It had been unforgettable. One moment under the moonlight burned into the mind forever. That addictive joy made everything else pale by comparison. Did it even matter if the world was fake when the ecstacy had been real?

  The pen never even touched the paper on the desk before him. The school work just seemed so utterly insignificant by comparison. Jane was all he wanted and his power was all he needed. Was there even a reason to perform well on something that he would never truly need?

  The light of dawn slowly banished the darkness hanging over the dimly lit room. How long had he even been sitting by his desk? Time was becoming no more than suggestion. All that really remained was the eternity trapped within the memory.

  Something was fruitlessly banging on the door. The barrier had resisted all they had done so far, which made the continued struggle a truly insane endeavor. How easy it should've been to just try turning the handle.

  "The door doesn't even have a lock so stop faffing about and just open it already," he called out.

  He heard a low click before the door swung open and Jennifer stepped into the room. Her face had worry written all over it and her eyes practically screamed anxiety. What was there even to be worried about? All her problems had been reduced to nothing by some shadow in the night. Days had passed and all that remained should've already resolved itself.

  The door slammed shut, and he heard her wedge something heavy underneath the door handle. What could she possibly have to say that required that degree of privacy?

  "Mom and dad are worried about you staying out late and coming home in the dead of night."

  "I'm practically an adult by now, and it's not like this has been a new development."

  He swung the chair around to face Jennifer properly. Was she worried about him of all people? By now she should have learned that he dealt with his own problems long before anyone else would have reason to step in.

  "My habits are quite unlikely to change seeing as I have a lot to do these days, Jennifer," he stated matter of factly.

  The cogs were turning in her head. Coming to all sorts of wild conclusions most likely. But the simplest answer really was the best in times like these.

  "You're on drugs!"

  "I have a girlfriend."

  Jennifer paused as she processed what he had just said. Her eyes went wide a few moments before she rushed up to him and began flailing blindly at him.

  "You say you've picked up a girlfriend and you don't even think to tell your sister!?" she screamed as her weak punches thudded against his shoulder.

  In one swift motion he pushed himself off the chair and grabbed her arm, then twisted it behind her back and held her in place. She tried to kick him, but the effort was to no avail.

  "I'll tell mom if you don't let me go right now!"

  "My business is hardly any of her concern," he hissed as he slammed her down on the bed with an over the hip throw.

  As he dusted off his hands he could feel the power inside him waiting to be unleashed, but he pushed it down as he stared daggers at his cretin of a sister. She got on his nerves but not nearly enough for him to ever consider using his powers against her. She was a particularly annoying ordinaire and his bitch of a sister, but she wasn't and never would be his victim.

  "It's so unfair that you go can just go and get a girlfriend while my love life is stale as hell!"

  "You're fifteen, Jennifer, just accept that now is not the time for you to experience romance of any sort."

  Jennifer crossed her arms and threw him an angry grimace as she sat up. What verbal torture she had in store for him he could only guess at.

  "Is she even hot? Cause she's definitely not popular if she decided to go out with someone like you."

  Was that all? Grilling him for information about his love life? Did she have nothing better to do than try to involve herself in his business?

  "Can you tell me her name at least?" his sister pleaded with puppy dog eyes.

  "Jane."

  "Jane, the smokeshow, perfect girl next door, steal your heart, Winters!"

  What the hell sort of image had Jane created for herself? She was pretty, but not that mythical celebrity pretty that his sister thought she was. Jane was just normal pretty if anything.

  "She's not what everyone else thinks she is, and we also just happened to have some shared interests..."

  "Shared interests, really?" she said with a big smirk on her annoying face.

  He slowly cracked his knuckles. So she was going to be like that was she? At the very least it wasn't something a little intimidation couldn't fix.

  Jennifer quickly raised her hands in front of her in surrender, "Fine, I'll let it go!"

  He kicked the chair wedged under the door handle loose and pulled the door open. Jennifer slowly left the room with a sour expression on her face. As he slammed the door shut behind her, there was finally some time to be alone with his thoughts.

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  It was sunday, so there was no school to worry about. The untouched homework laying on his desk was practically begging to be done, but that was the very last thing he'd want to do in that moment.

  He moved over to the wardrobe and grabbed the first outfit that spoke to him. An ordinary long sleeved white shirt and a black pair of jeans. It wasn't eye catching or particularly likely to stand out in any way whatsoever. Just the way he liked it.

  If a stylist saw that outfit they would most likely cry out for just a drop of color, but in his mind it suited him perfectly. Perfectly functional and banal.

  "You're looking bland as always."

  He hadn't even heard his father enter the room. So lost had he been in his thoughts. He couldn't even be bothered to turn around and face the cold eyes of the dour man.

  "It sickens me how alike we are," his father said in that disgusting monotone of his.

  Their shared darkness was their common thread. Nothing could ever please them. Jennifer was his father's spoiled little angel, but Al was the one he had shaped in his stone cold image. His very presence made the power within scream for a chance to lash out.

  "Those embers burned away all I ever got from mom," Al said as he rubbed the scars hidden by the sleeves of the shirt.

  "You made an unforgivable mistake, it was an inexcusable slip up."

  "One that you yourself would have made had you been in my shoes back then."

