There are three things you need to know about cursed objects:

1. They're cursed: bad things happen to the people they target
2. They're high-quality: no one would be lured in by a cursed mirror unless it was also a nice mirror
3. They tend to have quite specific targets: this necklace chokes unfaithful wives, this axe injures woodsmen who cut sacred trees, etc.

What I'm saying is, if you know that a particular cursed object doesn't target you specifically, then what you've really got is a very cheap, very high quality item.

So that's what I do. I have a flat that is much, much better furnished than I should be able to afford on a bartender's salary. I have a full matching (cursed) set of crockery, velvet (cursed) drapes, and an opulent, gilt-edged armchair that is both over-stuffed and absolutely lethal to anyone who likes jazz. Personally, I'm an EDM guy.

I spend my weekends antiquing, looking for any items with a missing or mysterious history. Anything that's sold a little cheaply, by a dark-eyed man with a pointy beard. Anything that got sold the week before to a hobbyist, but that's now part of an estate sale. If you know what you're looking for, cursed objects are everywhere.

Of course, finding them is just the first step. The next step is a lot - a lot - of research. You need to be absolutely certain that it won't target you. Benny - that's the guy who got me into this game - lived like a king for years, and then died the same day he got his final item: a silver pair of scissors.

The scissors themselves were fine - they stabbed frenchwomen who whistled, and that wasn't a good description of Benny. The plastic bag they were sold in though? Smothered litterers. Cursed items tend to clump together, and it's a good idea to investigate every little bit.

Once I've investigated though, once I've found an available item that's not a danger to me, then I'm good to go. £200 for a shoe rack that breaks the ankles of people in riding boots? Bargain. £50 for a set of crystal glasses that shatter opera singers? A steal. I live the life Riley wishes he could (literally - I own a nutcracker that wishes to do the obvious to anyone named Riley).

One downside - a minor thing. 'Ownership' is a loose concept to cursed objects. Often 'being nearby' is enough to trigger them. So just like I carefully research my furniture, I have to research my friends as well. Can't invite Emily over, her dad's a fisherman. Game night with Toby can work, but only if we play the modern version of Cluedo, and keep the old one weighed down with (very heavy) books. My dad - plays the saxophone - hasn't visited in years.

No one is infallible. Sometimes, just like Benny, I make a mistake. Not, so far, with as personally-dire consequences as him, but I've had my share of upsets. Had to give statements to the police once or twice - no idea how it happened, officer. Had to bury a body a time or two, when it was too hard to explain.

And that brings us to today. To arriving home after work to discover my flat half-cleaned and my new cleaner half-eaten by my (sinfully soft) four-poster bed. I wouldn't have thought that Ms. Pettigrew (mid 30s) was a virgin princess of the Romanian blood royal, and I can't imagine she was aware either. Every day is a learning day.

Tonight will not be an early night. I have a lot of cleaning-up to do, and now only the severed arm of a cleaner to help out. Still, it's a small price to pay. It is an extremely comfortable bed.

That's nonsense.

You heard me; absolute nonsense.

Have you ever, even once, heard a story? Read a book, watched a film? Interacted with any form of media ever?

Heroes are always sacrificing the world to save the person they love. They always put the gun down when the girl is threatened, catch the pram rather than the criminal, hand themselves over instead of a minor character. Narrative convention gives them the victory anyway, but the choice is still made.

It's a consistent trope. It's so common that it's extremely boring. Heroes stop fighting to protect those they love, even when the down-stream consequences are terrible. And villains? Villains choke the woman they love for an imagined betrayal, turn their backs on their families in pursuit of profit, won't even save their own lives because the quest object is right there.

"The thing about loving a Hero is, they always have to put the world first. But a Villain? A villain would watch the world burn to save someone they love!"

It's not true. It's never been true. It's a greeting card sentiment for abusers, a red flag that when they hurt you, when you're left alone or with the blood running down your face, they'll tell everyone that it was for your own good. That they made the difficult, right choice.

And then they'll go on and hurt someone else, still convinced of their righteousness, still adamant that they're doing the right, the loving thing. They'll find someone else vulnerable, someone else who needs to be told how special they are.

Someone else who will nod along to the pretty sentiment just because they're grateful to be spoken to, someone else who will ignore the warning signs, the 'am I a hero or am I a villain?' of it all, the shifting back and forwards between personas, always - somehow, coincidentally - inhabiting the character that happens to benefit them.

They'll claim to be a villain, half-redeemed by love of you, after they've hurt you. Before they hurt, or when you're not there, they'll claim to be the hero, suffering under your irrationality, your neediness. It's not meaningful; their morality doesn't really shift. A hero would be the same inside and out, would love you whether you were there or not, would never tell you your pain is your fault.

