A/N: Don't have anything to say at the moment, let's get on with the chapter, shall we?

BARRY

The pain in Barry's left wrist had become so unbearable that it hurt just to move it too quickly. He held his hand-less, left arm close to his chest, his jacket wrapped tightly around it. Barry limped and half-walked as Jaina remained by his side, her fellow pair of Zealots in front of her and Barry as they continued walking. Barry kept his head down, pushing past his own injuries as he couldn't help but notice Jaina occasionally and repeatedly glance at him. After several moments, Barry felt the uncontrollable urge to break the silence.

"Tell me something…" Barry said as Jaina turned her head to him, a smug grin on her face. "Why spare me? Why take me prisoner instead of letting your servant kill me?"

"For one, Barry Allen, he isn't a servant," Jaina explained. "He's a Zealot…like me and my father. The only being we serve is Dormammu, the ruler of this dimension." Jaina smirked briefly. "And you…are not a prisoner."

"No," Barry muttered. "I'm just here to be your captive and to do whatever it is you want me to do."

Jaina frowned. "I didn't save your life just to make you do my bidding."

Barry stopped in his tracks as he slowly turned his head, facing Jaina. "Then why did you save me? Why let me live? You could've killed me, could've taken my head, slit my throat. Why didn't you?"

Jaina moved herself closer to Barry as the pair were mere inches apart from one another. "You're a bit of a feisty one, aren't you?"

"You gonna answer the question," Barry sassed.

"Why do you think I saved your life?" Jaina deflected. "What's the answer that you expect from me?"

"You need me for something," Barry deadpanned as he and Jaina stared at each other. "It's obvious that's why you need me. The question is…for what?"

"Maybe…" Jaina replied as she moved herself even closer to Barry, caressing his hair and his left cheek with her fingers. "Or maybe I saw a broken person and realized that he wasn't so broken after all. That maybe, just maybe, he was just a lost man who needed some guidance, something to fight for. Tell me, Barry Allen, what do you fight for?"

Barry remained silent, trying to resist the urge to show or imply any emotion on his end as he kept his face stoic. Deep inside him, he knew he was simply trying to avoid giving Jaina what he thought would be "the wrong answer". After a few moments of silence, Jaina moved her face closer to Barry's before she moved it to his ear, where she whispered.

"I suppose I have my answer," Jaina whispered before placing a peck on the side of Barry's face.

"So that's your reason?" Barry asked as he and Jaina continued walking, following the other two Zealots. "You want me to fight for whatever it is you're doing?"

Jaina paused briefly. "Sometimes, even the most broken of people can be saved just by having something to fight for. Most of the time, we just don't know until it's too late."

"And you don't think you're too late for me." Barry muttered.

"Why?" Jaina demanded. "Because you lost a hand?"

"Who am I now?" Barry muttered. "That hand wasn't just a limb, it was a part of who I am. Take away that…and who am I?"

"Barry Allen," Jaina answered. "Stubborn, untrusting, and feisty. You know, for whatever it's worth, I do hope there are more men like you. You're an interesting one."

Once again, Barry stopped abruptly as he looked down, thinking to himself. His mother's screams, the sound of the gunshot that killed Eddie Thawne, his father's last breath, Ronnie being lost to the singularity. The sounds and memories of it all as the voices in his head echoed.

"Run, Barry! Run!"

"It's gonna make you…just. Like. Me!"

"Your mother and I-"

"Barry! No!"

"I've been controlling your life for so long, Barry…how will you get along without me?"

Barry once again turned to face Jaina, clutching his hand-less left arm as he spoke to her. "There are no men like me. Not as far as I know…and I hope to Hell that there aren't any."

Jaina scoffed in a mix of surprise and confusion. "And why's that? Because you don't want anyone else to be as fast or as powerful as you are? Because you don't like yourself? Is that it?"

Barry paused for a brief moment as he looked down before looking back up at Jaina, the two of them gazing into each other's eyes. He could see Jaina suddenly take his look into seriousness as she waited and pondered for an answer. For a moment, there was a brief silence between the two until Barry turned his head away and looked down, the dirt and dried blood visible on his face.

"When I was eleven, my mother was murdered," Barry muttered as he didn't even bother to look for Jaina's reaction. He'd told the story several times and heard several accounts of apologies and condolences…and he'd grown tired of it. "For fifteen years, my father rotted in a prison cell for the crime while the real killer manipulated and controlled my life for that entire time. A proper childhood, a lifetime with my parents, a chance to choose who I am, to be the man I truly wanted to be. All taken away from a psychopath who murdered my mother.

"Eddie Thawne and Ronnie Raymond. Those are the names of two men…two of my friends who died trying to correct my mistake. Trying to save my life. Their blood's on my hands and I don't deny it. I never have. Then, there was my father, who was killed because I refused to let some other murderer believe that he and I were the same. Because I was so obsessed with the idea that we weren't. When I wanted to stop him on my own, my own teammates, my friends, betrayed me and threw me in a prison cell. Later, I tried to go back in time to save my mother and I ended up here. I'd found…some people and they took me in. And yet, so many of them were killed by the same man who killed my mother. All because he wanted to hurt me.

