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Anti never wanted this to happen. The aching hurt and despair gnawed. Not a foreign feeling entirely, rather a feeling wholly all too familiar; his constant state of life. He yelled, screamed, and raged at the sky. Why did it all have to end like this? All in flames and chaos, the nightmare shadows scattered across the known realm. In his mind's’ eye, Anti still sees the rivers that ran red through the streets. A rodent scurries past his feet through the rubbish scattered in the lot, likely scavenging for food, and his hand instinctively lashes out, severing the head from the body. Anti crumples to the ground. ‘Why do my hands deal out only death? HE always laughed, created, loved, but I can only cause chaos. I loved him.’
As Anti glances up, he sees a figure striding towards him. Where in the world had they come from? The buildings all around were empty, even the store where people had once sought shelter stood empty. Anti had taken care of that. So where had this figure come from? Nevertheless, Anti had his standing orders; he had the battle cry of the darkness to carry out. The figure strode closer and closer as Anti prepared himself for conflict. No one dared approach Anti anymore, even his own side had left him when he had proved himself too unstable, too lethal towards friends and allies let alone enemies. This most likely was a suicide mission to attempt to be rid of him.
Anti tenses and springs, ready to deal a death blow, but the last thing he was prepared to see was the face that greeted him. He stumbles, blindsided. “You!” he cries, “Why the hell!?... How?”
The figure merely inclines their head.
Anti is speechless. Faltering, knees weak, he is unprepared for this revelation.
“This is the last place I thought I’d find you.” The figure states, “Thought you’d be on the front lines where you work best.”
Anti snarls, “You have no right to say such a thing! You were the one who started it! You needed me on the front!”
Shaking their head, they respond, “No, I didn’t start it. You did. You needed the thrill and I allowed it thinking you’d be appeased. But turns out I was wrong. You craved more and more of what I couldn’t, wouldn’t give. And once you found Dark I decided that I was done.”
“You could’ve told me!” Anti feels like he is on the edge of a precipice. “I would do anything for you! You were my only reason for being alive, but then you left! YOU LEFT ME!”
“I know.”
“You know!?” Anti’s voice breaks, “You know nothing! I suffered all those years, alone, forgotten, until you came!”
“I know.” The figure takes a step forward. “Anti, I know.”
“No, don’t you dare come back now and pretend everything is okay! Look around you and all I have done for you!”
The figure reaches their hand out as if to take Anti’s shoulders. Anti jerks away, out of reach.
“Go away!”
“I can’t.”
“Yes, you can! You did it last time, you can do it again.”
The figure looks at him, “I can’t, Anti, I’m sorry.”
Anti can barely form a coherent thought through the fog of anger, “You. Left. Me.” The precipice looms ever closer.
“Anti, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” The figure reaches out to reel Anti in, hands on his shoulders. Anti looks up into a face much like his own, but with piercing blue eyes. Anti reaches a hand up and rests it on the warm cheek, “Why?” he breathes.
The other rests their forehead against Anti’s, “I’m sorry.” and leans down, seeking Anti’s lips. The kiss is chaste but feels like a white-hot iron through Anti’s chest. He reaches up, frames the other’s neck between his hands, and twists. “I’m sorry Jack.”
As he walks away from the lifeless body crumpled on the ground, a raven flies across the dreary sky, its call ringing in Anti’s ears, “Why, why, why?”
Anti does not look back. Because. he thinks, I loved him.