It's been a long time since I've seen sunlight. A while since I last saw people my own age. I have been a captive for a long time. I've resigned myself to my fate. My fate is to forever live in the shadows. Why should I try to change the fate's design? I have no power over my own fate.
"Him? Oh. He's been here for years, I think."
I have companions in the shadows. My captors brought them here some time ago. I don't know how long they've been here. Two males and a female. I don't know them. Not their faces, not their names. I only know their voices. Their fates are similar to mine. We are destined to live in the dark world, cowering away from any source of light. We didn't choose this life, nor had any say in it. It just . . . happened. Destiny loves to harm people, don't you think?
"Whoa, I wouldn't imagine being here for years. It's too stuffy in here."
Years? Time was difficult here, considering I had no . . . what was that device called again? A clock, right? Night and day didn't exist either. There were no windows in this prison. I have forgotten my age, and my old life before the darkness. I was five when I was taken, right? How old am I now? I don't know how I look like now either, since there were no mirrors.
"He hasn't spoken since I got here. I don't know his name, age or how he even looks like. I just know he's a boy because the guard referred to him as a boy."
When I was young, I knew how I looked like. Spiky navy blue hair. Stormy blue eyes. Olive complexion. Now, I probably looked like a mess. My skin was paler than normal, having been in the darkness longer than normal for a human. My hair had gotten out of control, based on the way it felt when I touched it. My skin was covered in grime. When was the last time I washed? I'm hungry too.
"Brooklyn, Kaori . . . let's talk to him."
I snap back to reality upon hearing that. One of the males wanted to talk to me? Why? What reason would they have for wanting to speak with me? I didn't speak with them so why would they want to know who I am?
"Hey there. . ." The male was getting closer to me. I stiffened and cowered closer to my corner. The male stopped advancing, as if sensing my unease. "It's okay. I'm not gonna hurt you."
I didn't dare get closer to him. I didn't know who I was facing. I was scared to see them. No . . . I was scared of them seeing me. I probably looked terrifying. Would they try to get near me if they knew how I looked like? Would they try to get near me if they knew who and what I was or what I had done?
Footsteps. I cringed away as the door opened and a light appeared, coming from the lantern in the young girl's hands. The girl began to speak but I wasn't paying attention. After all, they didn't even acknowledge that I was still here. I was nothing but a puppet anyways. That was all I was good for. After some time, she left. But the light remained.
"Hey . . ." A male with navy-blue hair and auburn eyes called out to me. I blinked, seeing him. He . . . Why did he-? Why did he look like me? I didn't understand. He looked like me!
I gently approached him, coming closer to the light from the lantern, and he gasped. Stormy blue eyes met soft auburn eyes. Behind him, the other occupants froze. I had never believed that, in this world, there is someone who is your exact duplicate. A doppelganger. I didn't believe that, if you met your double, it would cause a disruption in the universe.
I was a believer now.
"What in the world?" The brunette girl asked, her mismatched red-blue eyes gleaming in the light. The other male – who had orange hair and blue eyes – just stared at me, in obvious awe.
My double got over his surprise. He smiled and outstretched his hand. I looked at it. He was wearing blue gloves. His hands were clean. He looked clean. Pure. My opposite. My mirrored self. He was nothing like me, even if he looked like me. Were the gods so cruel that they would show me an image of what I could have been had they not been as cruel with my fate?
"Hello," The boy said, still smiling brightly. He looks so kind. Why was he stuck here in the darkness? I knew I deserved it but he didn't. He was too bright to be stuck here. Why was he stuck here? "My name's Tyson. Tyson Granger. This is Brooklyn Masefield and Kaori Kumai. What's your name?"
Tyson Granger.
Kaori Kumai.
Brooklyn Masefield.
These names were unfamiliar to me. At the same time, though, I was so glad. I knew names that weren't my own. For the first time in a very long time, I felt a glint of happiness. I didn't get a lot of solace here in the darkness so I felt so happy knowing there were others here to help me.
I smiled, opening my mouth to speak. It had been a long time since I had ever spoken to anyone. But they wanted to know my name. And I wanted them to know me. I want someone to know my name, in case I ever disappear from this world. After all, who wants to be a faceless person in this world, without anyone remembering their name?
