bone underneath was real and his. The other things, the add-ons, he had come to

call them, were not real and were definitely not his. But he could not remove

them. So, he supposed, they were real and they were his.

 

Or rather I am him. Paul Rogers. The thing.

 

The scars had faded over the years, particularly the ones on his fingers, but he

would always see them as though they had just been done.

 

Sitting up in that bed, wrapped in bloody bandages, feeling… different.

 

His old self, his real self, gone forever.

 

He next rubbed the ring. It was a platinum band that had been given to him by

someone who had once been special in his life.

 

There was an inscription engraved on the inside of the band.

 

Rogers had no need to look at it. The words were burned into his brain.

 

For the good of all.

 

He had once believed in those words more than anything else in his life. But

that was then, this was now.