Author's Note
I did not see the twist this story was going to take. I really, really didn’t.
The surprising third portion of the “Behind The Wall” series.
Dark and Light
Don’t lose control. Don’t lose control. Don’t lose control.
The words are my mantra, my prayer, my reminder. If I lose control, I will hurt those I care about most. If I lose control, I will terrify my son. If I lose control, I will hurt my wife. I don’t want to lose control. I never have. But there’s something wrong with me. Something not right. Weeks and sometimes months will go by with not one incident. Everything will be fine. And then, something will happen to cause me to lose it.
I become something I never wanted to be. A monster. A hypocrite. A bad example for my boy. I never wanted any of that. I feel the rage building in me like a volcano about to explode, and I try not to set it off. I walk on eggshells, trying to keep this massive volcano from erupting. When it does, This part of me, the real part of me, is shoved behind a wall of soundproof glass, and the demon inside comes out. I watch him break things, I watch him hit my wife, and I feel him reaching into my brain and taking out my words and making them come out of my mouth. I can’t speak when the demon is out.
It’s not me! I want to scream at my wife, but I can’t, because I am trapped behind that wall. And when the demon is done, and I am allowed back into my own body, I tell her I’m sorry, that it wasn’t my fault. She doesn’t believe me, and I don’t blame her. I try and make it up to her in a million little ways, but I know they won’t be enough. I know nothing can take away the bruises on her body or in her heart. I know nothing can erase the fear from my son. And I hate myself for making them feel that way. The demon feeds on it. It makes the demon happy. I know. So I try and continue on as normal.
I’ve tried therapy. Tried it ever since my son was born. I’ve poured my heart and soul out, but nothing comes of it. I cannot make the therapist understand about the demon, since I don’t even understand it myself. This piece of darkness in my mind I can never touch, lest I turn completely dark alongside it. It is only the love I have for my son and my wife that has kept me from turning into that monster.
Every day is a battle. I fight and fight until there’s nothing left of me. I cannot let the demon win, but he does anyway much of the time. I don’t know how to stop him. And I fear what will happen if I can’t. I will lose everything that gives me strength. And I know that’s what the demon wants. For me to give up, to give in, to resign myself to him. But I can’t. He may win some battles, but I have to win the war to keep my family safe.
I don’t know where the demon came from. I married my wife and it wasn’t present. But I recall the day I first heard it very clearly.
I’d gone for a walk through some shops in Canterlot. One of them was selling crystals. My wife always loved them, and I wanted to make her a necklace. We were having a special dinner tonight, so she told me, and I wanted to make her something beautiful. In looking at the crystals, I’d found one that was black. The shopkeeper said it had been found, the only one of it’s kind, in the frozen north. A hiker brought it back, and gave it to a friend, who then gave it to the shopkeeper. It’s how it came to the shop. Such an exotic crystal in such a unique color was irresistible. Of course I took it home, to be a centerpiece for that necklace. But when I touched it, I felt something. A flash of heat. I thought it was just because of the warm day outside. Much as I wanted to put the crystal on the necklace, I found myself unable to. Instead, I’d tucked it away in a box in my home. I’d figure out something to do with it. After that, I heard the demon for the first time.
I made the necklace from other crystals, and gave it to her. She’d loved it. But when I went to put it on her, the demon startled me.
Choke her with the necklace.
I was alarmed, nearly dropped the piece. She hadn’t heard anything, or she wouldn’t have been so still. I put it on, and assumed it was a fluke.
Only it wasn’t.
That night, my wife told me she was pregnant.
As her pregnancy progressed, the demon grew and grew, trying to get me to do awful things to my wife and our baby. But I didn’t want to. I couldn’t imagine harming the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen, or the child that was half-me growing inside of her. I didn’t tell her what was going on, because I had no idea what it was myself. When my wife gave birth to our son, everything changed in an instant, for me and the demon.
I was enamored with my boy. I adored him. I wanted to give him the moon and stars. The demon took the opposite view. Every time I looked at my boy, or held him, the demon said something.
Throw him out the window.
Choke him.
Shake him.
I didn’t. I could never hurt some pony so innocent. But the demon’s strength was growing close to overpowering my own. I would never, ever let him hurt my boy. He was too innocent, too young, too fragile. So the demon went after my wife instead. The first time I got locked behind that glass wall was the worst night of my life. My son was crying upstairs and my wife was shrieking and sobbing, and I pounded on that wall.
Let me out, let me out, let me out, let me out!
But it wouldn’t of course. I was a prisoner in my own body while the demon hurt the woman I loved. And when I tried to tell her what had happened, she didn’t believe me. If I hadn’t felt it for myself, I wouldn’t have believed me either. And so the cycle began.
I want to stop it. I don’t know how. I don’t even know if I can anymore.
When Velvet told me she was pregnant again tonight, I couldn’t even react. The demon took me straight away, and I couldn’t tell her how excited I was or even though the money was short, I’d make it work. Instead, It twisted my words to fit it’s purposes and terrified my wife. And when it made me get drunk, and finally let me go at two in the morning, the only question I could ask myself was, Why me?
I crawled into bed with my wife and apologized. But she did not believe I was truly sorry. But when my daughter was born, I never hit my wife again. I didn’t want that example for my daughter. I wanted her to marry a stallion who treated her well, and not one that treated her like the demon did her mother. I stayed out later, and I missed my family desperately, but I couldn’t let the demon hurt them anymore.
It would be twenty two years before I would get an answer to the question that haunted me.
Why me?
My son, Shining Armor, and my daughter Twilight Sparkle, were destined to keep King Sombra from coming back. A pony of mere shadow, he infected one crystal in the frozen north, and had used his magic to ensure it got to whomever was destined to stop him. That ended up being my children. But since it couldn’t take my children, it took me instead. To stop them before they could even get started.
When they defeated him, The Demon was gone. And that crystal I’d hid for so long was now just an ordinary crystal. I had touched darkness. The darkness thought it could win, but the light in me was strong enough to keep it from letting Sombra take Equestria as his own. The darkness could not understand the love a father has for his children, or a husband for his wife. Light will always vanquish the darkness.
When Sombra was gone, and the crystal was normal, I was finally able to tell my wife and children what had happened. And they, seeing now what Sombra had been capable of, had forgiven me, as had my wife. Forgiving myself, though, was a harder journey to take. But I found that the forgiveness of my family has helped me to forgive myself.
Anypony touched by darkness will never quite be the same again. But if they remember the light within them will always outshine the darkness, they can have a life they can be proud of. This is true for me now.
I love my family. I love my wife as deeply as I did the day I married her. I love my children, and I am so proud of them. I have a beautiful daughter-in-law now, and a new granddaughter to enjoy. I have never been happier than I am now.
The demon never wanted me to win, because it never wanted me to have all of this.
But the war is over, and I came out the winner.
