The Cost of Hope (Pain: Part II)

 Photo by HB Mertz on Unsplash

There once lived a girl who needed hope.

Pursued by a shadow of Dark Despair, she knew that hope would be her only defense. Her need for it became so great that she offered everything she owned as a reward to anyone who could find it for her.

Throughout the years many people came seeking the reward, and the girl chased down every lead. She sought health, but hope did not come. She strove for success, but hope did not come. She gave herself to charity, fed the homeless, and brought water to the thirsty. Yet still, hope did not come. Once she believed she had found it within the love she held for another, but it proved to be a false hope. All the while, the Dark Despair stalked her quietly from a distance.

Eventually she grew tired of searching and began to falter in her quest. But every time she slowed, the darkness would creep steadily closer. She knew that if she could not find hope, it would finally catch up and there would be nothing left of her for hope to save.

So she grew wild, grasping for any shred of salvation. And as each attempt failed,  panic began to overtake her. She could feel the darkness clawing the ground just out of sight, waiting for the moment she stopped searching.

One night, as the girl finally stumbled and collapsed, the Dark Despair caught her.

Its jaws closed around her throat as its massive weight began to crush the air from her lungs, and she knew that her search for hope had been useless. Her breath failed her and she closed her eyes against the burning in her chest. It was in this moment that she finally understood.
The hope she had believed to be out of reach was, in truth, a tiny ember dwelling in the depths of her broken heart. If she had simply stopped running, she might have felt the warmth that had been fueling her all this time. Only now, as she lay trapped and dying, did she discover the truth. Opening her eyes, the girl looked to her hands.

Broken so many years ago, they were hideous and deformed. But as she studied them, willing them to fight for her once again, the darkness froze. She moved them to her face and the Dark Despair flinched back, releasing her neck. She gasped as air flooded back into her body and her crippled hands flailed. The darkness snarled.

Standing, she swiped out at it weakly. Retreating further still, its eyes filled with a familiar hatred. The girl felt the hope within her strengthen as she gained purchase on the ground. With a cry she burst forward, leaping and clawing at the darkness. The hatred turned to terror as she tore through layer upon layer of shadow-hide. The Dark Despair turned and fled, leaving the girl standing shakily on blackened ground.

The embers within her burst into flame, burning through her broken heart. She screamed in pain as she fell to her knees, the hope cauterizing open wounds from age-old loss. She stayed there, clutching at her chest, for an eternity...pain roiling through her like waves. She opened her eyes as it began to recede. Looking down at her hands she saw new, shadow-made scars from the fight. She saw the loss and the pain. She saw the lies and the betrayals and everything that had ever been stolen from her. She saw how broken she had become.

And she wept.