He could feel it getting closer to him everyday: the hollow.
His hollow.
Even when it wasn't directly tormenting him, he knew it was never gone. It was a dark feeling, a creeping paranoia that, like a shadow, followed him ceaselessly.
And it was getting stronger.
"You can beat it." His friends said encouragingly. "You're strong enough to resist it."
They didn't understand– they couldn't.
He knew he could resist it at least for now.
But not being strong enough wasn't the main issue.
He didn't fear not being able to fight back; he feared not wanting to fight back.
There were times during battles when his vision darkened, when he could feel the mask itching to form on his face; the hollow would greedily pull as his mind, begging to release its murderous energy on something... and he would almost want to comply and sink into the nothingness.
It was always a struggle to regain control, but letting go seemed almost unfairly easy.
Even when outside of battle, there was a looming pressure over him, something beyond reason telling him to give in to the madness. It was an incessant nagging in the back of his mind.
"Give in. Give in. Give in." It said, and he was tempted to obey.
At first, he obviously blamed it on his hollow; influencing his subconscious mind and altering his thoughts. But as time went by, he learned the feel of the hollows influence and came to a conclusion that those thoughts, though strange and without reason, were purely his own.
As much as he feared losing control, part of him wanted to slip up. A part of him wanted to fall.
And that terrified him more than anything.
No one knew his feelings, none of his friends would understand if he told them. Not even the Vizards seemed to have shared these emotions.
Or maybe they did and, like him, were just too ashamed to admit it. Either way, he wasn't getting sympathy from them.
He distanced himself from his family and friends, scared of what might happen to him. Scared of what he might do.
'Give in. Give in. Give in. Give in.'
It would be easy, so very easy to. Like a stone rolling down a hill, all he would need to do is give a little push.
His instincts would take care of the rest.
Surprisingly, the hollow never taunted him with these fantasies and emotions; never said "relax, let me have control for a while… you know you want to."
He knew he was running low on time. Every instance where the hollow lunged for control, he found himself resisting less and less; his will to stay sane waning.
He needed to do something to escape this cycle before he lost the strength to fight back.
Before he stopped wanting to fight back.
Honestly, I forgot that I even wrote this. I'm adding this as a chapter to Fragments, and making it into a short drabble series because I can yay!