@Iremori 12 July 2020

Searching for the Light - Chapter 1: Departure

In a world covered in darkness, there lived a shadow. He was always sad because he was alone. There was no one to talk to and there was nothing he can see aside from the void surrounding him. He doesn't even know who he was and what he looks like. What he knows is that he could see nothing around him.     Years passed, but he never tried to move in the darkness. He was too scared to move, so he was always alone. At some point, during the time he spent in the dark, he started to wonder about what he would see if he were to travel beyond that darkness. He wondered if what he would find beyond the void would douse the sadness that he's feeling. With his curiosity, he continued his journey through the dark and started to walk in the place that he was so scared of. There was nothing he could see and there was no path laid out for him.     He stumbled and fell as he travelled across the unending darkness. The shadow felt something else this time other than sadness. As he continued to fall, he started to feel pain and he also felt tired with his travel. His sadness grew, as he started to think that there was nothing for him to find inside the darkness. But even so he still tried.     After a while, he fell again, at that time he was ready to give up and just stay there but when he stood up, he noticed something not that far from him. There was a point where the darkness couldn't reach. Intrigued by what he was seeing, he slowly walked to where it was and found something warm from a far, but if one gets too close, it could burn.     "Who are you?" asked the shadow, bewildered by what he was seeing.     "I am a fire", the fire replied.     "How are you able to fight the darkness?" asked the shadow.     The fire answered, "Fight the darkness? No, I am not capable of fighting it. I am just able to produce light. Light is capable of fighting the darkness."     "How are you able to produce light? I've never seen anything like it," the shadow continued.     Then the fire said, "I don't know, as soon as I came into being, I was already able to produce light. But fires can only produce light for a certain time and when time comes that we cannot produce light anymore, we cease to exist."     "I can see everything around me when I have a light. Can you accompany me to a place where there is abundance of light?" the shadow requested.     Confused of what the shadow was talking about, the fire asked, "Why do you want to find out where the light is abundant?"     The shadow answered with all the sincerity that he could muster, "I want to know about myself and I want to know if I will be able to replace the sadness that I am feeling."     The fire agreed to aid his journey to find the light. With the fire's aide, the shadow never fell again because he could see everything around him with the light. He learned that he was stumbling on rocks, the rocks are commonly asleep and it will not even bother them if he kicked them. The shadow and the fire talked a lot about different things. The sadness started to get replaced slowly by happiness. They've travelled for a long time but as they traveled longer, the light from the fire grew fainter and fainter and the fire grew smaller and smaller. Then time came that he can only see things near to him because of how little the light is and how small the fire became.     Eventually the fire said, "I guess this is it, this is where I shall rest."     "No! Don't say that! We are still going to the place where there is abundant of light, aren't we? Why are you saying that?" exclaimed the shadow.     "Well, there's nothing we could do about it, this is it for me. I don't think I'll be able to go on anymore. Thank you for bringing me with you on your journey. Good luck with your goal. I'm sure that you you'll be able to find what you're looking for. I guess this is it. Goodbye, my friend." answered the fire.     The fire finished and disappeared. The light went away with him leaving the shadow in the midst of never ending darkness once again. The shadow cried in remorse for the first friend that he ever made. He cried until there wasn't a tear left to be shed. After mourning his friend's death, the shadow continued his journey to find the light as not to waste his friend's hope for him. The sadness in the shadow's heart grew as he travelled alone again in the void.