  On the inside he was screaming. He couldn't show his father even a hint of weakness and he knew it. Pain shot through his body like nails digging into the soft parts of his flesh. The power wanted nothing more than to be set free.

  He slowly turned around and locked eyes with the man. They were so alike in appearance, but Al was far taller. One of the few things he had gotten from his mother that his father could never take from him. Their dark eyes showed not a single hint of emotion or life as they both plotted their next move.

  "Just think for a second how easily I could break you," Al said as his lips slowly contorted into a leering grin.

  "That would simply prove that you're still the same animal you were back then."

  "I was a child, and one that you failed to control at that."

  "As far as I am concerned you are perfectly caged within your own mind."

  The power lashed out in rage. A sound like nails on a chalkboard echoed out as the window next to them slowly began to crack. It refused to be contained for even a moment longer.

  His father quirked an eyebrow as the window shattered into a thousand pieces with a loud crash. Shards of glass fell to the ground around them like a light snowfall in november.

  "Would you look at that? Even inanimate objects take offense to you."

  "Why don't you fuck off right back to your study and get back to all your important work," Al scoffed.

  "Very well, and make sure you're not home when I return from my work."

  As his father left the room he fell to his knees. He had been so close to turning the nihilation on his father. Hands were trembling and the heart felt like it was on the verge of exploding. He had almost gone past the point of no return, but he refused to prove his father right.

  By the time he had left his home behind him, his heart was no longer threatening to give out. The fresh summer air eased his thoughts somewhat and the cigarette in his hand would wash away the last of the fear in his bones.

  They had always been alike, but unlike his father Al had once known how to smile. As a child he had sought his approval over and over only to be met by those disgusting empty eyes every time. Nothing had ever been enough, and that had only made it worse.

  They were both beings that were defined by what they lacked rather than what they actually possessed. Like humanity in absentia. Al doubted his father had ever had any spark of humanity within the empty husk that he piloted. For what else could drive a man to so completely dehumanize his own son?

  No matter the distance, Al could always feel the disapproval in his father's eyes. He slammed his fist into the wall of the station house so that the pain might wipe the image from his mind. It may have been to no avail, but the pain pulled him back down to earth at the very least.

  "Don't think for a second you'll ever get the chance to beg for my forgiveness!" he screamed out in anguish only moments before the train stopped on the tracks before him.

  "Anyone that will ever grieve you will only be grieving a lifelong delusion," he whispered to himself.

  There was some chance that the darkness inside had been in the blood all along. Like a tainted legacy locked within their genetics. But it was the fire and the pain that had made the darkness truly inescapable. Only when Jane held him in her arms did he feel like he could escape it. If only for a moment.

  Boarding the train made the thoughts slip away into his tortured subconscious. Surrounded by people, the emptiness became a nigh unbreakable aegis. An all encompassing shield that deflects all of the world's many ills.

  Their inane conversations and convenient lies only reinforced the fact that so few held anything genuine within them. It made Jane's light so much more brilliant in his harrowed eyes. The darkness contained within that light just made it so much more pure. He knew something had to be lurking deep within her and it just made him appreciate her so much more for her warmth.

  He saw her standing there on the platform as he exited the train. She wore a white summer dress adorned with a pattern of red lilies. The first he saw of her face was that radiant smile only he got to truly see.

  She rushed over to him and threw herself into his waiting arms. Her lips met his and relit the dying fire inside him. He would gladly see the world burn just for the chance to spend an eternity by her side. After all nothing in the world mattered when compared to her.

  "You're late, love."

  She looked up at him with feigned hurt and pursed lips. He couldn't help it as he immediately fell for that cutesy charade.

  "I had to find an excuse to slip away from home, I'm sorry."

  "Those are precious minutes you could have spent with me that you'll never get back."

  "Then you'll just have to be twice as affectionate to make up for the time I carelessly wasted," he said as he leaned in for another kiss.

  He was stopped in his tracks as she pushed her finger against his waiting lips. She smirked then narrowed her eyes at him.

  "You'll have to earn that by doing an extra good job for me then."

  "And here I was thinking you were my oh so adorable girlfriend," he sighed.

  "No, I am your adorable girlfriend with massive expectations," she said with a big mischievous grin.

  So that's how it was going to be then? He was going to have to keep pushing his power until the pain put him under, and only then would she give him what his heart desired. It should've soured his mood, but instead it made him twice as determined to perform well. He would keep invoking the nihilation until his heart stopped if that was what it was going to take to please her.

  "Don't worry, Al, you're making amazing progress!" she beamed.

  "Which means we will soon be able to put your power to good use."

  The rational side of him wanted to know what need she could possibly have for his power, but his lovestruck mind wasn't having any of it. Whatever task she had in store for him would surely be worth it in the end. Because there was nothing he wouldn't do for just one kiss.

  The power inside was screaming in anticipation. With destruction came satiation. The rage from before would finally be allowed to lash out freely against the uncaring world around him.

  She had promised to teach him how to truly harness his power soon. He would no longer have to feel so weak, because she would grant him far greater power than what he currently possessed.

  Perhaps in time he would become unassailable and make her unstoppable. Then they could spend all their time together and never be apart. So that the dream would never ever end.