It had always been there, hiding inside him, lurking in the shadows of his mind. Once it had been just a tiny flicker of evil, the little devil on his shoulder that pushed him to cause mischief. It had been harmless.
But now it was not.
Two years' worth of darkness being forced through his veins and into his very soul had mutated it. The actual eco had been what made his body change whenever he got angry; the psychological torment was what took the little devil and turned it into something new. Something different.
Now it was evil.
And it was nothing but.
It stayed crouched in the corners of Jak's mind, absentmindedly watching the world through his eyes. It saw all the events, all the people, all the stories that unfolded, all the things that Jak did and saw.
Personally, it didn't care. It preferred the explosions, the shooting, and the bloodshed. And sometimes, it got to leap out of its corner and take control of his body and kill things. It liked to kill things. It really liked that.
But Jak would always come back and regain control, and it had to go back into its corner and watch some more.
It wasn't an exciting life; that had ended when Jak learned how to control it. Before it roamed freely through his mind, slashing this, controlling that, doing whatever it pleased. It couldn't do that any more. It wasn't very happy about that.
Then, one day, long after it had first been created and only a few months after it had been subdued, it felt something. Another presence in this mind.
Another presence on its territory.
It wasn't pleased with that. It wanted to seek out and find the source of the presence and kill it. This was its land, its shadow-mind, and nothing was allowed to infringe on it.
So it made its way through Jak's mind, claws making no sound on a floor that wasn't there. It often crawled along on all fours because that was faster and quieter, and because it sometimes made gashes in the shadows. It was fun to make gashes. Sometimes they started to bleed.
As it progressed, a peculiar smell filled the shadows. It raised its head and sniffed around. The smell was…unfamiliar. It wasn't blood; it knew very well what blood smelled like, and this was not blood. It wasn't gasoline or zoomer grease; it knew that much from the hours Jak spent inhaling them. It wasn't anything it could recognize. It wasn't even like the smells from the forest, soft and sweet and cool. They weren't to its liking, and so it spent time hiding from Jak's senses when he spent long hours lying in the sun.
The smell was unlike anything it had ever met. And it was coming from something very bright.
Slowly, it approached an abrupt deviation in the shadows. It squinted at the sudden not-black and crawled forward, using one hand to shadow its eyes and the other to support its weight.
The not-black turned and looked at it, and it froze.
There was a sense of absolute calm around the not-black. A feeling of serenity, of complete tranquility, emanated from the not-black, settling on the shadows and over it like a heavy blanket. It hissed and cringed, shaking its body violently in an attempt to rid itself of the feeling. It was unsettling, and it didn't like it.
It edged closer to the not-black, trying to hide its eyes from the absolute not-blackness. The not-black continued to look at it, or so it thought. Where there could be eyes was turned toward it.
It crouched and looked at the not-black quietly. Its urge to kill was being quelled, and in its place was a new feeling. One of interest. Intrigue. Curiosity. But the violence was still there.
Slowly, hesitantly, it reached up to touch the not-black. When the not-black didn't move, it reached forward faster and grabbed what it thought was the not-black's arm.
BURN BURN BURN PAIN PAIN PAIN
A massive, blinding pain erupted in its hand, and it unleashed a piercing scream. It let go of the not-black and threw itself away from the not-black, ran from the not-black, tried to escape from the not-black, the not-black who continued to stare at it as it ran. Its entire arm started to hurt as it ran. Its entire body started to hurt as it ran. It hurt as it ran. It hurt.
When it felt like it was far enough away from the not-black to be safe, it stopped running. Its legs collapsed under it and it fell, rolling and tumbling unceremoniously until it finally came to a stop in the middle of shadows.
There it huddled, cradling its arm to its chest, focusing on the pain and nothing but the pain because it hurt so much. An unbelievable anger began to boil in its chest, and it hissed and spat at the shadows. The not-black began to consume its thoughts, and it melted into the shadows.