The day I was hit by that truck was both the best and the worst day of my life. It was the day that I became a hero and started my story with all of its glory, tragedy, and unpleasant dirty tasks involved. To this day, I still have split thoughts on whether or not I should thank the Witch from the bottom of my heart or curse her until my throat runs hoarse and dry.

I started out life as an ordinary boy, living in prosperous first-world America within the even more comfortable suburbs. Of the eight billion people in a vast, unforgiving world, many would obviously envy being in such a position. But as I spent the last few days of my summer break before I entered eighth grade, I couldn’t help but sigh in disappointment.

It probably wasn’t uncommon for little kids to daydream of becoming a superhero. All it took was some radioactivity, a mutation, or discovering that one parent was a Greek god, right? I looked forward to the day that I could stretch my limbs and smash them like rubber, or when I could make thousands of screaming clones to fight evil villains with a stupid smile on my face. I supposed middle school was designed to be that difficult time where kids discovered that they had more academic responsibilities and had to get used to the boring parts of life. At one point in my life, I would have probably settled for playing basketball for a living, but as middle school went on, I’d continued to retain my short height while others started their growth spurts. I was good at dribbling and passing but wasn’t a sharpshooter and lacked a fancy lay-up package, so there was probably no way I would’ve even made the high school team.

And so I began getting lost in books, comics, card games, and video games like I’d never even left elementary school. My parents had directed me to pay more attention to my studies recently, and my brother certainly complied. But I had at least one more year to go of middle school before I had things to worry about, right? I’d only turned thirteen a few weeks ago, after all. I imagined myself ten years in the future wiping potato chip crumbs off my face as yet another fat nerd in a comic book shop. The modern world was generous, and there were jobs for awkward geeks and man-children.

As I walked home from the library, once again a little disappointed at how cliché some of the novels I’d returned had ended up being, I saw a young girl walking across the street, probably no older than eight or nine. She had the right of way in the crosswalk but didn’t see the truck that was roaring down the street. 

Had its driver fallen asleep at the wheel in such broad daylight?

I acted without thinking, dropped my backpack, and rushed toward the girl. I hadn’t intended to sacrifice myself, but I knew that if I really sprinted, I could take one of her arms and drag her out of harm’s way. “Look out!” I yelled, and the girl turned in time to see the truck, freezing in her tracks. At that point, I realized I’d overestimated my own speed and that I would only reach the girl if I dove.

Time seemed to slow down then. As I collided full-force with that girl, my light frame ended up being enough to throw her out of harm’s way, but now that I was stuck in a full dive, I’d made the unintended sacrifice. The truck didn’t even honk. And by some odd miracle, its front bumper sent me flying upwards, spinning sideways as I heard my ribs crunch from the collision. 

So at least I get a nice view of the sky and the distant mountains before I die, right?

As I floated helplessly in mid-air, I looked across all of the people on the street and in their cars. Would I be remembered as a hero? Perhaps I, who had only been destined to be an underachieving geek, had saved the woman who would eventually cure cancer? Or perhaps I’d saved the next corrupt politician, and generations after would curse me for not letting the girl die.

As I made another half-spin in my mid-air flight, I made eye contact with a teenage girl walking alongside the sidewalk with hazel hair and eyes. She was exotically beautiful with mixed-race features and seemed innocently concerned for pathetic old me trying to become a wannabe hero. And then I saw my memories start to flash before my eyes. It wasn’t a bad last sight, laying my eyes on a pretty girl before I truly went into the inevitable, right?

Except that I didn’t watch my memories alone. I felt this hazel-haired girl watching them alongside me, as if she was in the theater and I was on the stage. I saw all the times my brother beat me at video games and basketball, and how awkward I’d been in social interactions, wanting to shrink away from the world when I was bullied. And then she probably saw the stupid daydreams, the messy drawings that I made where I imagined I would one day be a hero. She saw how immature I was when I geeked out regarding Magic—the Gathering combos and strategies in video games and how my imagination and ambition were too powerful for this reality.

“The truck is the perfect way to go to another world in anime, right?”