More Than You Are Today
Inky darkness drowns him. It pulls him under, bubbling and lapping at him as it slowly engulfs his body fully and chokes him from the inside out. He fights and screams, but it dies in the wakes of the sludge slithering down his throat. Slowly, he suffocates and the shades of life fade to monochrome and he is dead to the world…
Pitch Black blinks into reality, chest pounding with fear and eyes darting in and out of the shadows – searching – for the beings that cursed him with this fate. But, then, the terrors begin to muddle and his recollection of them blinks in and out until all he can feel is a lingering sense of terror and regret. Even with the memories clouded from him once more, Pitch thinks (knows) once upon a time he wasn't the embodiment of fear. Once he'd been-
His breath hitches as a person stumbles down the alleyway he lurks in, he lets himself be taken by the shadows and expands his reach to the point where, if he wished, he could stretch his touch just an inch further and… But he doesn't. He lets the person (a drunkard, no doubt) stumble out of his clutches, oblivious to the terror waiting for them just a hand's span away and into the eery yellow of the street lamps just around the corner.
Pitch sighs and sinks back into the recesses of a dark corner, promising himself, 'Next time. I'll scare the next fool…' Bothered, Pitch moves through the shadows restlessly, trying and failing to shake off the after-affects of his own fears.
"Papa! Papa...Papa help me!" a voice like twinkling stars begs between sobs as wrenching as a motherless beast's. Cupping his ears, Pitch falls to his knees and beats his head against the coarse bricks of the alleyway. "Stop!" he screams. "Get out of my head!" The Boogeyman howls, blood as black as oil seeping from his wounded head. "…Stop," he chokes as wails and shrieks echo unwanted in his mind. "Please!" he whimpers. But a pale, tear-streaked face framed with midnight hair rises from the ancient depths of his unconsciousness, taunting and tricking him.
Striking his head against the wall again, Pitch bares his teeth with feral ferocity and shouts, "You aren't real! Stop these tricks!" The images and echoes only pick up in intensity. Pitch roars as his sanity begins to unravel further and in one last desperate effort, he swings his head at the brick wall, causing injury-induced slumber to surround him and hide him from a past unwanted once more.
A ragged breath leaving him, Pitch slumps against the wall and sleeps on, nightmares forgotten for the time. Unaware, something rustles in the shadows and a moment later, a tall, elegant woman slips from them and into the moon's light. Her dark eyes shimmer with deep sorrow as she stands poised with hands clasped in front of her.
Taking a step closer, she kneels down beside Pitch's prone body and runs dainty, spider-leg like fingers through the tangled spikes. "Oh Papa," she says, "how you torture yourself."
Leaning in, she rubs away the drying blood with her thumb and plants a soothing kiss to the wound. "Sleep well, Papa," she whispers.
And in his sleep, Pitch shifts, a calm exhale passing his parted lips.
Her own lips quirking, the woman runs a hand down the concave cheek and proclaims, "You are my hero."
Pitch rests on, the declaration lost to him. Bringing herself back to her feet, the woman stares down at her papa with aggrieved eyes and shakes her head in a wistful manner. "You are not fear, Papa, but fear's keeper," she tells him and then, with a longing glance to the moon, she says, "I pray you realizes this someday."
Pitch twitches in his sleep and the woman takes a step backwards, casting one last glance at the man she once called father. "Goodbye, Papa," she concludes, disappearing to whence she came.
When Pitch awakens at dawn's approaching, he remembers something from the in-betweens of wakefulness and sleep.
Once, you were a hero.
He clings to this belief with all the remnants of sanity he has, and as he runs from the daylight nipping at his heals, he whispers to himself (and maybe the wind), "Once, you were a hero."
The words gaining strength, Pitch licks his lips in appreciation. It feels good.
"Once, you were a hero," he repeats to himself. Smile tugging at his lips, he says, "Once, you were not fear." A grin of razor teeth cutting across his wan face, Pitch barks a rusty laugh and shouts, "Once you were a hero!" Diving under the bed, and into the caverns of his lair, he yells, "Once, you were not fear!"
It echoes in the tunnels; carries across the sea, carries across continents and somewhere, Mother Nature smiles.
It's just a short drabble, but what do you guys think? This is my first Rise of The Guardians fanfic, but I felt it was appropriate; Pitch is too easily categorized as villan or victim I felt like he needed a piece where it seems to have a bit of choice.
So is it Good? Bad? Need work? Please review and thank you a ton for reading!
EDITED: 3/12/16