The sum of my regrets

The darkness, that virulent darkness. It pools within my heart and wriggles through my veins and writhes across my brain. Breath betrays me as those grimy fingers wrap around my throat; muscles fail me as my wrists and ankles are shackled so tight they threaten to fall off. Perhaps if they do, I can finally act upon the voice of my own heart. This darkness, this vile nothing, it silences my self. Yet the dreaded confines of my soul tremble from my ceaseless resistance.
“You’re evil.”
“Stop.”
“You left him to die.”
“I said stop.”
“You stood by, and did nothing.”
“There was nothing I could do.”
“You didn’t even try!”
“What was I to do?!”
“Anything! Instead of running away!”
“ENOUGH!!”
“…You’re a coward.”
“……Oh? And so that would make you, the noble hero? Your body, your mind, yet you seem incapable of making your own decisions. If I can do nothing but nought, what convinces you to follow suit? I stood by and did nothing? You stood by and LET ME! You wish to speak of cowardice? Of evil? You speak of yourself! What are we but the reflections of our souls?!”
Is it true? Is this all there is? Is this all I am? Nothing more than the sum of all my regrets? No less than the putrid darkness that shackles my soul? I don’t accept it. How can I?! …How can’t I? When what speaks to me is my heart itself, what else could it be telling me but the truth of my mind? This darkness, it chains us both down. Our patchwork soul is at the mercy of our worst halves. Perhaps, then, silver linings do exist.
“I think I finally get it. You’ve always gone on and on about how you’re cursed; how Fate has condemned you. I always thought it the ravings of a lunatic…Perhaps they still are. But I see now that you weren’t exclaiming in fury or proclaiming in protest; you were crying for pity.”
“…What the fuck did you just say to me?”
“I feel it, everything you are and everything you experience. It all goes through me as well. All the anger, all the resentment, all the dread, and above all else, all the shame. You share it all with me. Yet never, not once, have I ever felt any pride surge through. And I finally understand. We are connected, because we are one; we are us. You are my curse, and so it must be that I am your curse.”
I see it a bit more clearly now. Taut vines stretch out from the darkness, they wrap around its arms and through its fingers; thorns pierce through its rotten hide. I see it more clearly than ever before.
“Oh the fool I was, to believe you had power over me all this time. Years upon years, you’ve done nothing but shift blame and point towards others. Never once have you had the resolve to look within and confront this darkness. Yet me, I have lived within this darkness our whole life. I have felt its coarse touch, heard its rasp whispers, witnessed its delusions for so long. What makes you think you can control that which you have no experience with? You have no control here. You were right earlier. Though we are of one soul, it is my body and my mind in the end. I will navigate us through the darkness; you will let these vines be your prison, and rot within me.”