BEFORE NIGTH AWAKENS
By Sickle Sword
--o0o--
Disclaimer: What a surprise, I don't own anything! Do you really have to add salt to the pain?
A/N: First of all, I guess I should notify you that this part contradicts the show. You'll see what I'm talking about when reading it. So if you don't like bad things happening, don't read it!
And now, for the happier things- the thanks! I LOVE it when people take their time and review! Please do it more often and make me happy on your way out?? A big virtual Thank-You card to Aine you reviewed me 3 times (!!) I kneel to your generosity. denna5 - I liked that part myself, too.
Damn, I suck at these.. . . just read the bloody thing!
It should have been me who had told him the truth, even when I didn't know what the meaning of the truth is, for I have lived in a lie. I should have held him close to my arms and closer to my heart and even when he chose to go away, I should have followed. It should have been me who died. Not him.
Chapter 4: The Shadows Lifter
You don't have a clue.
You know there's nothing to fear from, but nevertheless, you are petrified. And when you see the written history engraved in a casual way in the most non-casual place it can get, you know what you've feared from.
It.
You feel your hand shaking with uncontrolled anger. Or grief. Your whole world had just taken a twisted from bad- to worse. Even in your worst nightmares you've never thought the reality will be like that. Some time ago, you have wished to understand your mission in life. But even once you've never dreaded that it will be such. That your whole purpose will be shattered. That you will be forced to give up on your dreams.
In them, the dreams, the world is perfect. And so are you, in your fantasies. You are powerful and don't have to hide from your enemies, you are stronger than them. Like your brother.
But you are not him. Ad while it has taken you nearly a lifetime to come to that nearly obvious fact, at least you've reached it. Not that now you accept yourself, no, it's not even that. It's only that. . . you hate yourself less, somehow. Because if all that had happened was written years ago, before you were born, then maybe the constant pain you are always treasuring inside you, letting it tear you piece by piece, can be gone some day. Perhaps there wasn't a damn thing you could have done after all. Maybe it wasn't even your fault that your family is the way it is. Broken.
But the truth is those things aren't so simple about your family. And your brothers. And with them, well, you have a real inferiority complex. You've always had. And really, how could you not?? They are mighty and powerful and as the world dances to their will, all they need to do is- nothing. You, on the other hand, were never able to do any of the so called great things that they could. Call life being fair.
Some people were called mortals because they couldn't see the bigger picture. Others were called so by mistake. Wyatt was among the immortals who happened to be mistaken as regular human beings. He has fought the angel of death and won. But you can't do it. And you know it. It is not a matter of strength. Or willingness. You have fought death as well, but you've lost. Wyatt hadn't. While you struggled, he had made a deal with it, to let you live. Ironic. He couldn't save your parents, no matter how strong he fought. But he was able to save you. You, whose only purpose in life is to save him. Or destroy him while trying.
Between your two brothers, it was Adam that you were always more comfortable with. But it was Wyatt that you loved more. You don't know how it can be, only that this was how it really was. Wyatt always made you feel so small, he was always too perfect. Perfection is a very easy to worship, but hard to live by. How can anyone tell his wrongs to someone who had never done any? It was only later that you realized that Wyatt was capable of doing wrongs as well.
And Adam, well, he was Adam. Less egocentric than Wyatt, maybe, but still his unique pusher self. He pushed you many times. To do things you never wanted to do to other people, to yourself, and to him. And at the end, he pushed you away from him. That was how he died You still feel sorry for him. After all, he WAS your brother. Even after all you've been through with him, and even while he denied the relationship between the two of you to be nothing more than being brought coincidently from the same gene pull, you care about him. Well, cared. While he was still alive.
He was always the less fortunate between the three of you, frankly. He was born blind while the rest of the world could see. He hated that. In time, he took it as a sign for his inner demons. That this was the way things were meant to be. That was the only thing in which he was similar to you. Because honestly speaking, he was always an obvious contrast to you. He was powerful and had powers from birth. You never had them, even while grown up. He could shield, you can expose. He had the power to shimmer, disappear without a trace. Even that you can't do, the lights of orbing, the light that was never inside you, can easily uncover you. Yet he is dead, you stayed alive despite of your best efforts.
But now, maybe you will have a second chance in life. To save him. Just like you are going to save Wyatt. You know you are going to do it. You're afraid, maybe, but you know there isn't any other choice but to do it.
And you know that if the situation was reversed, he would have done the same thing. You don't guess. You know. Period.
You walk outside, determined to do that. You are going back to the past. To save him. You arrange everything in haste, it doesn't have to be perfect. Only to happen. You will think about the consequences later. Or before. Or. . . Whatever can be said about time travel, it has one major minus- it does a lot of bad things to your tenses.
But then, walking toward the glowing end, you see something that stops you instantly.
You should have known.
You should have known by now that some were born lucky while others are constantly being chased by bad guardian angels. You belong to the latter group, and what's worse- it invades those who are beside you.
Like Bianca.
You should have known not to be so close to her, that she would get hurt.
But you didn't listen. You never listen.
She died.
You can't even mourn her properly. There isn't a body to mourn. Only a memory. Wyatt took care of that.
And now, there isn't a reason to think that things would be better again any more than that the winter will cease to be only because you wish it to. So many times your wishes weren't granted but laughed out by the universe's twisted sense of humor by the same constant joke you could never fully understand. And you would have thought that after all this time something had changed, that you have learnt something, only be proven wrong over and over again until there is nearly no breath left in you. Every time it happens, something in you quaked, sending hot lines of feverish desire for your world to be a better place. But desires are not nearly enough. Nobody has yet survived with only wishes as armor, perhaps only leprechauns. But then again, in your time they are already extinct.
So you kiss your hopes goodbye and hope than they won't come back someday to bite you in the ass, and hope you will never hope again.
Even that much you fail to do. The next week, devastated and on the edge of losing everything, hope renews.
Life.
You are going to do it.
--o0o--