Facing your Demons

    Gloom looked down at the body lying mere inches from her feet. It was still, motionless, a dead husk of the man she once knew. Though it had happened in the mere blink of an eye, the scene replaying in her head felt as though it had lasted a lifetime: confusion, turmoil, a miscalculation, and a single blast of light permeated the air before the gravity of her decision hit her unlike anything she had ever felt. Her hands trembled. The Pandorica, rippling with the pulsating energy of the Dark Shards, slipped from her grasp and clattered to the ground, its dormant form indicating its single use had been spent.

    “No…” She whispered, kneeling before the body, “N-no, I… You can’t be…”

    His eyes were already beginning to glaze over, the warm brown growing duller by the second. At the moment, despite the minute details and the massive hole through his form, he seemed very much alive, like he was just sleeping. An eternal sleep. If she didn’t know any better, she could almost see the grass stir from his breath. It… scared her.

    Three forms loomed all around her. One of the fray,  took a moment to kneel with her, using his ashen wings like a guard against the world around them. “P-please… Wake up…!” Gloom begged. She ran her fingers through his hair, parting the tangled bangs out of his eyes. It was dark, soft… one of his most beautiful traits.

    She couldn’t fight back the sobs now. Another figure came close; a stranger to Gloom. She reached down to touch the body, but Gloom only screamed at her, “Don’t touch him!” she wailed, “You fucking animal! This is all your fault! You… You made me do this!”

    The stranger recoiled, mortified. “I-I…”

    “Leave!” Gloom snarled, “Go on! Go, you fucking bitch! I don’t want to see your face anymore!”

    “Gloom, stop…” The final figure spoke. Monochrome tried to console her, knowing fully well just who this stranger was, but it was to no avail. The stranger was already running, the fighting spirit she held within her mere moments ago now long gone. For a second, Monochrome contemplated following her, but Lucien had already decided before him. The archangel took to the sky after her, livid and rightfully so.

    Instead of tailing him, Monochrome kneeled adjacent to Gloom, gazing down at the body of the man he once knew. He couldn’t help but feel guilt for the girl. “I’m sorry…” He mumbled. She didn’t reply. It didn’t even look like she was breathing; she simply sat there, tears silently flowing down her cheeks.

    Monochrome waited for an answer, sighed at her silence, then stood up, ushering her to stand too. “Come on.” He urged, “Let’s get you cleaned up.”

……….

    At that moment, as PM recalled, her soul split in two. At one side stood all her reasons to move on, forget the past, and begin a new life. But an anchor weighed down her conscience; the other half brought guilt, resent, hatred, suicide. It felt like a small war was waging in her body, and it was the latter that held the upper hand. She stopped eating, she stopped adventuring, she couldn’t sleep… She refused to go to his funeral, afraid of how the others would treat her… When the stress amounted, and the baby she had been carrying for three months had finally given up the struggle, one side of her cried. The other laughed at the irony.

    As the world around her changed, she remained the same; a specter caught between reality and a fantasy. Her fits returned, and a voice so familiar to her lovers that sometimes she’d mistake the two filled the gaping void in her mind. “You’re safe…” The voice would confirm to her, but it said so much more in its tone.

    “He’s dead. And you’re still alive.” Its unspoken words oozed venom with every syllable, as though it were a challenge. The mere thought of this phrase could send her into fits. It egged her on, begging her to prove it different. The voice wasn’t truly her lover’s, and she knew that, but… something made her too afraid to find out who it really was.

    In one of her fits, she released the Martyr in hopes he’d to cut her life short, to do her dirty work so she didn’t have to. But in the end, he saw past her desperation. The Martyr took one look at her and just laughed, walking away and leaving her alone in the dark to suffer the gravity of what she had just done. All the lives that would be lost now, all because she was selfish and wanted a means to an end…

    And when the Martyr retook his place on the throne, PM was shunned and banished for her actions. They sent her deep into the heart of the Furthest Ring: a place so cold and desolate it was a miracle she even survived the journey. In the end, she was truly and utterly alone.

……….

