A/N: Well, I've been meaning to update this story for SO long but have never had a chance to get around to it. So, anyway, here it is….
From Darkness I Came, To Darkness I Will Return
~~-Erik-~~
One tiny drop of purity. From the blackest recesses of my sludgy, poisoned mind, that innocent, demure child seized the pearl once planted by a kind hearted French lady who remained my mother's loyal friend right until the end. I'd never envisaged anyone accomplishing this, but the child somehow managed it. She took that tiny grain of the remaining goodness of my damned soul; fashioned it, nurtured it, and made it grow. She allowed me believe for the first time in 50 years that human nature was not entirely to be abhorred. For a brief interlude I believed there may be something good for me, dared to hope that I could have been wrong when I admitted that no woman could ever look upon me in love.
Oh how stupid can one man be, how blind? How powerful can love be, to banish 50 years of denial and mutual rejection between myself and the human race?
How could such a unique lady love me? I have deluded myself into believing that it was love; I controlled her, possessed the most intimate caverns of her mind and soul.
I could have told her anything, my deception knew no bounds. I assumed the role of artist, painting her a world in which I was her angel, her father, her friend, her essence. But it was all based on LIES, pure fiction, no solid foundations, and, as any architect knows, the foundations are the most important aspect of successful construction, for without solid beginnings the entire thing is likely to come crashing down to nothingness.
Complete fool, I betrayed myself, I betrayed her, I destroyed it all. Monster that I undoubtedly am I just couldn't force her to stay, when the time came. I know she would have remained in my bleak underworld, and gladly; sheer terror and love for that damn boy would have compelled her to give it all up, to cast her life into darkness so that he may shine in the world they had shared.
She loathed me, feared me, hated me, 'fallen idol and false friend' she'd spat, her enchanting eyes brimming with a venom of such intensity that for a moment my blind rage withered. With those words she flung my hopes and dreams, fragile as they were, to the wind. Until that point I'd never deliberately harmed a woman, never set out to taint the purity of a member of the fairer sex. I'd always prided myself on my gentlemanly behaviour; now it was yet one more aspect of my character that had become sludged with the filth that consumed the rest of my soul, for I knew that however I termed it, I had ultimately deliberately harmed her.
Blackness descended as she fled, in the arms of that boy, only to be repelled momentarily by foolish hope when she returned.
What a mistake - that was the first time I told her that I loved her, my final act of desperation, and still she fled, terror contorting her otherwise perfect features. It should have been the perfect moment, bitter old cynic that I am she'd let me dream that we could have had perfection, but no, reality is far too grim, monsters forfeit the right to happiness. All my abhorrence and hatred of the human race was personified in the man who spirited my last ray of light away.
And now, this eternal blackness that is my cocoon, is all that remains. I'd been told so often that I should never have been allowed to live, and yet I defied them all, I'd lived half a century, believing that I must have some high aspiration, some unknown reason for defying death, despite the fear and loathing that caused the human race to exile me. Everything I'd believed had been wrong, all my motives for sustaining my existence were shattered, there was nothing left. So, now, death, welcoming death, the only adventure I had yet to experience, claim me, your very own creation, your Angel of Darkness, claim me and let this overwhelming pain cease…