Can the big bad really change?

Time, it can be a blessing and a curse, it is infinite and yet, everybody runs out of time sooner or later.

My time was halved, taken from me and I don't know why. I woke up with no identity, no memory of my past or who I was and it angers me to not know.

Now, don't get me wrong. Things could be a lot worse, I was found in the woods, unconscious upon the ground by a young lady foraging for berries, if it hadn't been for her, I dredd to think where I might be right now.

She saved me, carried me home and tended to my wounds, she cared for me, a complete stranger and gave me hope. A name.

I haven't left her side since.

It wasn't long until we married, a little more time and I was blessed with a child of my own.

Every day i count myself blessed, and yet something had always been missing.

That part of myself I had never known, a part of me that longs to learn of who I was but instead, here I stand day after day behind a wooden prison.

I earned my keep beside her, took to working in what was her father's tavern. Left behind for her in his dying wishes and with so much happiness, there is sadness too.

There have been moments of an unknown past flashing through my mind, moments of my life before now, small fragments that only bring more confusion and as I stand here, serving the same moronic faces their grog, something inside of me hungers for more.

I look upon my wife's gentle features with fear, its a wonder she ever fell for me in the first place, my face, disfigured with Scars, my soul was broken and cruel and yet, she saw a light inside of me that, a spark of love as she says.

But would she still look at me the same way if she knew what would play through my mind?

If she knew the hunger, the desire that seeps into my mind when things grow too quiet?

It scares me, I try to hide those feelings, to hide the want to harm and bring chaos to the world around me.

Was this how everybody felt? Was there darkness in everybody's heart?

It scares me, the way I long to see the blood of others, to see the fear in their features, hear the pain in their screams and this want is getting harder and harder to push down.

I am a monster.

How could I explain it any other way?

To have these thoughts is bad enough but to have them, whilst i am blessed? I am loved, I see it in the eyes of my family, my wife and daughter look upon me as their hero and it scares me to lose that love.

So, here I continue, serving day after day, drink after drink and here I stand, torn between two worlds.

Watching as others come to drink away their troubles, as they celebrate small wins in a world full of cruelty.

Here I stand, suppressing the urge to kill, maim and destroy as well as I can, denying myaelf the pleasures of life and death.

Another flashback, another life long forgotten, teasing my mind as time continues like a countdown. Wondering, just who I am to this world.

As life continues, new faces appear, new hopes that somebody will recognise me, new fears that as I slowly place this puzzle together, I will not life the life I learn about.

The years began to fade, I began to accept that I might never know the truth but, some things are hard to change.

My daughter grew older, my wife more tired, it was obvious her love was fading.

Another ale served, another coin in the tavern, but business had been slowing down.

We began taking it in turns to close for the night, it allowed some rest for the other between days. It allowed some freedom.

As my wife rested, I found myself busy in the basement, I told her I'd be retrieving fresh kegs from below ready for the coming day, I told her I'd have it done so she wouldn't have to in the morning.

Why did she have to come down?

Why hadn't I heard her feet on the stairs in time?

As I turn, seeing her standing frozen in place, the last few struggled breaths escaping our last patron behind me, my smile faded, my eyes filled with pain, she was never to know of my latest attempt to satisfy this dark hunger withing.

She was never to know...

Another day, standing with a tankard in hand, another meal placed carefully on a table.

My daughter is old enough to help in the tavern now, her smile had brought in new business but there was a sadness in her eyes.

Another night, explaining to my sweet, loving daughter why her mother had left us.

Another lie as my wife's bones gather dust in the basement.