    Days turned into weeks. Weeks turned into months. The world she’d left behind lived on without her, a distant memory she was no longer a part of, and she was forced to face the fact she’d would never again see the world she once called home. In this desolate wasteland, the temperature would have been enough for anybody to perish, but she was different. She trudged on, through sleet and snow, through wind and storm. She did this, not out of will, but because she wanted to defy the small voice in her mind egging her to just lie down and give up.

    And through all this time, as PM recalled, her mind would always wander back to the life she had taken. How beautiful he had looked just mere hours earlier, with his soft, warm eyes and equally stunning hair. She remembered how he used to tell her jokes and keep her company and love her during the wee hours of the night when they were too restless to sleep. She remembered everything, and as time when on, the needles jabbing into her chest tightened their grip with the stress of knowing that, with just one inch to the left or a fraction of a hair to the right, he would still be alive right now, breathing, and still very much in love with her. She knew she still was.

    It hurt. It hurt so much to know she could’ve done things so differently, but instead fucked it up in the most royal way possible.

    It didn’t take long for the other half to become annoyed.

    “I’ll make you a deal...” It would coo in the same soft voice of her lost love, “I’ll help you forget. All the pain, all the sorrow… Gone. And all it’ll have to take is a little cooperation between you and me.”

    She didn’t hesitate to answer, “Yes.”

    And at that very second, her life took a much darker turn. She was no longer Gloom, nor was she even Jordan. No. She took on the alias of her other half: Darkness, Nocturnal… PM. Her memories wiped clean and a new master in control, she wasn’t herself anymore. Her sorrow turned bitter, and she became what he wanted her to be. Of course, she didn’t object. She didn’t know she could.

    At the heart of the Furthest Ring stood a single, solitary forest of pine trees. How they grew here, she’d never know, but it soon became her sanctuary away from the bitter wastelands outside. It was here she learn to master the elements of the forest. It was here she became one with her other half, using the form to her advantage. It was here she weaved her new memories together, in befit of the voices in her mind. This place was her home.

    She didn’t understand why the voice in her mind, the Darkness, wouldn’t let her explore the world outside of the forest. But… if there was a reason, it had to be a good one. After all, he protected her. He kept her safe. That’s what he told her, at least.

    Years began to go by. She was a completely different person now. Her only solace was with the comforting voice in her head, yet still sometimes, if she caught herself alone with her thoughts, memories would leak back into place. The small ones came first: Her hometown, her birthday, the names of her friends… But eventually she began to remember a boy, a little older than she was. She remembered so many little things: The deep rich colour of his eyes, the silky curls that weaved his hair, the shrill tone of his voice when he spoke about topics he loved. She felt a strange… longing. She wanted to know this boy. She wanted to meet him, but Darkness pulled the reigns.

    “You can’t.” He’d tell her.

    “Hmph! Well, why not?” She’d snip back, irritable.

    “Because I said so.” He always did this. He’d scold her like she was just a child, and then that would be that. No explanations, no reasons; just a big, fat no.

    It made her bitter. She became almost… jealous of the boy. Darkness be damned. Who was he? What was his name? Why did she want to meet him so badly?

    Eventually the memories leaked, little by little. A small cube, pulsating with energy; the Pandorica. It used to be hers. Another memory: a face in the mirror, hair to her shoulders and eyes alight with joy and energy, while that same boy stood behind her, smiling. PM put whatever pieces she could fit together into a story, forming the twisted conclusion that this girl in the mirror stole the boy from her. Stole the cube too. A thief. PM wanted it back. She wanted it all back, but Darkness kept pulling and pulling. “You can’t go!” He’d hiss in irritation, but she wouldn’t listen.

    After years of the Martyr’s reign, things started to fall apart. Holes were ripping in the universe as everything began to weaken and unravel. Even a being so powerful as he couldn’t maintain the structure of a universe once protected by many. It was here that the alternate universe showed through the night. As PM recalled the scene, she remembered a strange thrilling sensation in her body. It was her only chance to go back and take what was rightfully hers. She looked at it, contemplated the jump, then took it.

    After all, what’s the worst that could happen?