They say you can never come home. That the echoes of the past can only haunt you so much before you need to move on. I wish we’d learnt that lesson dad because for the past two years, we have been wallowing in ancient history, terrified to move on. Terrified to acknowledge our failures.
Forever running from the truth, we have lied, manipulated, fought and abused the single person we loved the most. You, the person who cannot move past the worst day of your life, who needed some tangible foe as a reason behind the chaos and I, a foolish boy who wanted to save the world when he can’t even save the person who needs him the most.
She was the glue that held us together, she was our everything and even after death, her spirit still clings to us. Still decays us, because we can’t let her go…you can’t let her go.
All she ever wanted was for us to save the world together, her two favorite heroes she called us and instead of honoring that, you cling to this broken memory of failure. Where you searched for years for answers but all you found was a nightmare where I was a malevolent child who tried to kill his parents. But it doesn’t matter what you think dad, because I know the truth.
Maxwell Rijen died in that fire with his wife, both the people I love the most perished in those flames and whatever came out, broken and burnt to a husk is just a shadow who refuses to find peace.
Obsessed with finding the truth to the point of breaking, I thought if I gave you clarity, it’d fix you but all the pool did was erase whatever was left of my father leaving only the echo of Why. A broken shell of a man who needs to be put down for the good of everyone but I’m terrified to do it.
I…I can’t do it again, I can’t lose anyone else. But I can’t go on knowing you’re suffering, that she’s weeping over the thing you have become. I have been dying inside these past two weeks, trying to find some way out but there’s only one thing I can do.
Because being a hero means sometimes the right thing to do is also the hardest and even if it hurts, even if it kills inside, I have to do the right thing.
And let you go.
So Blaze, you can despise me, you can believe the worst in me but I know that’s just the darkness corrupting whatever’s left of my father. At Ring of Dreams, I extinguish the flames of justice, I end the monster that used to be Maxwell Rijen and give my father the peace he’s always needed.
Not because I want to but because it’s what a hero would do. It’s the right thing to do. It’s what she would’ve wanted us to do.
I’m sorry.
I love you.
You’ll see her soon.