He was tired.

He was just so damn tired.

Tired of opening his eyes. Tired of moving. Tired of thinking. Tired of fighting. Tired of breathing. Tired of living.

Tired of being trapped in the pointless, endless circle that was called life.

He felt like he was floating in the dark abyss of the deep ocean. Black water surrounded him and he continued to sink limply; he had stopped fighting the tug of gravity a long time ago. He no longer needed to breathe, no longer needed to think, no longer needed to feel. The cool, dark waters held him, comforted him, enveloped him until nothing remained but his physical, deteriorating body. He could remember seeing a pinprick of light above him, barely visible. At first, he fought against the water, inhaling the tar-like substance and fighting against the weight in his limbs, all in a desperate attempt to reach the light. It had not worked. Hope was a terrible thing. And so he sank.

Down.

Down.

Down.

Down.

Into the black abyss of the sea, the black abyss of himself where no person could reach him.

In his numb state, he wondered when he had submerged himself in the first place. When had the water first started to rise? Was it gradual or had it flooded in at once? Was it a combination?

He didn't know.

Or care.

A comforting numbness was all he felt, like a heavy stone embedded in his chest. Sometimes he felt tears slide down his face, but he did not feel the emotion of sadness. Where had the tears even come from? What was the point in even crying? There was none. None at all.

Everything he saw was corroded by a black haze around his vision like a haze that hung around his head that he couldn't seem to shake, didn't want to shake. It was comfortable. It was what he knew. It was always there. It would never leave him.

As he sunk further, he seemed to lose all sense of fear, of hope, of affection. All he felt was the dark, mysterious beast that urged him downward. But it didn't matter. It would never leave. It would never cease to bring him a steady ground to identify himself, to stand, to exist. Not that he wanted to.

Loneliness is such a comforting thing. The loneliness and sadness and desperation embraced him and held him, pulling him close. It became entangled in his mind, in his thoughts, in his chest. It would never leave. It searched further, extending its dark tendrils further. He consented. Was this feeling? Was this emotion? Was this what it was like to live?

He wasn't tired of living. He was tired of not living.

It had been so long that he had forgotten what it was like.

He didn't care. He couldn't find it in himself to care.

All he knew that he existed and that he didn't want to anymore. He was exhausted. He just wanted to let the darkness to fully envelop him so that he could sleep in its icy depths forever.

But then a sound would penetrate his dark bubble and shock his eyes open. A muddled form would stand before him and speak words that he couldn't quite make out. The face would emerge from the darkness and blind him. His eyes were fixated on the dark for so long that he was almost unable to process it. The face before him wouldn't always be the same. Sometimes it was a raven-haired man dressed in a sharp blue uniform. Others it was a lively blonde girl with piercing blue eyes. Most of the time, the face wasn't even human. A metallic helmet with an impossible sympathetic look in its eyes was what was the most effective against the pull of darkness. That was the face that was always there next to him. It wasn't only the darkness. Even still, when he saw the artificial face, fear penetrated his heart at times. It was all his fault that the face wasn't a human one. The suit of armor hated him, he knew. The darkness told him these things, so they must be true. So he fell and fell and fell until he couldn't fall anymore.

Brother.

His descent seemed to cease right at that moment.

That one word.

That one word.

It was the only thing.

It was the only thing that kept him from falling inside himself so much that he would never be able to return.

That armor was his brother.

And he would never stop until he had returned him to his original form.

His little brother.

How could he leave his little brother? For the darkness, at that.

And so he stayed.

And he fought for the sake of his precious little brother.

Thank you for reading. This is a vent, if anything else. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to post this somewhere.

Have a lovely day~