The Only Fight

Chapter 2

All he knows is he has to kill.

The young man's breathing is tempered, the cold threatening to bite into him, but he fends it off. Doesn't falter. The darkness around him is his ally, cloaking him from the light and all things within it which would expose his faceless appearance.

He does not know how long he has been in this snowy woods, searching, hunting. All that is real is this dark intent consuming him, and the blacker faith that set in there.

He is not a patient person. He will not wait for his prey to come to him. He stalks it from shadow to shadow.

Finally, he hears it: breathing.

The short, frantic gasps of his prey, as if the thing is pleading with the air to rescue him, begging for some coin of relief from this cold, this endless winter chase.

The sound is so small, so pitiful, shallow and without real resolve or reprieve...just the act of inhaling, exhaling, nothing entering his lungs.

And then the breathing collapses, falls into the snow, crashing like a tree wondering if it made a sound when there was only the night to hear it.

The night did hear it.

Now, now that his prey is within is grasp, now that his prey is heaving defenseless on the ground, now the shadow makes his move, stepping before him as if from behind the curtain of this grand show.

His prey is a little boy, feeble and shaking on the ground. His form is so clear; the only thing in this blurred universe that is completely real. His black hair playing monkey in the middle before his eyes, infected with fear, tears tugging his lips.

Hatred surges like a squall. His mind foggy, his reasons clouded behind a wall called yesterday. But when that hatred shoots through him and he knows it is real, even if nothing else is.

This boy is nothing. Nothing. Nothing to him. Nothing at all. Young, afraid, powerless. He could destroy him now, and he would never become anything. Just a broken puppet of fear twisted and mangled on the playroom floor.

But, try as he might to deny it, he isn'tnothing. To the host of darkness he means too much. This is more of a feeling than a knowing too. His presence makes him so angry, so disgusted, so...

So lost. So afraid. So alone. As if this wretched thing's emotions are ebbing and flowing into his own mind.

And the fact that he makes him feel like this means he isn't nothing. He has a place in his heart, power over him—

It is that, that power this boy has over him, that which he must sever.

Ben Solo.

Just the thought of that name makes his hands curl into gloved fists, his jaw clench behind the mask. He hates the faceless name as much as he hates the face that goes with it, a tag team of disdain and contempt.

He will destroy this boy. That name. He must. If he doesn't, Ben Solo will surely destroy him.

The darkness stands at his side like soldiers awaiting his command, a finely tuned blade.

He ignites his real blade, the sound of the lightsaber rending the silence like a piece of paper. The red crackles, as if it too is unsure, as if it's angry like its master is, scared like Ben is, singing a cracked, unfinished aria about lonely heroes falling to the dark, princes chained to thrones, scoundrels saving the day in war-struck empires, all hoping they'll see light again.

Black. White. Red. The only colors he knows now.

There was a time when he could see other colors. He named them, scribbled them messily on tablets and pages, along with stick-figure drawings of a mommy and daddy who weren't there for him anymore.

He's forgotten the hues now.

He could ask Ben how and why he found himself in this snowy woods, he could demand that he leave him alone. He could leave him in the snow to freeze him out. But that wouldn't be enough. He's come to break his fragile heart while he still has a chance, in attempts to harden his own. It's all he must do to become what he is meant to be, all he can do to free himself from the torment in Ben's eyes.