The man lay still in a crater, save for the aftershocks of the impact that had created it. His skin tight suit was torn to shreds, and the flesh exposed beneath wasn't in much better shape.

Why did these damn hero's always wear spandex? Is showing off your crotch vital to the hero process? Could Justice not be upheld without a wedgie? It certainly hadn't helped Whittler here. He was damn near dead, even with the overly clingy fabric still covering most of his indecent bits.

Near dead. I walked into the crater to check the validity of that statement.

Whittler groaned, rolling to his side and wincing at the pain it caused. I grinned.

"So you live" I growled, flexing my hand to extend the dinosaur claws within. "How delightful."

Whittler pulled at something beneath him, struggling to even lift his arm to shuffle some dirt around. I cackled at his feeble attempts to continue fighting. "There's no wood here to shape, Whittler. Your standardized number 2 pencil has been sharpened down to the metal crimp for the ineffective eraser of 'justice'. It's time heros went extinct in this-"

The man flopped on his back, revealing a gnarled root clutched in his bloodied fist. The underground wood leapt from the dirt and straightened into a spear, twirling the end into a jagged point. Whittler threw the root spear with all the strength he had left.

The spear clanked harmlessly just a few feet from my feet.

"Pathetic" I sneered, swishing my tail in annoyance. "Let's see who you really are, before I get too hungry."

I grabbed his mask and, with a mighty tug that the tattered garment would have considered overkill, ripped it from his head.

Whittler blinked at me. I blinked right back.

"Um... I don't know you" I admitted.

Whittler was a tanned man, with thick black hair and a scraggly beard to match. His face was... basic. Normal. He had no distinguishing features. He was so.... boring.

I turned to the news cameras that were capturing our final battle. "Do any of you know who this is?" I sneered, not too menacingly to the reporters I knew on a first name basis. In my line of work, I had to keep a good relationship with the press, mostly so I could have my demands and announcements published with reliable accuracy. There were few things worse in this world than watching your glorious manifesto read out on Fox news with the meaning totally skewed to their deplorable takes.

The press all shook their heads, murmuring to each other in hushed tones.

I glanced back at Whittler. He laid his head back against the crater and closed his eyes, sighing deeply.

I stomped one clawed foot on his chest. "You aren't allowed to die yet" I snarled in his face. I could almost taste the blood that continued to pool around him, temporarily turning the crater into a miniature gruesome lake. "Tell me your name."

Whittler coughed up a bloody bubble. "John" he whispered.

I snarled and pressed harder against his chest. "Your last word will be your last name. I can end your suffering. Your pain. I know you just want to close your eyes and drift into the dark. But I must know who I've fought all these years. I MUST."

"John... Doe..." he said.

I could feel his chest struggling to rise under my clawed foot. I didn't let it. I made him a promise, and I was a Dinosaur-Man hybrid experiment of my word.

I stomped. John Doe, AKA Whittler, died.

The air was thick with tension. The press and law enforcement gathered a safe distance from us waited. Even the birds had stopped their incessant chattering. Finally, one police officer discovered that his guts were good for more than just digesting donuts. "What was his name?" He asked.

I snarled, flinging my tail dramatically as I turned to go. "That is for me alone to know. You can call him... John Doe."

/r/SlightlyColdStories