Once upon a time, there was a child who had two good friends. This child now walked along a road alone. This child thought back to all he had seen. The child's two friends hated each other, and yet both loved him as a brother.
The child tried to stop them from fighting, but he wasn't strong enough.
Later in his life, the child became lazy, and struggled with his work.
He tried to keep up, but he wasn't strong enough.
A turning point came in the child's life. He could follow his first friend and avoid hardship, or stay with his second friend and face him head on.
He chose the easier path because he wasn't strong enough.
This easier road was a lie. The child soon found that the friend he had followed became corrupted, and rejected him. The taint slowly and surely crept into the child's mind and began to eat away at him until he was nearly a cruel shadow of what he had become.
He wasn't strong enough.
The child returned to his second friend, rejected and broken. He discovered that in his absence, his second friend had become despondant and lonely.
The child had thus lost both of his friends, and was now a hollow shell of his past. As he walked his road, he saw another figure, traveling the same road. As he came nearer, the child could see that his was his second friend. The child decided to walk next to his friend, even though his friend was just as broken as he was. The child came to a rock in the road, and he tripped.
As he knelt on the ground, he knew he was not strong enough.
A moment later, however, the child saw a hand appear beside him. The child's friend had stopped to help him up. The child stood with help, and began to lean on his friend. As he walked, supported by his friend, the child grew stronger. More friends joined him, supporting him when he stumbled. Throughout his stumblings and the others that helped him along, the child's second friend stayed by his side. The child became strong, and he became a man.
Soon, though, the man began to notice that his friend was in pain. When he asked, his friend responded that, while the man had been gone, his friend had fallen, and the pain had never left. The man tried to help, but his friend refused.
"When I was a shell and I had no one else, you helped me. I became strong. Now I am going to help you as much as I can, regardless if you want me to or not."
