Innocence Lost

Listen! Forget who you are and step into my world for a moment. Close your eyes and escape from your reality, so that you may feel what I felt and know what I now know. It’s still possible that you won’t repeat my mistakes, and maybe the world can be saved after all.

Where shall we begin? The beginning? No that’s been done. And if I tell you the ending then what reason do you have to continue? No, let’s start in the midst of it all, when I still believed that I could trust her. When she was still my mother.

Perched, as we were on the dining room chairs, in the pale light of that room, it seems reasonable to assume that perhaps I didn’t see things as clearly as I should have. The facts all appeared well-grounded and she needed someone to stand by her, to uphold the justice of the land.

He had committed crimes unforgivable by nature. He had to pay for them, did he not? If I just opened my eyes, she suggested, I would undoubtedly see the essence of evil whose jugular was thumping away right in front of me. All I needed to do was to help her in lifting the Blade of Righteousness and penetrate that vein to end all that was wrong with the world. It was all so simple, so neat, and allowed me to return to the comfort of my former life sooner than I had anticipated.

So I acquiesced. Trusting in her, I bared my soul allowing her to extract the secrets that she needed to restore balance to things. I helped her in lifting the Blade and with a swift vengeance it tore through the flesh and veins. My aim was true. What spilled out was not the evil and pain that was promised to be there, but instead all of the love and happiness of my former world.

An unstoppable flow poured out and when I took a step back and looked up I saw the happiest, kindest, gentlest being looking down upon me. It was then that I noticed that I alone was holding the blade and my former accomplice was standing in the background claiming innocence.

The kind being looked down upon me with all of the love and compassion in the world and smiled at me, assuring me that everything would be all right. It was then that my innocence left me and in its place the bitterness crept in, filling me with its hidden knowledge. “Never again will things be okay,” the bitterness whispered.

I fell to my knees as I watched this great, gentle being slowly bleed out. Through my tears I garbled for forgiveness. I begged for things to go back to how they were; for the ability to stitch that vein back up and have the feelings of peace and safety return. But such idle wishes are nothing but hindsight coming into focus.

All I could do was bear witness as one of the few gentle beings left slowly died, all the while trying to ensure me that everything will be all right as the light slowly fades away in the world. So I beseech you, if ever you have an implement of destruction within you, please take that step back first. Look upon the one who you direct your power at, before it’s too late.