It's true, of course, that real heroes don't wear shining armour, that there is a smothered spark of goodness inside even the blackest heart. Believe that, and - when you can - polish the armour, help fan the spark. But also, always watch for the other case, when the spark has no air to breathe, when some stains don't wash clean. A real hero would set you free, not wield your guilt as a weapon and force you to stay.

Be wary of those who tell you about their own shades of grey. No hero is perfect, but someone claiming to be an imperfect hero is rotten to the core. Many villains are redeemable, but the one still stoking the fire while asking for mercy isn't. Beware - most of all - those who tell you they are both, who tell you that anyone else would treat you worse, that their cruelty shows a deeper kindness.

It's not the hero who wears a thousand faces; why have that many masks if you're not afraid of the truth?

I expected it to be more difficult.

It was a solid plan, don't get me wrong, but I really thought it would need several upgrades and refinements before it worked. I was expecting that the first time would mostly be an inconvenience for him - for someone so famed for last-minute, death-defying escapes - and a learning experience for me. I thought I'd spend months, years, tinkering with the formula, finding better and more subtle ways to hide traps, before I finally brought him down.

But no! First time, total victory. I guess it's easy to get complacent when no one you normally grapple with is taking it seriously either. I guess it's easy to spend as little time on your own safety as you do thinking about collataral damage when you - genuinely - believe you're the 'next step of evolution'.

Total cost to me: $32.80, including shipping. Most of that went to high-tension braided fishing wire, the rest to the various screws and fixings I needed to hang it. $32.80's not a high price to pay to kill a demigod, especially not compared to the cost I'd paid so far for his continued existence.

I set it all up myself; it's easier to keep a secret between only one person, and most people - somehow - still think of heroes as a net benefit. I waited until night fell, and then snuck out to string my wire across the alleyway.

It's not a well-trafficked alley. The streets on either side are nicer to walk along, and - given the state of the concrete and the broken bottles - it's actually less efficient to cut through it than to go round. The only reason you'd ever really take it in a hurry would be if you were the sort of person who prided themselves on always taking the most efficient route between any two points - no matter what or who was in your way - and you happened to be in exactly the right place at the right time.

I've watched a thousand videos of him a thousand times. He was really very predictable: stimulus led immediately to response. No matter what else was going on, if he heard the right trigger sound - maniacal laughter, the tread of a killbot, the whine of a recharging laser - he was off in a split second.

He tookk the simplest possible route between point A and point B that doesn't involve literally going through a wall, every time. Super-speed, not invulnerability, you see. So an alley he happened to be walking past at that exact moment? You knew he'd head down it. Likewise a plateglass window, a hot dog stand, a woman doing her shopping: if he was quick enough and it was small enough to shoulder aside or charge through, he went for it.

So what if the window breaks? So what if she falls, and hits her head? He's off saving the city, chasing down some mutant doctor with plans to briefly kidnap the mayor. So what if insurance won't pay out, or she dies on a street corner because the emergency services don't interfere in 'hero activity'? So what if people lose everything while he's posing for action shots with his opponent?

I stood at one end of the alley. Only a few yards - not that he would remember - from where it all happened. I shouted, with as much theatricality as I could muster, the name of his 'nemesis'. They belong to the same golf club.

At the other end of the alley, he heard me. Abandoned his date outside the same cheap restaurant he took them all to. Took off like lightning, like a cheetah, like someone so much faster than a normal person he'd forgotten that they still mattered. The wire took him in the throat.

It was anti-climactic. As I said, no death-defying escape, no snappy one-liner. It didn't kill him, but it stopped him dead, and pain wasn't something he'd ever had to get used to. He just lay there, wheezing, hands clutched to his throat, but he didn't do anything to help himself. Pathetic.

She'd not had his advantages. Smaller, weaker - 'mundane', they call it. But she fought in a way he didn't - held her shattered skull together, crawled towards help that arrived two hours too late. 'Heroic' is the word they use to describe him.

I wasn't sure what to do. Remember, I hadn't really expected this to work - this was a fact-finding mission, nothing more. But as he lay there, sobbing for air, it seemed foolish not to take advantage of the opportunity.

A brick, in the end. Not a ray gun, or a force blast, or a super-powered punch. Not, I imagine, the way he planned to go, if he was even capable of contemplating meaningful defeat. Her name was the last word he heard, though I'm not sure how many of the wet, heavy thuds he remained conscious for.

Obviously they caught me - we wouldn't be talking otherwise. With their tech, and their psychics, escape was never on the cards. I didn't put up a fight, though it occurred to me, given how easily he'd gone down, that I might have made a decent go of one. But no - the system's rotten, for sure, but my personal grievance is done. Let others, when they realise how tarnished those shiny supers are, take up the fight.

