TITLE: Shadows
DISCLAIMER: I don't own the Diabolo series (well, okay, I do own the books, just not the rights to it).
STORY DETAILS: Not a story so much as a few hundred words of rambling. Ren POV. "He" refers, of course, to Rei. I had a bit of trouble deciding where to make new paragraphs, so I hope you'll forgive me.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I think more people need to write fics for this series. I really liked it except for the end, but I won't go into that. Please review.
Story:
They say there's darkness in every heart. I never believed it, though, because I had someone who seemed to be made of pure light. In fact, I thought we both represented the light - opposing the darkness, that we may somehow triumph in the end. What I didn't take into account was that, for every being of light, there is an equal or greater shadow. Light cannot come without darkness, for good and bad are determined only relatively to each other, and if nothing is "bad", per se, then how can anything be "good"? With that said, it seems more oft' than not that rather than having white light versus inky dark, we find ourselves shrouded in varying degrees of gray and black. That shadow would appear alone, without the antithesis (light) to combat it, I did not consider. When shadows battle, one does not truly overcome the other. Rather, they blend and morph into something still dark and sinister, the lighter of the two becoming corrupted in the process and losing a bit of its light.
We were like those shadows, in the end, except that one of us (myself) could not see the darkness looming. I held fast to the belief that somehow, in the end, our situation would right itself and our light would win, thereby freeing us from our impending de-humanization. I guess he always knew, though. He wore that smile, that mask of pure confidence in our cause, to reassure me. I suppose he wanted my last days in the sun to be as happy as they could be, and, for as long as was possible, he succeeded in keeping me blissfully ignorant. He really was kind and gentle deep down, and even knowing what he did he hoped against all hope that he was wrong, but that knowledge of what would happen would never let him rest. I think that's why he succumbed to the demons first; he'd already begun to accept it as inevitable.
Before that happened, though, our shadows continued to be corrupted by those we fought, even as we were fighting that corruption itself. One of us would blend with something much darker, losing some light, but the other would try to remedy it by donating a bit of his own light in. It worked to some extend, but ultimately just made both of our souls blacker.
Maybe, if we hadn't tried to fight, he would still be here today. Maybe, rather than being completely overcome by blackness, our shadows would simply have stayed a cool gray, and I could still be maintaining my illusion that there is always a light at the end of every tunnel, always an angel to combat each demon. But, looking back, inaction was never really an option for two people as idealistic as we were.
It's lonely here, now, without my companion shadow around. For all his darkness, he was still probably the kindest person I've ever met. I sit at this park we used to love, and I watch people argue and fight; I watch them lie, cheat, and steal, and I wonder. What if, rather than light vs. dark, good vs. evil, there is no clear "black and white"? Perhaps light never really could overcome darkness completely, only, as shadows do, blend with it and make it less dark. Throughout history, all the forces of pure light would have been tainted, and now, even if it could have at some point, there is no more light to save us - no more redemption to be had. The world is filled only with shadows continually mixing and darkening.
Today, more than ever, I believe there is darkness in every heart.