. He watched and read stories about heroes even though his heroic dream was shattered. Every day, he would attempt to walk normally again so he could go out and help others. These endeavors only ended with him in pain; time did him no favors. Every time he tried; it became harder to keep his smile.
Two years later after many tries, he finally had had enough. He used all the force he had to walk outside of the care facility he was in. He quivered and wheezed with every step he took. It was the hardest and the most strenuous task he had ever done, but after a while, it became easier. His breathing eased, and his body relaxed. He felt a warm, welcoming breeze brush all around him. Even with his apparent excitement, he still remembered his desire to help people even if no one would notice his acts of kindness. As he walked around, he saw filth everywhere. A thought crossed his mind…
“Hey, I think I could do this. I could help someone today by cleaning this litter up since no one else has done it.”
The boy couldn’t continue crouching down to pick up the garbage with his weak legs, so he shuffled around with his knees on the ground. It was hard to clean up whatever he could find, but he succeeded in this task. He finally finished cleaning and stood up. He looked around and saw no trash in sight. Next, the eager child walked around looking for things that he could help. He encountered a cat in a tree. The cat had orange fur and a blue collar.
“Is this cat lost?” he said while squinting at the cat.
He attempted to climb the tree but failed miserably. The boy, after a few other attempts, decided to help the cat later. He checked for more good deeds to do, but the boy couldn’t find anything. He wandered around some more when he received a poster from a worried woman holding a stack of papers.
On the poster, a picture of the cat he had seen earlier was set above the information on the sheet of paper. The boy told the woman that he had seen the cat moments prior. When the boy had finally got back to the tree, the cat was gone…
“The cat was just here!” the boy exclaimed.
He frantically tried to climb the tree to check if the cat was hiding, but he fell and hurt his leg in a painful fall. The two of them ran about looking for the orange cat from earlier. Running as fast as he could in his current state, he found the cat turning around a corner. The boy called over the woman. He caught up with the strolling cat, picked it up, and handed the orange cat over to the calmed lady. She thanked him and walked away, but what was the cat heading towards? When the boy turned his head, a bright, blazing fire was raging from afar. The boy walked towards the commotion in front of the house. People gathered outside the fire that was devouring a two-story house. Their murmurs, questions, and sounds from their cameras were louder than the fire itself.
The only words that the eleven-year-old boy heard were, “My child is in there; please let me go inside!”
The person who said that was a young adult who was being held back by several people. The desperate look on his face spurred the boy to action. The boy ran into the burning house, and no one noticed.
Smoke filled the air. The boy felt lots of pain when he inhaled because of all the smoke in the air. So, he got on his knees and crept around to breathe without too much difficulty. He noticed no one on the floor he had explored. Still looking for the person inside, he hurried up the stairs. The house was becoming more dangerous each passing moment. Although faint, he could hear coughing nearby. He rushed to the nearest room and saw a little child rolling on the ground. The child thought everything would be okay if she “stopped, dropped, and rolled,” like the adults said. The boy noticed the child was panicking, so he reassured her with his kind words. The boy smiled at the child and led her with his hand.
The boy could not hear much with the loud sounds of the crackling fire all around, but he knew he heard a fire truck’s siren. A large window stood at the end of the hall. The boy guided her to the window to get the firemen’s attention. As they looked at the scene before them, they noticed firefighters ready to enter the building.
The little girl jumped about and yelled to get the firefighters’ attention, and it worked! The firefighters got a net of sorts for the girl to jump onto. Once the girl jumped down, the boy slowly got out of his crawling position to jump, but he felt severe pain in his leg that he had injured before when he fell off the tree. He fell back to the ground trying to resist the pain. Suddenly, a fiery piece of wood landed on the boy’s legs. He was in too much pain to shove away the burning plank.
Shortly after the commotion had ended, the boy was discovered in the rubble of the building. He was immediately rushed to the hospital. The injuries he acquired were terrible. He broke a few bones, and his legs had been severely burnt. The doctors had to amputate his legs to stop the infection. When the boy awoke, he no longer had his legs. He felt sad about his inability to walk. One day after he had returned to his care facility, the boy heard a knock come from his door. He got in his wheelchair and answered the door. To the boy’s surprise, it was the little girl who he had saved and her father. They thanked him over and over for what he had done for the little girl.
As the family were saying their goodbyes, the little girl gave him a big hug and whispered to his ear,” You’re my hero. Thank you.”
When the girl said those five words, tears streamed down his face. He had finally become a hero. The hero he had always wanted to be.
Fin.
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