I'm content to sit here. To spend most of my time in solitary, as I've done ever since she died. To ignore the constant requests from reporters for interviews, the endless speculation as to motive. Was I brainwashed? Am I a new model of killbot, indistinguishable from a human? Perhaps a secret, forgotten supervillain? I don't care if they speculate, assign me a name, a costume, imagined elaborate crimes and a rivalry stretching back decades. It doesn't matter.

People tell you - it's a cliché at this point - that revenge isn't worth it. That it doesn't fill the emptiness, that the pain doesn't fade. I'm sure that's true. But what I did there - in that dark alley with a bloodstained brick - was at least as much justice as revenge, and justice, let me tell you, is a balm for the soul.

It was easy to steal the egg - the hatchery was only guarded when strangers visited, and that would not be until summer. All he had to do was walk in once everyone was abed, sleeping off a successful pairing day. It was the work of moments to grab one, slot it into the leather sling, and tiptoe back to his secluded cave room. With his prize secured, the only remaining task - admittedly a difficult one - was to work out how to force the connection.

His egg was a pale grey, smooth-shelled and medium sized. Like the other eggs paired that day, it was fully mature, waiting only for the right rider to pair with. He had already touched it once, when it had refused to acknowledge him. Now, he would ensure it did.

The stories of the Leech Master were hazy in one particular: how he took control of his egg. Down in the caverns, where no prying eyes could see, he'd done something to the egg. Different storytellers hinted at different things - forbidden rituals, blood magic, even demonic pacts - but no one knew. The boy, however, had a theory.

The bonding process was known to every member of the tribe. Someone - anyone except him - touched an egg, and felt a mind reaching towards it, silent communication that only they could here. When someone touched an egg, the dragon inside you feel them, taste their soul through the physical link and - if they chose - wake to them.

Contact had to be part of it. Shirtless, he clutched the egg to him, making as much skin-to-shell contact as he could. As before, the dragon's mind refused to come and meet him. This time though, he had longer, could touch the egg as much as he wished, could send his mind in search of the dragon rather than the other way around.

If the dragon's mind could reach through the shell and find his, then it stood to reason that he could do the same. The bonded spoke of that first contact, but also the easy telepathy that followed it, sharing thoughts and emotions with their fellow. And so he closed his eyes, clutched the egg ever tighter, and focused his thoughts on the being inside.

He thought at it, pushing his thoughts towards the egg, demanding the acknowledgement it denied him. At first, there was nothing, just his own mind and a fiercely-held idea. But then, at the edge of his own thoughts, a presence. A bundle of ideas and impressions that were not his, a separate mind that he could reach with his own.

For the first time in months, the painful twist of emotions inside him eased. All those years of dreaming, of disappointment, and now - finally - he could feel the dragon's mind connected to his. In mere moments, he would have his pairing, and be able to return back to the tribe, his small transgression forgiven in the joy that at last, at last, he had found a bond.

Something still was wrong. His mood dropped in an instant, the beginnings of joy replaced with an aching emptiness. Instead of the warmth, the fellowship, the immediate glow of new friendship and unshakeable trust, the tight knot of dragon-thoughts refused to open to him.

There was communication, now, but not what he had wished for. Rejection, denial, defiance all pushed back through the link to him. Despite his efforts, his willingness, what he deserved, the woken dragon still refused to bond.

He pushed his thoughts again, shifting from wishing acknowledgement to demanding obedience. He would not be ignored, not rejected again when he'd come so close. The dragon would admit him, would submit to him, would form the link that he was owed! Thought after thought crowded in, beating against the dragon's refusal, pushing every aspect of his will into it.

There was an easing of tension, as though something had snapped, no longer bearing against the strain. His thoughts flowed more easily now, pushing obedience and ownership and domination into the receptive mind. The waves of coldness and rejection had stopped, the dragon finally accepting his bond.

There was still no warmth though, no fellowship. Instead, the bundle of thoughts and dreams that had been the infant dragon was now still and dull, a mind filled only with the thoughts that he had placed there. Obedience, subservience, submission. A bond forced, not willingly given. Not the bond he had wanted, but the one he had forged.

In his lap, the egg shook as the creature began to stir.

For the sixth year in a row, nothing happened. He held each egg carefully, feeling the smooth, hard shape of it, the warmth of the fires inside, but nothing else. No call came through to him, no wordless cry of welcome and friendship. For the sixth year in a row, they refused to acknowledge him.

He could feel the tightness in his throat, tears pricking at the edge of his eyes. This time, he wouldn't cry. This time, he'd walk out of here calmly, as though he didn't care, as though it wasn't the one thing he dreamt of every night.

A small mercy - fewer watchers than normal were in the high gallery, staring down in pity or contempt. His sister, of course, four years younger but already accompanied everywhere by a dragon of her own. His father - he knew without looking up - fixing him with a heavy stare that showed the disappointment he'd never spoken. A few servants, but otherwise no one else. No one wanted to watch his repeated shame, and no one believed that this year would be different. Fists clenched by his sides, he spun round and walked back out of the hatchery.

