Why we are shy

It's the reason!!

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/creepy.png

The recurring Light at the End!

Consciousness drifted down into the void. A consciousness that felt alone as it was beset upon by the great nothing. A consciousness that started to feel fear in the unrelenting loneliness. So it started to defend itself, to think, to gather upon itself to keep it safe. Name, it needed a name. Perhaps... Ryu. Yes, Ryu felt familiar. It felt good, used by people who cared. So Ryu kept thinking, flashes of images all speeding by, gaining cohesion by the second. Happy images, of the light that was present in the void. But they came laced with a vivid melancholy. Images of a life that seems already gone, of a past seemingly so long ago. Of friends and family. Of brotherhood. Of a beloved sister swept away, by the dark. A home that no longer felt like home. A place he needed to get away from. A place of dark feelings and darker deeds. Of rampant emotions and bleak consequences. Suddenly it was as if the dark felt it could win, to subvert and take over this intruder. Ryu...the consciousness felt itself being surrounded and locked in.

So again Ryu fell in a dark room. A room from years past. A place normal people would call home, now corrupted and twisted into the cage, locking away all thought, sapping at the captive within. But the consciousness that was Ryu was not without it's final defences. A place like home would allow an inhabitant like himself. So he weaved himself a form. Legs, a torso, arms and a head coalescing like a gibbering mass from it's mind.
So control was possible. Ryu looked around in the room. It looked like a modern living room, comfortable leather couches around a small table. A television and sound installation against the opposite wall, a clear view for all who enjoyed their seats. Little flowers on the table, a bleak mirror of the usual brighting effect they had on the room. A fireplace next to the TV, with empty photos on a support beam above the cosy stove. Windows closed by curtains with a soft square pattern, and next to them a cabinet filled with books, their shapes and sizes as numerous as the colours were few... Actually, non-existant. The black and white veil was everywhere, marring what would be a warm and welcome room, altering and turning it's purpose from one of safety to one of bleakness.
In this room, exactly in the middle, there was Ryu. Just like last time. Everything was clearer though, more tangible to the mind as Ryu turned his new formed body and scanned around. He felt his face contort in disgust as details sprung to his eye and were discarded. It was all fake. Curtains did not hide windows, but just bare wall. The fireplace was as empty and the chimney as walled off as the void he was in. The flowers shined like plastic in the eerie all-present light as the couches felt cold and hard. Ryu shook his head and turned around, bare wall looking down upon him as their captive stared back. Stared for a way out.
Just like last time, when the need to leave grew strong, a door appeared. And just like last time a shadow stepped through, undulating and growing, it's voice dark and grating as it drilled itself in the mind. The feeling of Death arriving. "You are here... Once more. You seek to leave, but I shall keep you. Pain will not allow you an exit this time. You. Are. Mine!" It moved closer...

"Why" Ryu spoke. The shadow halted, puzzled by the sound as it's movement felt still. "What would you have with me? What purpose for keeping me?"
The shadow shook, a silent laughter in the face of verbal opposition. It moved closer again and wrapped an end around Ryu. "Because... we are one. We cannot be seperated. It is what we are." It placed a tendril on Ryu's shoulder and turned him towards the fireplace. Dark picture frames lighted up and showed their contents. A family. Four people, two adults and 2 kids, one teenaged, one still child, standing together in harmony. Only a smile recognisable on the emptiness of their faces. Around those ,the same children again but older, surrounded by numerous other persons, probably friends. Standing in a park, and in front of a house. Playing at a party, the adults drinking and the children chasing eachother. Ryu shuddered. He knew he was one of them. The little child, with as big a smile as the rest of this dark family. The grown up young man, with friendship ties that would last a lifetime. It's different from what actually happened. Reality was...a lot darker. All the time fights when he was little. The constant yelling and verbal abuse. The leaving of his useless father, left behind with his bitter mother. The only person he cared about his sister... Her becoming incurably ill later, and dying after 2 months of suffering. Him all alone, starting college with an empty heart and dulled mind, barely hanging on, getting a run-down apartment in the suburbs. A life of potential almost nipped in the bud, with only reason why it sprouted the sheer determination and elimination of all doubt through the elimination of most emotions. Just biting down and going. Just keep going, feeding on the dark.

Ryu understood. The darkness is what kept him alive. Coming home to a run down empty apartment. No one to love him, or care about him. The days at school stressing to good keep grades, only to come home to *that*. The neighborhood full of thugs and scum with him trying to make a living in the middle. The darkness urging him to take several self defense classes, him carving an existence within the garbage of society. Keeping him alive. The darkness was him. He was The Dark!
Ryu nodded and looked at the dark creature that was him... The tendrils reached out to surround him, almost as a lover that caressed his body. They touched him... inside of him, and began to feed. Ryu felt his mind glaze over and closed his eyes...

"NO!! Wake yourself Ryu!!" The voice came out of nowhere as a ray of light piercing through the clouds. Kaz's voice woke Ryu back up from the daze, a stab of white in the darkened mind. Kaz! How could Ryu forget Kazimir. The one good thing to come from all of it. Ryu met him a few months in his freshman year, an open minded and good-laughs kid with red curly hair and a warm aura. He befriended the silent and dark Ryu by the sheer power of being able to relate to Ryu in an unique empathic way. Whatever Ryu was thinking at a time, Kaz would know it and start talking about it, making it accessible, making Ryu look up from his inner thoughts and reach out to the world. When he was around, Ryu could feel like smiling again. Because of him Ryu started hanging out with people he liked, and although most found Ryu's company a bit unnerving they accepted him. Kaz was a real friend, the truest of them all. And now he was dead. Dead but not forgotten. Ryu would always honor his friend in whatever way was possible. Kaz would not allow him to succumb to his own dark self. Once Ryu had a really depressing day, punks had bashed down his door, trashing half his place before Ryu could hurt them enough to leave him alone. A lot of items with good memories were damaged in the process. So Ryu turned inward, and pushed everyone away, including Kaz. But Kaz wouldn't allow it. He slapped Ryu full in the face and proceeded with talking about carrying on and honoring memories having friends to lighten the load. Ryu was so dumbfounded about the effort that Kaz put into it that he forgot all about the accident for the rest of the day. Kaz even helped straighten up the apartment and mended a picture frame of Ryu and his sister. It meant the world to Ryu. So even with Kaz gone, Ryu could not and would not betray his best friend's memory.

The creature felt something change and pulled back it's tendrils with a jerk. It shuddered and undulated, whipping it's extremities up and down on Ryu. Ryu's answer was to grimace, pull back his arm and let out a scream of defyance, his punching with his palm outwards, pushing back inside of the creature, pushing it's core away, locking it into itself. The creature vanished with a wail like a banshee and Ryu screamed again at the room. Panting deeply, he looked around the room again and found the door. He approached and turned the handle. The voice sounded again. "Ryu, keep going! I'll stay here for now!" Kaz! I'll return for you, buddy. Honor to your soul!

The door opened and light flooded in. It surrounded and swallowed Ryu... Just like Kaz's friendship scooped up Ryu in the days he needed a friend the most.