A/N: I came up with this weirdly depressing but interesting side of the after-effects of the war of the trio after having a conversation with a friend of mine who has fought overseas. Each piece will be 500 words exactly (minus quote and authors note) It is a bit darker than my normal, but I enjoyed writing something a bit rougher! All comments on it more than welcome. Thanks
The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it
Henry David Thoreau
How do you carry the weight of a world, of a nation, on your shoulders?
You don't.
For years, he had been the primary piece in a well-oiled machine that brought down an empire. An honour it was to participate in such a dark and dangerous downfall. Throughout the battle, he felt valorous and fought valiantly.
But now he felt exhausted. He was a juicy vein that had been ready, right, ripe, to be tapped, and they had drained him too dry.
He had given up on sleeping months ago; it wasn't helping, and it didn't matter anyway.
The demons were inside him, the ghost silhouettes standing tall in the dark corner of a crowded room. Their hollow, haunted faces with glinting grins were visible in his own rugged, tired reflection in the mirror.
In himself.
He was to blame for this.
Initially, when all the death was fresh and the dust was beginning to settle on their collapsed hearts, he would try to tell himself that it was over, and he could move forward and leave it all behind.
Initially, he believed himself when he whispered those sweet words to his pillow every night
However, "This is not my battle anymore,' and "This is not my fault," were not enough to cast away the burden of the past.
Eventually, after the funerals of their loved ones and celebrations of a new era, the demons in his head began to scream too loudly, and they drowned out his nightly prayers.
The others would try to reach out, tell him that the pain was temporary, and over time he would heal and let go of that which consumed him. The empathy for his friends was washed away by the flood of guilt deeper than any oceans of tears they had cried.
In his tortured mind, it was irrefutable that he was the one to blame for their heartache. Without his need for righteousness, they could've been living better lives. His lasting prayer was for them to try to live happier now, futures better than what he could ever gift them. But his distraught left him floating away, deep into a black hole of ever-lasting, bitter loneliness.
She was no relief either, sadly. She would try from the bottom of her battered heart to get him to see the light, that on the other side of destruction there could be a happiness he was yet to experience for himself. Yet each time she screamed in the night or cried mourning a loss, the void would swallow him a little more.
He was responsible.
He would pinch himself every now and then, hoping that the blind pain would jerk him awake. That he would find himself free-falling out of a nightmare that had become too vivid. But he already knew he hadn't slept in months.
The demons thrashed their glinting, pointed teeth, and he closed his eyes to the reflection staring back at him.
He'd never hated anything else more.