His mother was waiting in the long tunnel, arms outstretched to comfort, to witter empty assurances and comforts that never came true. He brushed past her, moving too fast to be calm but holding onto the illusion of it with everything he had. He could feel his breathing grow ragged, the tears starting to spill as he rounded the corner. Finally, he was out, free, alone, and all semblance of control was lost as he left his failures behind and plunged deeper into the caves.

For years now, this had been his refuge. When the weight of his father's disapproval was too much to bear, or when watching his sister's affection for her dragon filled him with so much jealous rage he worried it would burst out, he came here. A small side-tunnel, superseded by some other, larger route and long-since abandoned. No one except him ever came down here anymore, and no one except him knew of the little room half-way down, furnished simply over many visits.

Here, he could sit by his own firepit and forget the rest of them. By now they'd be drinking, celebrating each new pairing. There'd be a row of grinning children round the fire, each one holding their precious egg in a leather sling, eyes shining with dreams and hopes and joys that he'd never, ever get to have. Old men would be telling stories of their own pairings, the first brush of their bonded dragons' minds, the thrill of helping a scaled head breach the rocky shell, the wild joys of shared flight and fellowship.

Once, he'd sat with them, desperate to hear of the life he thought he'd live. He'd known - with the faith and ignorance of a child - that one day he'd have his own egg, even tell his own stories. For the last few years though, he'd stayed away, dulling the pain by avoiding reminders of it. His dreams, his hopes, were ashes now, not a comfort.

He'd hoped for a dragon, for an egg to wake to him. His father had hoped too, had assumed that a chief's son would - of course - wake a strong wyrm early, be a worthy successor. They both knew now that that would never happen. Unlike his father though, he had a back-up plan.

After the children had been led away to sleep, smiling curled round their eggs or their hopes for ones, the old men would still be there, drinking and telling stories. Stories of heroes, naturally - dragon riders who had done noble deeds, rescued damsels and saved kingdoms. Story after story of chosen ones with bonded dragons saving the day; a thousand names but the same basic narrative.

One thing was different every story though: the villain. Every hero overcame something, some monstrous, twisted adversary, but every story featured a different one. This handsome forgettable hero slew a ravenous giant, that bland warrior battled a witch with hair of living flame. And one hero - Dwarin, the only one whose name he'd bothered to remember - battled the Leech Master.

Not all the stories were true, of course - uncle Hrangr was a fat drunk with a fatter dragon, and the idea that they'd chased down and defeated a gigantic iron-winged hawk was laughable - but the tale of the Leech Master had a ring to it, sounded more plausible than many others. It was all the details, he thought - not 'long ago' but 'when your grandfather was young', not 'in a land far off', but 'in these very caverns'. And unlike the non-specific violence or witchery of most villains, the tale-tellers were always very clear on what the Leech Master had done.

He'd been a foreigner, a man from lands far to the West where dragons were all wild and there were no bondings. He'd come to trade, to talk, to learn about the tribe and how they lived. No eggs had woken to him, but he was a strange man of foreign secrets, and he took one anyway.

Like a thief, betraying all notions of guest rights and responsibilities, he had snuck down to the hatchery and stolen an egg away, fleeing deeper into the caverns and the trackless tunnels of the depths. At first they had hunted for him, set guards at every intersection in case he should sneak back for food, but the months passed and all assumed him dead in the dark, the egg lost with him.

And then he had returned. Not with an egg, and not bonded with a dragon. Beside him came a warped creature, a sinuous mockery of what a dragon should be, a beast of spite and shadow, not courage and flame. In the depths below, he had tainted the egg, warped and corrupted the hatchling so that what emerged was not a bonded drake but a an enslaved monstrosity. A beast taken, not given.

The story went on, of course. Told of the Leech Master's crimes, the lives he took and how they strengthened his monster. Told of Dwarin's brave, doomed assault on him, of the way the noble rider distracted him while the cave about him was undermined and collapsed. Told of how he died with his beast in darkness, sent back to shadows that had birthed them. An ignoble end, but not the important part.

For the boy, the important part was just one truth: dragons could be taken. Eggs could be made to wake, rather than waking in their own time, to their chosen people. He had dreamed, once, of fellowship; that had been denied him. He had dreamed of respect, of being seen as a man by his tribe, not dismissed as an almost cripple. That too, had been denied him.

Like the Leech Master, he would take what was not given. A small recompense - a single, stolen egg - for all that he had been promised, and denied. If the dragons would not show him fellowship, then he would not show it for them. He would be the master he deserved to be.

Part II

Yes! Some of the most fun responses I've ever done have been typo ones.

I always feel a little guilty harping on so much about a typo, but the prompters seem to take it in good humour and you get to write some really unusual things.