The day he stabbed me, it was my fault.
Nobody knew his real name. Not even when I had him arrested. I spent money out of my pocket for a private investigator to find something—anything. But every resource came up empty: no background, no fingerprints, no identity.
But he knew me. Or, at least, he thought he did.
It was a routine I’d grown tired of. He’d break in, bust up a meeting, call me Mr. Commercial, spray canned cheese everywhere—yeah, that was his thing, canned cheese—like Spider-Man shooting webs. He thought it was toxic. Then the guards would take him down, the cops would come, he’d get pushed through a 72-hour hold, medicated, and eventually leaked back out onto the street.
A month or two would pass, sometimes more, but eventually, he’d be back at my building at odd hours.
“Boss,” security would say, “He was back again last night.”
They’d show me the surveillance footage. I had cameras everywhere because of him. He’d wedge himself down the narrow alley between buildings, climb the back gate—it was impressive. I’ll give him that.
New York City isn’t a place to be if you get rattled by the homeless. Millions ignore them daily, passing by without a second thought. They’re everywhere, lying in doorways, the drawn steel gates of closed stores a sad barrier between two worlds.
But this man was different. This man was obsessed.
A year ago, my company expanded its holdings. In doing so, we forced a few local shelters to close. At the time, I barely thought about it—it was just business, and all legal. But not to him. He saw me as the root of it all, the villain who robbed his people of beds, warmth, and dignity.
The Wyrd Interlude:
Every hero needs a villain, and every villain a hero. But sometimes, the line blurs, and what we think we know becomes a matter of perspective. In the strange spaces where identity tangles with reality, the wyrd reveals itself—not as truth or fiction, but as the story we choose to believe. This—is wyrd fiction.
I was minutes into a meeting.
The table had everyone important at it—for both my business and personal lives. I deal with commercial property. My headquarters is small, as is my team: twenty-five employees working out of an Upper West Side brownstone. My grandfather started the business way back when and owned half the block.
My son sat to my left. My daughter on my right. The rest of the faces represented investors and people I had no emotion toward.
The door erupted open just as I took my seat.
A security guard, his face pale with fear, was shoved through the doorway, a dull knife pressed hard against his throat. The homeless man I’ve come to call Henry held the knife, and for a split second, I wondered where his can of cheese was.
“Nobody move!” he shouted, and everyone jumped back. This was different. My heart skyrocketed. Henry’s eyes were wild, and I felt that terrible gut-punch sensation you get when you see a car accident—metal twisting and exploding, and there’s nothing you can do but watch.
There was blood across Henry’s face. And more of it on the guard’s chest.
“Jesus, Henry, what have you done?” I said.
“He stabbed Jason,” the security guard said, referring to our doorman.
Henry pressed the knife tighter, drawing blood from the guard’s neck. “Nobody speak, nobody move,” he whispered.
I slowly raised a hand, trying to reason with the unreasonable. “Henry…”
The knife dug deeper, and the guard screamed. My daughter cringed, tears streaming down her face. My son’s jaw clenched, and I could see the debate in his eyes.
I placed a hand on my son’s forearm and gently shook my head.
We were all still.
Henry’s eyes locked onto mine. He wanted to kill me. His brain had cultivated some land-tycoon monster out of me and my privileged life. But he didn’t speak.
“What is it you want, Henry?” I asked.
“That’s not my name!” he snapped, his voice rabid.
“Okay,” I said, speaking like someone trying to talk down a jumper. “What do you want me to call you?”
“Call me my name! I’m Captain Identity! The one and only Captain Identity!”
“Sure. That’s right. I knew that. My mistake. Captain Identity,” I said.
“You hurt the people of this city!” he stepped closer, dragging the knife slowly across the guard’s throat. “You betray humanity! People like me!”
The cut wasn’t deep yet, but blood dripped. The guard gritted his teeth.
“What has he done?” I motioned at the guard.
Henry twitched. “What?!”
“The guard you’re about to kill—is he evil too?”
Henry’s jaw flexed like an addict’s. “No… He’s a henchman. He knew the risk of working for a villain. Henchmen die.”
“So I’m the villain?”
“You’re the supervillain!”
“What’s my superpower, Hen… Captain Identity?”
He shook his head. I hit on something he hadn’t considered.
“My power,” I said, slowly standing. “Surely, you’ve spent this much time coming after me. You wouldn’t make this bold final attempt if you didn’t know my power.”
“I know your power,” he spat. “Lies. How you speak is your evil power.”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “How I lie is a gift. Come on, Henry, you disappoint me. You’re the hero, and the hero can’t face the villain unless he knows the power. Because without knowing the power, you can’t know the weakness.”
His face dropped.
I stepped closer, raising my brow.
“You don’t know my weakness?” I asked.
“You don’t have any superpowers!” he said, trying to convince himself. “Not all villains have powers.”
“Henry, do you think I could do all I’ve done without superpowers?”
His eyes went wide, and he stumbled back. Fear overtook him.
“So you don’t know what I can do just by thinking about it?” I said, raising a hand.
The knife lowered as the security guard pulled free and ran behind me.
“Put down the knife, Henry,” I said.
In a final, desperate act, Henry lunged at me.
I didn’t see the knife until I felt it—a searing, white-hot pain tearing through my shoulder. It was as if fire exploded under my skin, radiating outward in sharp, jagged waves. The impact drove me backward, and I hit the floor with a thud that seemed to echo in my ears.
Time splintered. The room blurred, the faces of my colleagues frozen in shock, my daughter’s scream a distant wail, muffled as if underwater.
Henry stood over me, grinning with a wild, unhinged glee, the knife dripping red in his hand. “Knives…” he hissed, his voice solemn. “Your weakness is knives.”
The air felt heavy, metallic. My vision narrowed, tunneling toward Henry’s bloodstained grin, and my heart pounded so loudly I could feel it in my ears.
Then, like a thunderclap, my son’s fist connected with Henry’s jaw. The sound was a sickening crack, and Henry crumpled to the floor as the others rushed to restrain him.
“Call the police!” someone yelled, their voice breaking through the fog in my head. I rolled my head to see Henry’s face pressed into the carpet. He spat a wad of blood and grinned at me.
“I know now,” he said, grinning through blood. “It’s so simple.”
They placed him in a psychiatric facility in the end.
We all recovered, but whenever I raise my left arm overhead, I feel it. Nerve damage, the doctors say. It’ll never fully heal.
A permanent reminder of Henry. The still nameless homeless man.
Everyone’s surprised when I tell them I’m not mad at him.
Is it his fault that nobody found a way to help him?
I don’t know. But I’m not angry.
I picture him now, slumped in a dimly lit room, the air thick with the smell of stale cigarettes and cheap drugs, lost in a haze of confused thoughts. Hopefully, he remembers things well and feels some pride.
After all, in his mind, he was a hero. The one and only—Captain Identity.
The Wyrd Curtain:
Heroes and villains aren’t born—they’re imagined, their roles etched in the minds of those who observe. Between delusion and reality, we spin tales to make sense of chaos. And in that fragile space, the battle lines blur, leaving us to wonder: whose truth do we believe? It’s a majority rule world—and Wyrd Worlds yet await.