Pain was the single constant in his life. It was always present, but liked to mask itself in different forms. Sometimes, it was a murmur in his ear, harsh whispers spoken in cruel tones. Other times, it was a merciless torturer that wielded the precise tools needed to break him. Despite whatever shroud in appeared in, it was always faithful, loyal to its cause.
He felt pain with an icy, knife-keen awareness and knew it well. He also knew its bedfellows.
Disappointment, for instance.
He met with it at a young age, when he was fragile and wounded in ways no four year old should ever be. He was forever disappointed is himself; for never being good enough, for failing when failure wasn't an option, for not meeting the standards he had set for himself in effort to meet his father's standards.
He also met with another one of pain's good friends at that early age: tragedy. It was everywhere. It was always just around the corner, always the inevitable end to every prospect of happiness. It seemed that everyone who ever got close to him, everyone he foolishly allowed close to himself, left him one way or another. And it was always his fault: whether they plain abandoned him for something better, for something stable and safe, or they simply died. Of course, it was all his fault - his dad, his brother, his grandparents. They all died because he couldn't save them in time. Even the others, the ones who couldn't be saved, the innocent civilians who died at the hands of beings that shouldn't even exist; beings that he was supposed to stop before they could harm anyone. He shouldered that blame. He welcomed the guilt that gnawed at him endlessly, because he deserved it.
All of it just built up over time, overwhelming him. Inside, it was wrecking havoc on him; creating an ever-growing hurricane of turmoil.
The tremendous weight upon his shoulders was crushing him; bent on destroying him, leaving his bones as dust.
The devastation all around him: the eminent apocalypse that would cast the world in darkness and hellfire, all the innocent people that would perish for their foolish mistakes and clouded judgment; his foolish mistakes and clouded judgment. It made him tremble with regret and sorrow.
Living, or whatever you would call his pitiful existence, with it was a daily struggle, not only because it threatened to rip and tear him to shreds like the hellhounds did, but also the struggle of hiding it from his brother, keeping the mask up.
Because he was many things, but he wasn't one to wear his heart on his sleeves, at least not when he was around others. Although, the pain threatened to unmask him, to show what he really was past the brave face he wore.
No, he hid it well. All his emotions were caged up tight, blocked and barricaded. He had near perfected the charade a long time ago. It wasn't perfect yet, because sometimes, when he wasn't careful, his brother caught on, caught a glimpse of the pain hidden in the depths of his gemstone eyes. He always recovered quickly, though, never letting his brother see more than he could allow- never how deep the scars actually ran. Of course, that rarely happened because he's covered himself up for so long, hiding and lying was second nature.
Despite that, he's got so much more to hide now than ever before; chalk it up to another dirty little secret for the immeasurable pile, because not all scars are born of accident.