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Author's Note (A/N): The setting for this continues from the end of Silas and Bod's conversation on the hilltop after Bod's rescue from the police.

As Bod's footsteps receded down the hillside, Silas stood watching the city. He knew, mechanically, the appropriate words to say to the boy that would ultimately be for Bod's good but often did Silas wonder why he bothered. To Silas' chagrin, this caused his thoughts to retreat to the dark recesses which so often bit at the edge of his mind.

Silas tried, he tried so hard. He did not want to be benevolent and oft he pondered why he made any effort to try to be so. For Silas altruism didn't matter. Good or bad, right or wrong moral systems didn't matter. Who could harm him? Perhaps a few men could bring injury but what then did it matter? What was pain but a fleeting sensation that was quickly forgotten. He answered to no one, in consciousness or in death. If he was to be killed Silas thought he would cease to know anything and would then be far beyond the emptiness of his existence. Yet even of this he wasn't sure; even in this he could be wrong.

Why did he attempt? Those whom Silas defended, whether they knew of his protection or not, mattered little in his mind which could fathom an infinite existence, marked only by the passing of finite materials. The living would die, the dead would fade, the earth would change and the stream of time would flow on as he swirled never-endingly in the turbulence, dashed against the thoughts that tortured him like protrusions in the rapids.

Why did it matter if he saved their lives today only for the mortals to die tomorrow? Why did it matter if they influenced someone else's life when those people would die as well? Nothing changed. The earth turned, the storm's raged, the earth shook whether the humans were happy or sad, hateful or loving, dead or alive. Everything would disappear except him.

He was left to watch the show till the applause died away and the lights went out while he was left sitting alone in the dark.

He wasn't the only one of his kind and yet Silas was the only one like himself. All other creatures like him cared little what they did or why they existed. He wondered what sort of blindness gave them such blissful complacency and why he did not possess it. He did not belong with those low minded beasts nor was he welcome; he was still alone in the dark waiting for illumination to the path.

Silas feared he would never know his way; despite the vast span of his existence and his search, he hadn't found his answer.

But Silas couldn't bring himself to stop trying to help. Though he had no desire to do "the right thing", it pained him to see humanity's despair mirroring his own as they too asked, "Why?", when their lives were butchered and filled with more pain than they already contained. It was to help relieve Silas' own emptiness and pretend, if only for a moment, that there was meaning in his being.

Even when in the end he was alone because he did not, would not and could not ever be party to a world of life. He could watch but he could not participate. No more painfully had he been reminded of that than at the Danse Macabre. When he stood alone in the shadows he had heard when The Lady on the Gray promised Bod that everybody would one day ride with her when they died. On their day of death, even the hermit would have a companion.

At some point, everyone had a companion except him.

But Silas would never have even this comfort, he would be past feeling if he died; he would be alone in his perpetuity or at his extinction.

If nothing lasted but Silas, how did he matter either? Without something to measure validity by, nothing can be said to have value.

His world was filled with endless questions, all of which were seemingly without answers. So faithfully and sometimes begrudgingly, Silas followed his lone, self imposed duties attempting to answer his questions still. He kept his mind in the present, pretending that time did not exist, that there would be no tomorrow.

Although Silas tried to forget he knew that one day there would be a finale; he just hoped that by then he would know the answers.