And if you don't believe the sun will rise, stand alone and greet the coming night in the last remaining light.
-Chris Cornell
Prolouge
What am I still doing here?
Why am I still in this horrible, heart-wrenching world? This world that has tormented and beaten me brutally ever since it first showed me the truth of life, this world that has forever isolated me and put the punishments of those who did wrong on my back and mine alone? Why do I have to keep tolerating this awful, broken record over and over again when I've listened to it for so long?
I don't know. I just don't know.
At first I thought friendship was the answer. Becoming close and protecting those I loved, trying to express myself in a way that I could finally find a way out of the madness of this world. But that wasn't the case. Every time I tried, every time I threw a line out it was crushed faster than I could watch. I would be thrown back to the beginning with a heavier and heavier bag to carry and the cycle would just repeat. That damn cycle. I know that shit, I know it too well.
Over.
And Over.
And Over.
AND OVER.
Every time. There was never an exception, life didn't want to give an exception. So when I realized that it was going to do this until I broke, I cheated. I didn't let it win. I closed in on myself and dedicated myself to what I had already promised, what I had already weighed myself down with. I sought revenge, I sought freedom. I killed thousands, slayed the innocent and I didn't look back. This was my duty, I thought. A duty put on me by everything I had done wrong and everyone I had lost. If I wasn't able to do this, what would my actions to them be for? I couldn't, I refused to tolerate the thought. I decided to remain alone, to carve a path out by myself. To do as much as I could until this cruel game was finally done with its latest pawn.
But once again, life managed to grab me in its twisted hold.
I was forced into a situation that I had never wanted, a choice and quest that were thrown upon me by the sheer desire to avenge a soul I hadn't even known. It wasn't like I could refuse: She was just like me, after all. Tormented by the same thoughts, the same heavy burden. But just because I took it didn't mean I wanted to. In fact, I couldn't have hated it more. But my opinion didn't matter, life didn't care about anything except what it knew to be true to itself. So I went through and I did what she had desired, in the process fulfilling the things I had waited years to finish. I finally killed them all and sent the rest running. I brought the weight of the truth and let it sink into a soul tormented in the worst way imaginable before leaving them to their own devices and I listened to them scream as I finally made it here. I can still hear them screaming, just like I can still feel the burden on my shoulders. Despite everything I had done, everything I'd managed to do I still wasn't allowed to be free.
At first I was angry. I kicked, punched and yelled as hard as I could at life as it smirked down at me. Who was it to decide how much I needed to do to right the wrongs I had done? Who was it to decide what my friends wanted in a world of lies and obsolete requests? Who was it to tell me what to do when all it wanted was to bring me pain. I wanted everything to end. I just wanted to forget and become nothing, just vanish and let everything become numb. Please, just please I thought. Please let me go…
Please, let me go…
Please….
Please…
Please…
But against my will, I stayed. I hung on by a thread, something anchoring me to my prison and yanking me back with a force unparalleled. Something I hadn't felt in a long time and had never expected to feel again: Regret.
It came to me all at once as I laid there motionless in that white abyss. Everything up to that point, everything I had wanted to avenge and everyone I had wanted to forgive me...They already had. They had done that since the beginning. The moment they had left this hell of a world nothing mattered to them except my happiness, the promise that no matter what happened that I could still find purpose and meaning in living and be able to enjoy the endless torment of eternity in the same way I had with them. But I hadn't been doing that. In fact, I had been doing the opposite. By trying to avenge them, I had failed them. And I had made them mourn my descent into madness.
And it hurt.
It really, really hurt.
It hurt harder than anything I had ever experienced before.
But now? Now I know what they want.
No one should suffer the horrors of being alone. No one should make the same mistakes I did, follow the same path that I have for all this time. If they are lost and outcast like I was then who am I to let them enter a cycle that was flawed from the beginning? The burden I had felt for so long was still there, but now it came under a new light. This is what everyone I had known wanted me to do: Take those who have become like me and give them the comfort I never had. Make them understand. Give them peace in the last light, whenever it comes. My job was, and always had been to protect this cause. I had just never known because I had never been able to see the mind of another, to see their perspective. I was blind in my own rage.
Just like him. Just like him.
Enough is enough. Thinking about the past doesn't matter anymore. None of this, any of this means anything anymore. I have one duty now. I'm ready to wake up.
Let me return to the prison I was chosen to guard.
