Radiant light, and yet so many ways to shroud it.
Tender love, and yet damning hate.
Beauty unlike anything you could ever dream, and yet horrors beyond your imagination.
Welcome to the Brave New World.

He felt like he had been standing on that tree branch for a thousand years. It was clear he hadn't, as it was still pouring. His hair clung to his head. His shirt clung to his chest, making his ribs protrude even more. He hadn't jumped yet.

After several heartbeats, Thomas Bradley slowly removed the belt from his neck. He didn't have the courage, not even now.

Dying was not going to take him home. If anything, it was going to take him farther from it. And what was going to take him home? Tom didn't exactly know the answer to that.

Why did bad things happen to good people?

The question had suddenly formed in Tom's mind; it had been asked many times before by many different people, and there was either no answer or one in particular: bad things happened to good people so that good things would come out of it. One could appreciate heaven more if he had been through Hell first.

But what good had this done? What good had come from Tom's being stranded in this World for what could be eternity?

He recalled the mysterious fortune he had received the previous fall at the carnival. He remembered it well.

"You are without a sword, but do not fear, for only sympathy shall slay him."

Tom released the breath he had been holding. The Arcade King, at long last, had fallen. A secret menace to his creations and a threat to Programkind, he had gone far too long without repaying his debt.

It was a gargantuan debt to pay, one individual punishment for every Program slaughtered in the Arcade. As much as Tom loved his friend, his was a debt best repaid in Hell.

And Tom had been the one to send him there.

The Arcade King was the tyrant Macbeth, who could not be slain by any man born of woman. And yet here Tom was, Macduff, but instead of slaying him by the sword, he had tricked the King (unintentionally?) and sent him to his demise. Tom did not know for sure, but from the way he had cursed Flynn when he had first moved from Alan's home into Flynn's... for Flynn having disappeared for this long, to the extent where some people were claimimg him dead, there was no choice but to accept that he had gotten his comeuppance.

But at what cost? Tom had sacrificed his way home to give Flynn what he had deserved this whole time. The fall of the Arcade King was satisfying, but how was Tom going to get home?

"Somewhere, over the rainbow..."

What was it Alan had said to him so long ago, while Tom had still been going by the name of "Tron"?

"That's the nice thing about being human, Tron. You can have nightmares, but you can also have dreams."

Dreams. Dreaming was the only way to keep the memory of home, Home, alive. No matter how long he was here, he didn't want to forget.

"Skies are blue..."

Leaving the belt-noose hanging from the tree, Tom took a daring leap off the branch and landed swiftly on his feet, with some fatigue. A great amount of fatigue. He was tired and weary, after such a long day. A long year. A long time.

"And the dreams that you dare to dream..."

He lay down on the muddy ground, not caring who was running up the hill and through the forest to claim him, and as the pouring rain washed over him and caused his body to sink slightly into the mud below him, he closed his eyes

and dreamt.

"Really do come true."

He dreamt, as the rain began to cease, the thunder began to quiet, and the clouds parted just enough to reveal the stars.

"O, Brave New World" quotes from The Tempest, William Shakespeare
"Over the Rainbow" by Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz, cover by Celtic Woman