Originally created for the National Endowment for the Arts’ FY 2026 Creative Writing Fellowships. Since the whole category has been removed by the funding agency, here we are.

Elizabeth Aubrey wanted to be a hero. She dreamed of saving the world, of proving that courage and compassion could rise above cruelty. When fate granted her impossible powers, she embraced the mantle of Monarch Butterfly—the first real superhero.

But dreams rot quickly in a broken world.

This is the story of the first hero… and the first villain.