Dark Christmas

Day 4

I slowly sank back into a depression as we renewed our hunt for the herb. "No one understands me," I muttered. "Not even you."

"But, if you tell me what's the matter," persisted Sierra, "I could understand you. I could help you. I would."

I stared at her angrily, then said:

"I have so many doubts, so many confusions, so much despair, so much depression, so many questions, so few answers. I want to be good and have good desires, but over time they've been perverted into evil desires. I'm falling deeper in darkness and greater evil every day, Sierra. And I'm powerless to resist. I used to be good a long time ago. But now I'm evil."

She nodded thoughtfully. "I know what you mean."

"No. No, you don't. You never will. No one will." I sighed, got up, and walked away into the night.

Sierra got up and walked after me. "Tell me more," she said. "What can I do to help?"

I didn't know why I kept on talking to her, but I did. "You can listen to me. You can not interrupt."

"I'm listening. What's on your mind?"

"I want a friend, Sierra. But no one's a friend to me."

Sierra laid a hand on my shoulder. "I can be that friend to you, Jonas."

I looked at her. "But you don't understand. I want a perfect friend, Sierra. To the point that I want a fantasy friend. It doesn't exist in reality. But I desire it anyway. Hoping. Hoping that someone will answer my call. But no one does. That someone will ask just the right questions to me, without me having to prompt them to do so. That someone will behave just as I want them to. That someone will look just as I want them to. But that's not how the world works. I'm in the dark, Sierra. I'm cold. I'm alone. And I'm evil. I don't want to be. But I am."

Sierra listened to me in horror.

"My only hope is heaven," I continued sorrowfully. "When I die, there will be a perfect world up in heaven. If I am righteous enough to achieve it, all my desire will be answered there. I can have the friend I want in heaven. Because as the years have rolled by here on earth, I realize that I'll never have a friend here on earth. My hope, which was at first strong and youthful, has slowly aged and eroded into despair."

"I don't disagree with your hope in heaven, Jonas," Sierra said slowly. "But why can we not be friends here, now? Even if it's not perfect, we can try to approach it."

I heaved a sigh. "Okay, Sierra. We can try. But what if you bail out on me? For another more attractive, hotter guy?"

Sierra hugged me tenderly. Tears leaked out of my eyes. "I won't, Jonas. I don't roll that way. You'll be my friend, and not just my friend, but my only friend. My best friend. My closest friend. Because I don't have any friends either, Jonas. I know what's inside you, because it's also inside. The despair. The depression. The evil. But I can make it better."

"How?"

"By being your sidekick, silly."

I was about to say something when a gleam of something caught my eye. "There!" I shouted, pointing over Sierra's shoulder, to the glistening object in the distance. It had to be the herb for which we were searching. It was some sort of spiky green plant, but glowing white with a magical light.

We rushed over to the spot and observed the plant. "This must be it," I said.

"Yes, let's take it," Sierra said.

"Hands off my prize," came a cold voice.We looked up. There standing in front of us a little ways, was Methuselah.

"Methuselah!" I gasped. Methuselah grinned at us.

 "Back from the dead," he said grimly. 

"But for you, it'll be back to the dead."

And he pulled out a pistol, and before we had a chance to react, shot Sierra in the head first, who crumpled lifelessly to the ground, and then me. And we died.