"So I've been betrayed by closest friends, I've lost my mother, my father, many of my friends, and in a way, all of their blood is on my hands. All of it leads back to me. Tell me, Jaina, do you really think that any person, good or evil, heroic or disgraceful…do you really think anyone deserves to have to endure all that? Do you know anyone who has?"

Jaina was silent as she gazed at Barry, unable to form a clear expression on her face or say anything. She couldn't even express a sound. Barry didn't bother to look or wait too long for an answer as he kept looking down.

"Exactly," Barry muttered. "That's why I hope there are no men like me. Because no matter how evil or good someone is, I don't want them to be me. To live through what I've had to live through. Then again…hope is just a fool's wish. And I've been clinging to it like a child holding a toy for my whole life. The fool I've been…the fool I've been."

The silence between the pair, which lasted moments, seemed to last for hours until Jaina finally cleared her throat.

"We're here," she said as she, Barry, and the two Zealots stood in front of a sanctum-like structure. "The sanctum of Kaecilius."

Lucian, one of the Zealots, growled as he moved closer to Barry, whispering in his ear as the speedster kept his head down. "We'll see what you're worth…boy."

"Mom!"

An eleven-year-old Barry Allen tossed and turned in his bed as he shivered, clutching his blanket as tight as possible, wrapping himself in it. He resisted the urge to let out the tears of fear from his eyes. Then, the door to his room opened and closed as he could detect the presence of a certain, middle-aged woman. Barry lowered the blanket as Nora Allen turned on the lamp in his room, sitting by his bedside as she held his hand.

"What's wrong, Barry?" Nora asked.

"I'm scared…" Barry whimpered.

"Of what?"

"The dark…in my room."

Nora sighed as she caressed her eleven-year-old's cheek before holding his left hand with both of her's. She held his hand as she looked him in the eyes before tapping the lamp on his bedside table.

"If I turned off this light," Nora said. "and I stayed with you. Right here, right now. All night. Would you still feel scared?"

Barry shook his head. "No."

"And do you know why that is?" Nora asked.

Barry shook his head once again.

Nora smiled briefly. "Because the truth is this, my beautiful boy. You're not scared of the dark. You're scared of being alone…and I promise you, Barry Allen, you are never alone."

Barry slowly nodded his head. "Okay…"

Nora smiled once more. "You wanna stay in my room tonight?"

The young boy shook his head yet again. "No, I think I'll be fine."

"Okay."

"I love you, Mom." Barry said.

"I love you too, beautiful boy." Nora smiled.

Barry grinned as the boy held his mother's hand. "I love you more."

Nora chuckled as she tapped his nose. "I loved you first."

She got up from Barry's bed as she stood by the door, ready to close it before turning off Barry's light as the door closed with a click. Mere hours later, Barry would wake up to find his mother trapped in a tornado of red and orange lightning. Another hour later and he would find her murdered in his childhood home. At one point, while having a blanket wrapped around him as he sat near a police car, Barry thought to himself. His whole life was symbolized by his room, his mother being the lamp that lit up from the darkness. Her death was the light turning off and the pain he felt was his room being lost to the darkness.

Barry found himself standing in the very center of the Dark Dimension's one and only sanctum. The Sanctum of Kaecilius. He stood in the center as several and multiple Zealots were spread throughout the main entrance. Some on the ends and corners of the grand staircase, some by the doorway, some stationed outside on exit and entrance points. Barry had counted at least twenty, not that it mattered to him at the moment. He wasn't planning an escape, his condition was too fragile and even then, he couldn't find it in himself to care. Not with his left hand taken from him. Barry kept his jacket wrapped tightly around the stump of his left wrist as he held his left arm with his right hand. He kept looking down, remaining silent as Jaina stood by him. From his peripheral vision, he could see Kaecilius standing at the center of the staircase, looking down on him. The silence in the entirety of the sanctum was prominent until Jaina finally broke it.

"Father, this is Barry Allen," Jaina proclaimed. "We found him near where we tracked the destroyed remains of the world you sent us to. Father, we…I think he could be the one. He can help us."

The sounds of Kaecilius' feet touching the wood echoed through the sanctum as he walked down the stairs. Barry still didn't bother to look up as Kaecilius reached the bottom of the stairs. He approached him, standing in front of Barry. From the corner of his eye, he could see the purple and other layered circles around Kaecilius' eyes. Normally, something like it would've surprised him. But now? Now, he didn't find it in himself to care. About this, about everything, or even about what happened to him.

