Am I evil?
Just a little something I've been wondering for a while now. The morality of good and evil.
Never a good thing when you're me. I'm generally not someone you should ask this question, for fear of what I might say.
My first oneshot. This is from The Darkness II, the game I still haven't been able to play since I don't have my Ps3 with me. I can't play it on Pc, I haven't touched a Pc game since I was nine, and that was Age of Mythology, at least I think it was... I don't have an X-box so that's out too.
This is set right after The Angelus trapped Jackie in Hell. You might say this is about moral choice, whether he wants to become The Darkness or not.
Oh and if you wondered how I can actually write a fic about something I haven't even played about consider this: I pre-ordered this game ten months in advance, so I did a little bit of research while I counted down the days...
'Am I evil?'
Jackie settled on the throne of bones he'd made, trying to get comfortable. Which was impossible, Hell was supposed to be pain and torture, not comfort. But he was the King, he was the Master. So he was comfortable, at least for the time being.
'Better yet, who am I?'
Jackie had never given it much thought, he had been trying to keep himself alive since The Darkness took him as its own after all. But now he had time, infinite time in Hell to consider if he belonged there.
He thought back, back to better times. He and Jennie had discussed the possibility of good and evil when they were kids, wondering what they would do if they could just walk out of the orphanage and live their lives as their own. Better times, better lives.
Jennie was good, of that Jackie had never thought differently, but what was he? Was he evil?
'No, I have done some good. For the wrong reasons but I've done some good.' He'd killed for the Mob, he'd killed to ensure a way of survival for himself and for his crime family.
If evil was all that was dark in the world then Jackie was about as close as anyone could come to complete evil, but no. He felt love, he felt remorse. He loved the wrong things, but he loved. He loved woman, he loved money and power, he loved guns. He especially loved using those guns on his enemies, especially on people who are screwing with is business. He felt pain when he thought of that love. "Jennie..." He shook himself, The Darkness whispering in his mind. "Get outta my head." It refused but he ignored it, though it would cost him later.
Was The Darkness evil? How could it not be, if it wasn't? It killed for pleasure, but Jackie killed cause it made his life easier. Jackie grew still, feeling the Hellfire of The Darkness burn him. But he didn't mind, he was the host, The Darkness would just regenerate all the wounds it made, which would piss it off.
'Am I evil?'
Jackie didn't know. He liked power and he loved his life, but did that make him evil or not? The Darkness was evil, but a human evil. It had been there before Creation, it had been there before there was even a there to begin with. It had liked the solitude, the emptiness, the Darkness. But then Light came, and it had screwed with its power. It had decided to right the wrong it had been committed, by returning the world to The Darkness, one death at a time. It wanted to go back to the way it had been, before Creation.
Jackie shifted on his throne, the stench of Hell making his stomach twist and roil. He was never sickened by what he did, he knew it was necessary and that was that. The one death that troubled him was the life he had tried to save.
"Jennie..." He shoved her face from his mind, knowing that it would only make him feel even sorrier for what he'd done.
But she stayed with him, kept swirling around and around in his mind and the dark thoughts within.
'Am I evil?'
He smiled a bitter smile, twirling his dual guns in his hands. 'No, I'm not. I did good with Jennie, though it had cost her her life. And it cost me my heart.' He chuckled darkly, always darkly.
Humans did things that would be classified beyond evil if they had the power. Priests had burned thousands, hundreds of thousands, of innocent people because they believed that there was a life better than damnation and poverty, better than being poor while the Church was better off than the richest king.
Even those declared evil have done some good. Using radiation as a weapon has given ways to fight cancer and other dreaded diseases. Scientists play God ever day, creating more and more ways to eradicate life, finding cures to previous incurable diseases as they do. The fist sword paved the way for the first shield, the first gun paved the way for bulletproof glass and clothes. The first atomic bomb paved the way to peace, unsteady peace, but peace nonetheless.
'Am I evil or good?'He raised one of his pistols and stuck it beneath his chin, starting to squeeze the trigger...
And his hand was wrenched away with icy pain shooting up his arm, The Darkness stepping in. "End it laterrr. We need more powwwerrr. More soulsss." But he shoved it away, shoving his pistol under his chin once more.
'What am I?'
Jackie smiled, seeing a specific beauty smile in his mind, her gentle hand taking his hand in her own, leading the gun away from his head. Her hand was warm and soft, soothing against his Hell-damaged skin.
Jackie smiled at Jennie, seeing her fade away, her body fading away back into the only place she was still alive: his memory and his heart.
He wasn't evil, so long as he kept Jennie inside his heart. With her Light he can never be completely evil, but with The Darkness he can never be completely good.
'Am I evil?'
He laughed darkly, The Darkness staring at him with its glowing golden eyes. He smiled at it, the first time he'd ever even made a motion of good in its direction. It shrieked at him and he drew it into himself, letting the Demon Arms fade away, feeling its power course through his body, unholy and sadistic, but not evil. His heart remained as it was, The Darkness failed to turn it to its plans of destroying the world, he would do as he liked, and nothing and no one would stand in his way. Jennie's face smiled within his mind again and he smiled in return, feeling The Darkness writhe in pain within him.
"No, I just am."
What is evil anyway? And the reference to playing God was really rather a pun for the 16th century, when someone can condemn a perfectly innocent woman or child to burn at the stake for a sin they did not commit. Never in all of recorded history was there ever such a bloody and broken life, in the Burning Times.
Review. If you want, if you don't then don't. I wrote this for you, and only you.
I wrote it because I was having doubts about whether I was good or not...Seems I'm neither, and both. There is no true Evil, just as there is no true Good. There is a balance, a balance that will always be maintained. Whether we like it or not, there is no one side of a coin, always the other, always the balanced Other.
How 'bout that for something to think about. Think about what you are, good or evil, makes no difference. A sadistic psychopath can give someone who needs it a drink of water just like the saint like priest can condemn you to the stake.
Have a nice day.s