Tonight I am forsaken; forgotten, as is right

Tonight I am forsaken; forgotten, as is right. I don't want to awaken. My eyes can't take the light.

Let me hide.

I pull the covers farther over my head, disregarding the stifling heat. I feel like a child. A child who tried to destroy Earth, and is thought to be dead.

When you're dead, you're forgotten. Forsaken, in favor of the living. Even grief is not felt for the dead; it is felt for those who must go on living.

Tonight, for one blessed night, I can pretend that I don't exist. But only as long as my eyes are shut. If I open my eyes, I'll have to face the reality that I am alive. That, despite everything, some people know that. And that, despite my 'last act', they want to kill me for it.

Since I'm not dead, they want to kill me.

I'll hide here under the blankets, and they won't be able to see me.

In darkness I have dwelt, unscarred by hostile daylight. There's no pain I have felt, as I am out of sight.

I sometimes think that I've been day-scarred. That's what my mother told me when I was little. The sun came down on me and burned so bright that my hair turned pale like it and my eyes were blue like the sky. But I've come to realize that there is no such thing as day or night in space. When I am in space, I can be unscarred. I can be safe and pure, and secure in the dark. I have committed too many evils in daylight to ever want to see it again.

When you have never been scarred, you can never feel pain. The catharsis, the chrysalis of nonexistance is what I crave. Darkness, nonexistance, blindness, catharsis.

I'll hide from reality, and it will cease to exist.

Dreams, they come in darkness, though. Dreams are made of fears. And so I'll hide, way down low, and try to hide my tears.

I eventually slipped into sleep, but with it came dreams. Battles, hatred, screaming! I woke with a flash, opening my eyes ... but they were shielded by my blanket, and I was safe. I quickly closed them.

These dreams are not, as some people believe, indicators of the future, or of the past. They are merely the essence of fear. Disjointed, raw fear.

I don't know why, but I begin to cry. Maybe I've realized the truth. Everyone does hate me. I'll never be accepted, never be free, as Zechs Merquise or Milliardo Peacecraft.

So I will hide, not from my fears, but from myself. I can't stand to see myself cry.

Pull the blanket from my huddled form ... awaken the chilled child … as lightning from the storm flashes ... so wild ...

I feel the blankets, my shelter, my hiding place, pulled away. I don't open my eyes. If I don't open my eyes then I won't exist, and if I don't exist, then I won't be hated.

"Zechs, wake up. You can't hide forever." Noin. Lucrezia Noin.

She's right. I can't hide forever. The child eventually forsakes his blankets ... for acceptance and comfort. Despite the storm, the storm of anger which could very well kill me, I must not hide.

I won't hide anymore.