So Long Goodnight (Sonadow)

Chapter VI - Act I

Shadow's POV:

All my life, I had been mistaken, blamed, accused for the many adversities this world had to face. Treading this world had led me to lose all the trust I could offer and those who knew nothing only perceived me as the destruction of humanity, the antihero, a killing machine, a vulnerable puppet, an experiment out of hand... a failure.
Even if the tribulation was beyond my or anyone else's control, somehow I would find myself getting thrown right in the middle - carrying both a burden and a responsibility I never wished to take.

Once, I swore that if the world chooses to become my enemy, then I will fight like I always have, but the more I gave it a thought, the more I discerned that it was not the world that is to blame.

That maybe it was just me.

Humans always seeked and will forever find a way to point their fingers to someone in times of peril. Even long before the time I started existing, there's no doubt that there was already a concept of being victimized by what they referred to as superiority complex.
One who was deemed powerful would be boxed in the very image they created, and sometimes there would be no other choice but to live with the labels they imposed until it leads to self-destruction.

I hated the way this idea rang a bell.

Fear will always be a part of them. It had and it will always keep them moving, functioning, surviving, either making every second of their lives count or not - unlike the being they chose to be held liable who cannot simply die.
One who was created to be almost immortal, resilient, invincible; who was meant to be more... ideal... than the fragile mortals who resides in this rotten world.

Maybe I am the one to blame all along.

If there was one thing I have come to realize after the countless times I had been taken advantaged of, it would be the very fact that power never meant and can never be equated to strength - the main requirement for one to face what life has to offer head-on. The stronger you are, the greater threat you will pose not only to those around you, but to yourself at the very least.

But being eternal did not mean that I should forever succumb to that same cycle of being lost and broken without learning a single thing. Just because I have all the possible limits of time in this world did not mean I should let the pieces fall on their places at their own pace, without my own efforts, so...

Truth be told, I learned to accept such imprecation as something second to my nature. Regardless of the names I bear, in the end, they will pass - and I won't.
Everything they said and believed will only fade through time and the years of having this endless war in my head will only seem like a fleeting moment. And this life that I had always cursed is going to be beautiful.

I should've made sense of all of this from the moment I lost the first and foremost reason and the grounds of my creation...

Maria.

Her death made me realize that there is more to this life than just serving one purpose I once failed to fulfill.

But just as when I thought I pulled myself back together and up the surface of emotions I failed to comprehend in the past, I found myself digging a deeper hole when the next person to whom I gave a part of my long lost trust stared at me the same way everyone else did...

Terrified.

I never thought the day would come where I would dreadfully loathe myself for being what and who I am.

"Who is?" regardless of my assumptions, I forced the question out of my mouth, trying not to stutter to make sure that both of us were in the same page.