Chapter Text
Part 1: Sorrow
There are few things greater than sorrow. Sorrow drives death, and destruction, and mourning, and regret, and the bittersweetness of a sunset once shared with a love – it never ends and never begins, merely tightens like a spring in the chest and when it unravels, we do, too. And it feels good, to weep and shout and punish the world for bringing on that sorrow. Don’t lie. It feels good to snap and drown.
And when that is done and we can surface, slowly, out of our misery, we can feel it tightening in on itself, just a little bit. Tick. Tick. We reach the surface of our mind. Tick. We get up early for once, scan the job listings. Tick. Tick. And slowly we pick life back up again. And eventually the ticking stops. But the weight is still there, and things will never be the same, because everyone around us has seen what we are like, unraveled and broken. They’ve seen, and they can’t help but judge.
Oh, you petty creature, I would say, and grip their shoulders tightly. Don’t you know that you’d enjoy it? Don’t you know how good it is to feel bad? And I would stare into their eyes and slowly, ever so slowly, loosen the spring in their chest. Tick … Tick … Tick …
I suppose everyone blames me for everything. The long hours they spent hiding in a corner of a dark room, ignoring the world. The aggression that exploded out of them when somebody laughed at them in the market. Their sloth. Their pride. Their envy. Their sin. And I welcome it. They would never admit me their hero, and I am comfortable enough being the villain.