• I held the gun up to head of the most powerful man in the country. "Now you're going to give me what I want...No one can save you if you refuse." My voice rang loud and true. His body was stiff as he responded "You won't shoot Ruben...You were never strong enough...I'm the only thing standing in your way now and even then...even then you aren't strong enough to finish the job." I stood there hating every moment. Every second going by my reserve was depleting...In less then a second...I remembered it all...

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    "Ruben calm down!" My friend Mika reprimanded me for my rant. "Mika don't you see I can't calm down! Something has to be done! Someone has to do something!" I shook my head overflowing with emotions. "Ruben...You can't do everything...you're thinking too much...just stop..."
    I stemmed the flow of tears and leveled my gaze to hers "I can do everything and much more. When I touch my chest I feel something inside me. Deep in my core, radiating like a star, I sense the potential burning inside me. I'm just scared about what that potential is for. I know that I could be a leader...I just don't know what type of leader." I shifted my attention to the wall, staring off into space.
    "Ruben you'll make a great leader!" She said smiling her beautiful smile. I gave her a little smile back but continued "Mika...What i'm afraid of is...Is inside me...I sense that theres a tendril of darkness caressing my heart. Like i've explained to you before Darkness isn't so much as evil as it is power. It is a great power but if you aren't strong enough to control it..." She finished for me "It destroys you." I nodded.
    "Look I understand that you're mad. I know that you were just standing up for me but please Ruben calm down. It doesn't affect me." Mika said cheerfully, but I looked past that facade she put on. She was hurting deeply inside not even showing it to me. "No Mika. It isn't okay. None of it is. This hate that I see all the time, directed to those like us...Its wrong...Its meaningless hate that serves no purpose but to create more hate. I love you dearly Mika, don't think for one second that you can hide your pain from me." I brushed the hair out of her eyes and tucked it behind her ear.
    "Mika I sware that I'm going to destroy this hate. I'm going to purge this world of it by any means necassary. I want to be able to see the world that I see behind my eyes. A world where I wouldn't have to hide or lie. Where I could marry the man I love and my parents would come to my wedding. I want to be happy...and they're in my way."
    "I admire you, you know that right?" I smiled when she said that. "I always think about that day. Remember?" She nodded somberly. "I think about the others who are like that. The ones with guns in their mouths, or the ones who slice open their skin. All because of this hate that pushes them over the edge. I was like that a few months ago...I was about to pull the trigger...but you saved me...You banished the shadows that shrouded my eyes from the light. I'm alive only because of you....Now I need to be the light. I need to save the others and then I'm going to destroy this hate."

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    and that was exactly what I was doing. Getting rid of the the hate. I pulled the trigger that day...I was sentenced to life...to rot away in a jail cell...but I did it right? and Mika visits me everyday. She tells me about how things are changing on the outside world. How what I did made a big difference...I didn't really care. As long as I got to see her smile.