A/N: I've been sitting on this awhile. It is a story told in brief "snapshots." It's not doing any good just gathering dust on my computer so here it is.

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"Help me…"

It was the first thing he ever said to me.

I stared at him, feeling numb as I gazed upon a being that stood, bent and weak, in the shadows of my room. He could have been my reflection. Our hair, our skin, the contours of our faces were nearly identical… Except his eyes… They were antithetical to my gentle green spring grass eyes. I could see them from the shadows; brown, but almost red, the color of mahogany. They were analyzing me, somehow commanding my attention despite his apparent weakness.

I knew at once that we were irreconcilably different…

But the differences didn't seem to matter. Not then.

What mattered was: Where had he come from? Why now? He took a staggering step forward and stood before me, faced me. Only he wasn't really there… More like an apparition. Was he real? Or was it a result of my overactive imagination? Then he reached out to me; gripped my forearms with cruelly thin, bone-cold hands. I felt the fingers dig in to my skin. It hurt. I jumped, suddenly terrified, and tried to pull back, but he held tight. And I knew, I just knew, that he was as real as I was.

I struggled for only a moment until he hissed, "Please…." I met his gaze again. And all at once, something changed in my heart. It ached. The fear flooded from me. Suddenly it didn't matter where he'd come from, or how, because in his eyes I now saw the pain of loss, the pain of loneliness. I could hear screams and flame in his memory. I could see blood. I saw shadows in his eyes…and they concealed the roiling darkness that he harbored.

After what seemed an eternity his hands relaxed. Not releasing me, but no longer gripping me with such sharp intensity, he sighed and leaned his head on my shoulder. He seemed exhausted, and I felt my heart ache deeper. I pitied him.

My first mistake.

"Will you help me…" He murmured a second time. And though it was phrased like a question, it was not a plea. I could hear it in the sharp undertone of his frail voice. It was an order, a demand.

But I could feel his pain…

And so the first thing I said to him was, "Yes."

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To Be Continued...

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