"No tears please, it's a waste of good suffering."
-- Hellraiser

* * *

It is over. Your world is broken and shattered, and yet, amidst the darkness, hope is renewed again. It is over.

And this is all you can think, that single magical -- magical, you think, and it makes you laugh -- phrase over and over in your head. Like a silent charm, alleviating the pain from years of fear. And you are amazed how easy it all seems in hindsight. How logical.

After all, logic is what you know best. And inside your head, all the pieces of the puzzle are falling into place and from the here and now it all seems as if it were preordained. Inevitable. You will use that word more in the coming weeks than you have in your entire life. And a part of you doesn't believe in that sort of thing, fate... except that it happened. And you were a witness.

You believe what you see, you always have. The concrete, the substantial. They are your tools and with them you forge a reality so complete you have no need for abstractions, for anything other.

It's a tricky thing, believing something you cannot see, and particularly so for you. So when he kisses your hand and tells you he loves you before leaving your side, you want to believe it, but you haven't learned to yet. You haven't practised and perfected this concept of love, and even though inside you it feels right, your head is uneasy.

You wander through hallways, littered with amoral debris from a principled war and think how lucky you are not to be a part of the decoration. And that's another thing you never believed in before now. And yet you realise how absolutely critical it was, that luck, in making it to the end. Luck and inevitability. They were the lifeblood of your war.

The farther you walk, the more removed you feel. It is hard to believe any of this has happened at all. The horrors fade to the peripheries of your mind, like a dream fades into meaninglessness every second you're awake, and you want to walk forever. You're exhausted, your legs protest another step, but your mind pleads escape. You've been moving for so long now, you don't know how you'll ever stop.

But oddly enough, you do. He is standing close enough to touch, his forehead pressed against a crumbling wall, weeping unashamedly. And this was supposed to be the villain of your story. Perhaps he is still the villain of your story.

His head whips around and trembling hands wipe tears from large, crazed eyes. They stare at you, and you are scared for the brief moment it takes you to realise that he is scared. Terrified. And you are not sure if it is you that terrifies him or the fact that anyone has discovered his shame, but really you don't care either way. He's pathetic, you see, and you don't care what he's been through or what he'll go through after this. You just care that at some point in your story, he was labelled a villain and it doesn't make a difference if it's present or past tense.

And anger you didn't even know you had wells up in you like a boiling spring and your wand is jabbed in the side of his neck and you demand, calmly and strongly: "Stop crying."

Which he does, and that makes you feel guilty and powerful at the same time. And you think, this is going to change his life. And immediately after you wonder who you really mean -- him or you? You blink and the thought disappears, but you know it will come back, some time when you're feeling a little too content with life. For the moment, you let it go and press your wand just the tiniest bit harder, and he clenches his jaw.

"We all have to live with things we've done. And you don't get to regret anything."