Once upon a time there was a monster. Every time it walked by a body of water it ended up seeing its reflection. Horrified by its own appearance, it scrubbed its body with water to no avail... One day a noble lady saw the monster scrubbing away at its body.
She ran out of fear. Wanting to explain himself, he chased after her. He followed her all the way to her kingdom. Seeing the monster, all the citizens panicked. They ran, screamed curses, and threw objects at the monster. The monster, ashamed of itself, ran, and ran, and ran.
Yet this time, it was being chased. Chased by the humans who ran from it. They threw their pitchforks in the air, raised their torches, and charged at the monster.
Before it could be caught, it fled into the water, sinking deeper and deeper until it hit the bottom.
The water that it had fallen in had finally cleaned it. It didn't know how, but it knew it was clean. Swimming back out of the water, it saw the villagers were still there. They didn't attack it. Their pitchforks were let down and their torches dimmed.
When the monster turned around, it noticed that its appearance was exactly the same.
So what exactly did the monster wash off? Well it's simple... it washed off...
Everything.
Shame, embarrassment, doubt, and the hate of its self.
The monster in reality was never a monster. Staring into that lake he saw himself once more. It was the same appearance, yet why did it look so drastically different?
Well it's simple.
The monster had never existed in the first place.
In this world there are no monsters, only humans. Humans can love and humans can hate.
We all exist on a spectrum of emotions, a spectrum of morals, a spectrum of love.
If majority agreed that murder was good and you believed it was bad, then you would fall on the poor end of the spectrum.
If majority agreed that murder was bad and you believed it was good, then you would fall on the poor end of the spectrum.
Yet what if someone existed outside of that spectrum, someone who didn't know where they belonged?
Or perhaps someone who believed they were on one side but was on the other, or perhaps in the middle.
Maybe even someone who convinced themselves they were on both sides at the same time, but in reality shifted their place on the spectrum depending on the state of their life.
What is a monster? A grotesque being, or is it someone who falls on the other end of the spectrum as us? If the spectrum was reversed, would we be the monsters?
The answer is yes, and it doesn't matter if it could be reversed.
What if's are simply that, what's and if's.
Yes, the person who falls at the end of the spectrum is a monster, and to them we may be monsters. Sympathy and empathy for those we view as monsters would only further us on the spectrum to their side.
The nightmare creatures outside that apartment were monsters, the nightmare creatures that Professor Julius's mother had drowned out using the tales.
Sunny was currently on the spectrum of good and evil.
At the moment he was outside of it, only stepping into the spectrum when he had to make a decision. When he wasn't, he simply stayed outside.
But he couldn't do that any longer.
He has made his decision on what he needs to do next, and in how he goes about it chooses where he decided to go on this spectrum.
Well, it didn't matter. He already knew his choice. If he wanted to achieve his goals, his dreams, then he should go down the poorer side of the spectrum.
But why were bad things associated with the word "poorer"?
After all, when he was a poor outskirt rat he wouldn't say he was on the negative end of the spectrum.
This singular thought led him to his decision.
He walked on the spectrum.
And then walked off.
He didn't need a spectrum. His actions wouldn't fall into good or evil, they wouldn't be justified or selfish.
They would simply be.
Just like how what if's are simply what if's, the reality is simply the reality and will always be that way.
The world wouldn't stop for him, and time wouldn't wait.
From now on, he wouldn't be the hero or the villain of the first nightmare.
He would simply be himself. Whatever that means? Well who cares.
After all, it simply is.