This is a project for my AP Lit class. Set after the main events of the story where Dantes/The Count are thinking to themselves about their future and their past. Lots of self-reflection. Rock on.

Humanity

It was the first night that Edmond Dantes, or better known as the Count of Monte Cristo, could finally feel what it was like to be human. He had carried out his duties of being an "agent of Providence", and has finally found love in the beautiful, meek Haydee.

"Where would they go together? How would they spend the rest of their lives?" He thought to himself as he lay awake in bed.

The two had decided to take refuge in a small inn in a small port town in France. It reminded him much of his hometown of Marseilles. The port, the people, just overall atmosphere of the tiny town.

For a few moments it filled him with fondness and longing for days gone by. The carefree days of his youth with friends, shipmates, his father. He was filled with complete and utter melancholy.

So much has happened in his life since that fateful day. If he were to have been asked what he pictured his life to be back at age 19, it would have been completely different than what it has actually become.

He would be happily married to his old love, Mercedes, more than likely with a few children, a steady job.

A normal life.

But this did not happen to Dantes. He rode a different path than what he was initially intending and hoping for.

But now the question he was pondering was this: did he regret any of it?

"Yes...no?" he thought over and over again. His head was beginning to hurt. This was the first time he truly thought in retrospect what his life has become. He is an intelligent man, however, no longer being the cold individual he once was he is experiencing a myriad of emotions all at once.

Throughout his daring adventures of vengeance, he had affected multiple people in a multitude of ways.

He had changed their ideals, their lifestyles, their social status, even their living status. He's done all of this without the blink of an eye. But was any of this right? Is this what he really should have wanted?

Morcerf took his own life. Villefort went insane. But was "satisfying" his revenge really worth that?

Hard to say.

For so long, the Count wanted only revenge and nothing more, and he got it. But even despite these vicious acts, he performed some charitable acts. He rescued young girls from being forced to live horrible lives, spared his old lover, gave money to those less fortunate.

Do these not even out the scale?

He could not be sure. However, in what almost appeared to be a quick flash of lightning, he began to feel remorse for all he had done.

For the first time in years, Edmond Dantes shed tears.

And continued to shed them. He was so confused about what he felt.

He regretted everything.

He didn't.

He really had no idea.

He thought he was only carrying out his job as the agent of providence. He had believed he had been doing the right thing all along. But now he couldn't tell.

Then he began to remember what happened to him. What Danglars, Villefort and Mercerf had put him through and he was once again filled with anger. Now if he had the opportunity he would kill them twice over.

He then felt a slight movement beside him.

For the first time since crawling into bed, he took a look at his gorgeous betrothed beside him. She was absolutely breath-taking in every way possible. That warm fluttering feeling that he experienced only when he was with her began to take flight again, and a smile crept onto his lips.

When looking at her, he starts to believe that everything he has gone through was worth it.

However, the question continued to linger in his mind.

He tried to take a logical approach to solving this problem, yet had no prevail. And he knew he never would.

He took another look at the sleeping Haydee. "What good does it do to dwell on the past?" he whispered under his breath.

Were all of those years a mistake; he may never know. What he did know was that he needed to seize his own destiny, regardless of the costs, and this is where it led him.

He wouldn't have had it any other way than to be there with Haydee at that exact moment in time. It was time for redemption of the humanity that had laid dormant within him for so many years, and for her sake he wasn't going to waste it.

A new chapter of his life is about to begin.

Not the Count of Monte Cristo's.

But a new chapter for the life of Edmond Dantes.