"You rather remind me of myself…Barry Allen," Kaecilius stated as he walked around Barry, circling him. "Many years ago, when I was as young as you were, I found myself. Like you. I searched the world, hoping for a means to an answer. To a cure…then, I came across the Ancient One. The oldest and most skilled living master of the Mystic Arts. She trained me with her own students…Wong, Mordo, and others. I thought to myself that she taught us the magic we would need to heal ourselves, to make ourselves stronger. I was wrong. The entire time, the Ancient One gave us nothing but puny, parlor tricks while she kept the real magic hidden for herself.

"The Dark Dimension. It was the source of her immortality, where she drew power from it. I attempted the same and I was cast out…betrayed and thrown away. I came here and studied it with my fellow disciples as we became Zealots of Dormammu. See, Mr. Allen, the Dark Dimension is open to so much possibility. Encompassing the multiverse, transcendent of life, death, and time, right here where we stand. You see, while there may be a multiverse of countless and infinite worlds, the outcome is the very same in every single one. In the end, our sun burns out, the stars die, and our universe grows cold and dark. It's time. Time kills everything, time is the greatest enemy of us all. But here…in the Dark Dimension, beyond it, beyond life, beyond death…we can create better worlds. Worlds infinitely beyond what we imagined, nothing and no one has ever had to die…ever again."

Kaecilius stopped circling Barry as he stood in front of him.

"I once came to the Ancient One broken and in pieces," Kaecilius stated. "You stand before me now…in the same way. See, the only thing a broken man truly needs, in order to fix himself, is something worth fighting for. A cause worth dying for. Let us be that for you. The prophecy we once came across said that a broken man would come to us, in need of aid. In return, he would become the most powerful among us, lead us, open the Dark Dimension to the multiversal sphere…and let it bleed…look at me, boy."

Barry sighed as he lifted his head up, him and Kaecilius staring at each other eye to eye.

"I believe that you are that man," Kaecilius proclaimed. "Are you?"

"…I don't know." Barry said lowly.

"We'll see, soon enough," Kaecilius replied as he glanced at the stump on Barry's left arm. "Some of the flesh has been infected, we'll have to cut it off or you won't survive. Especially in your current condition."

A few moments later, Barry found himself sitting in a chair as he sat up straight. His left arm was under some sort of chopping device as the sliver of infected flesh was under the metal razor. Jaina and Kaecilius were the only ones in the room with him as Kaecilius held a cup filled with a drink.

"Drink this," Kaecilius said. "It'll help soften the pain."

"Don't," Barry muttered, he didn't even bother to look up and see the look of surprise on Jaina's face. "I don't want anything."

"It'll be painful," Jaina argued.

"I'll scream," Barry muttered.

"It will be very painful, even for you," Kaecilius urged.

"I'll scream very loudly," Barry responded.

Though his face was stoic, the look of a level of pride and admiration in Kaecilius' eyes was clear as he set the cup aside elsewhere. Jaina stood close as Kaecilius placed the blade on the sliver of Barry's infected flesh, Barry winced as he prepared himself for the unbearable pain that was coming for him. The blade cut through the flesh in multiple strokes as Barry let out a roar of pain, screaming just as the infected flesh fell from his wrist, blood dripping and pouring from his left stumped wrist. Barry groaned and let out several exhales.

"We'll have a prosthetic made of Uru metal, the strongest in the universe," Kaecilius stated. "It will be given to you when it's ready. In the meanwhile, rest, you need to heal. Jaina, take him to his new quarters."

"Come on," Jaina whispered to Barry.

Barry clutched his left wrist under the stump with his right hand as he limped, Jaina trying to keep him standing as the pair went up the stairs. He gritted his teeth, seething through the pain as the pair reached a large quarters on the second floor. The door was small but the room behind it was larger than logically possible, a spell of some sort had to be used on it, Barry figured. Like some sort of Harry Potter movie. Barry and Jaina found themselves inside the quarters as Jaina moved herself closer to him, holding the stump on his left arm.

"Let me see," Jaina insisted, pleading with her eyes as Barry nodded. She examined the stump, supposedly for any flesh wounds. "About what you said to me…earlier, when I asked you if there were any men like you."

"I wasn't lying to you," Barry said.

Jaina nodded her head. "I know. I just…I don't think that's all there is to you. Maybe, there's more. More than just pain, guilt, and anger."

Barry shook his head. "You can't help me, Jaina. If that's what you think."

She stroked the hair on his head. "Why? Because you're broken?"

Barry's face remained as stoic as he could keep it. "You can't help a broken thing."

Jaina held his right hand. "The best part about a broken thing…is that it can always be fixed if you have the right pieces."

Barry stumbled, the pain in his left arm worsening as he dropped to his knees, Jaina instantly kneeled close to him as he fell into her arms. He stuttered briefly as Jaina held him, an arm under his back another resting on his chest as her hand caressed the side of his face.

"There's too many pieces to me," Barry whispered.

Those words and Jaina's face were the last thing he remembered before everything around him turned dark.

A/N: Again, I know that not much happened here but we'll get more. While the whole Dark Dimension arc is going to include almost all of our characters, it's mostly going to be full of Barry POV chapters, maybe a few from Jaina.