So the final chapter of AD is finally up. If you've made it this far, I congratulate you! (and you better have left me a review...)

Anyway, this epilogue (-ish) chap may confuse somewhat. It might also disappoint some of you but it's kind of necessary - it will become clearer during Moving Shadows. These are not my views - just the character's!

This chapter is heavily influenced by Khalil Gibran's poems.

Hope to see you over at Part II of Nightfall: Moving Shadows/

I stand at the feet of my death, my twinkling eyes drinking in my surroundings and I see the light.

Yes, I see the light – it spills rebelliously into my darkened room and my smile grows at the irony of my thought. What does man see in the light? Does the light not blind? Does the light not fade unfaithfully day in, day out? Does the light not give birth to the shadows man fears?

Man is stupid. He waxes poetic to lessen his irrational fears.

What's so great about the light? if you near the sun does it not burn and destroy? And yet, the night remains our friend, cloaking us as we take solace in the solitude it offers. That killer of man, the foe of the nectar of life, that caster of shadows...

I reject it. I do not respect it. And I cringe from it. But not because it forces me to face my own shadow. I do not fear my shadow.

What is my shadow except the blackness of my soul? For blackness resides in us all - even the most philanthropic. It is there for anyone to discover and master. Like our past, it remains forever attached to our being, and it never lets go. Careful, my friend... What you do in the so-called purity of sunlight or the darkened abyss of your lair, your shadow will re-enact your every move, tracing your sin upon and tainting the sunlit ground before you. And it will mock you.

And I dare any to scoff. I dare any to smile in pity. I have never confused reality with fantasy. I have never hidden from the truth. I know what lies in the dark. I was born in the dark and in the dark I have lived. Each sin I have committed, my shadow has performed for my pleasure.

And when my shadow mirrors my death, I shall watch with a smile. My contentment will tug at my lips, drawing from me my last smile at my shadow's final performance.

For I shall be at peace at last

I sit in this darkness, wondering on the nature of mankind. What does it mean, to be evil? Does it mean to sink beyond the depths and understanding of human nature? I recall the mercy preached in so many religions – how can evil be irrevocable if the ancient teachings do not forsake the fallen?

Again, the silence asks; what is the nature of evil?

And I remember what a wise man once said: what is evil but good tortured by its own hunger and thirst? When good is hungry it seeks food even in dark caves, and when it thirsts, it drinks even of dead waters.

And that is what I am – thirsting and hungry. But I cannot even find the dark caves. There are no dead waters. I see only a desert that seeks to remind me of my own ineffectuality, my own imperfection. The howling wind mocks me because I cannot capture it. The earth laughs at me because I cannot scar it. The sky taunts me because I cannot touch it… For how can you touch the untouchable?

Is this evil? The absence of dead waters and the dark caves? Am I doomed to roam the desert finding no shade from the searing heat of the sun?

And those who lay down the law to break them… Are they evil, I wonder? Those whose shadows are their laws – are they evil? And if so, how to destroy those shadows? For even if I wander in the dark, shadows still whisper at my feet. Even as I sit cloaked in the darkness that covers to enhance my loneliness, I see the flickering silhouettes.

So many questions and no answers – and one thought spins through my mind; they say no one is superior to you. So how can one be inferior to any other? They talk to the criminal as if he has fallen lower than what is in them but they contradict themselves – by their despising gaze, they pronounce themselves superior and, in doing so, break all their principles and mock their self-righteousness.

And they prosecute the murderers of flesh and thieves of jewels but what of those who slay emotions and steal the soul of the heart? What penalty is thrust upon them? None.

Therein rests true evil.

And I see it.

And so, the real thieves and killers continue to roam free while the petty criminals sit in the prison cells, laughing at the stupidity of mankind for not realising that the real murder happens in the deepest, most impenetrable and yet vulnerable part of you.

For even as Love crowns you, so shall He crucify you.