The door to the cell opened and two people in black cloaks appeared. My eyes widened in fear as they grabbed me. I stiffened and felt myself get hoisted upwards, knowing what was happening. He wanted to hurt me again. He wanted me to fall into the realm of the shadows. He wanted to take me away from the path of light. He was going to hurt me in more ways than one.
"Wait!" Tyson cried out as they dragged me out. Once again, our eyes met. I was so frightened. I felt as if I'd never to see him, Brooklyn and Kaori again. No! I wouldn't go down without anyone remembering me!
"Takao!" I cried out, as they had me in the doorway, "Takao Kinomiya!"
Tyson's eyes widened and then he nodded, looking at me with sad, sympathetic eyes, "Nice to meet you, Takao." As soon as those words left his mouth, the door closed. I whimpered as I was pulled towards the room where he was waiting. I hated being so weak. By now, though, I was used to it.
"Ah? Getting attached, Takao?"
Why didn't I fight back? Why didn't I scream? Why didn't I cry? Why didn't I voice out my pain? It was obvious, wasn't it? I had given up already. I was already doomed. Why should I fight the inevitable? After all, I was nothing. I wasn't even human. That's what they told me. If that's all you hear, you eventually start believing it, right?
"You should know by now, my dear, that you shouldn't get attached to anything."
It was stupid, trying to fight back against something that I already knew was going to win. The pain was something so common in my life that I had stopped trying to stop it. Instead, I told myself I deserved it. I had misbehaved and deserved to be punished, the way one would hit a child so they know not to misbehave again. What else could I do anyways?
"After all, everything is temporary."
Everything was fragile. We didn't last forever. Like pain, we didn't last long. I had a twisted mentality and I knew it. I blamed him. After all, it was hard to try to fight, to cry, to scream and to tell yourself that you were going to be okay when none of those things worked. The pain always came, whether I did something to stop it or not. I was never safe. And I knew that I'd never be safe. I hadn't known safety since I was taken from my former life and thrust into the shadows when I had been just a child.
"It's alright though. Sometimes, we want to believe something as trivial as happiness lasts forever."
Happiness. Hope. Kindness. Dreams. Wonder. Innocence. Love. Acceptance. None of that lasted forever. Eventually, they disappeared, just like life did. Those emotions were fleeting and obsolete. I didn't even know if they were real or not. I hadn't felt those useless emotions in years.
"But we both know that it eventually ends. Don't we, Takao?"
I know I used to have hope. Hope that I'd get out of here. Hope that I'd go back home. But that changed when he forced me to kill Hitoshi, my older brother, because he was too weak.
"Let's make sure you don't forget, okay?"
Despair. Hopelessness. Anger. Nightmares. Fear. Corruption. Hatred. Rejection. They destroyed me and left an imprint. I could never forget those emotions for they left scars that could never be healed. My heart was filled with all these emotions, seeing how the world was like. I wanted to leave here. I wanted to go away.
"After all, you're just a puppet. You're not even human."
But how can I escape this place when he was always in my head, monitoring my thoughts? If I even thought about running away, he'd get me here and teach me why I couldn't. I was weak. I couldn't do anything. All I could do was serve Master by allowing him to possess my body if he required it.
"You've done terrible things, puppet. Don't you remember how you killed Hitoshi? Remember that his blood is on your hands. Who'd want a murderer around their midst?"
Takao Kinomiya. Who was that, really? A puppet. A murderer. A monster. He was everything but a human. He was someone who lived in the shadows and would live in darkness forever. He was an agent of chaos and he was to help his Master destroy humanity because they were weak and dirty. He was going to cleanse this world of those filthy creatures and seal away those bit-beasts.
"You remember your mission, puppet. That's good."
But . . . was that all I am? Of course it was. That's why I was still alive. I was still alive because I had a mission. After it was completed, I would no longer be of use. I had stopped caring about that. I didn't have a life. I was just a puppet of destruction, after all.
"Now, don't forget any of that, alright? If you do, we'll have to do this again."
I sometimes had foolish thoughts. Those thoughts told me to fight back because I was a human and I deserved to live. That I shouldn't resign myself to this fate. But, as I've said, those are foolish thoughts that I'd get rid of as soon as they appeared in my mind.
I've already found solace in the darkness anyways.