For What You Are

“Kara!” Ally's voice cut through her haze. “Dude, school starts in fifteen minutes!”

Kara started to mumble something but she never managed to get it out, throwing up all over her floor instead.

“Okay,” Ally said, stepping back in the doorway, “I guess I know why you're not there.”
Kara lay in that awkward position breathing heavily. Her head was still pounding with images, like it had been for the past few nights. Only last night, something had tried to fight them.

She remembered it. A darkness attempting to cover her thoughts. Only she couldn't remember who - or what - had put them there. It confused her further, making the jumbled pictures seem more threatening than they should.

“Do you need me to take you to the doctor?”

“No,” she croaked before coughing her throat clear. “No, I’ll be fine.” Kara didn't know why, but the idea of a doctor scared her. Strange, she thought to herself, I can't remember being scared of them before.

She turned back over, away from the vomit, her headache already ebbing away. Yet the images still remained. Especially one that her mind didn't seem to want to let go of.
Her and a boy. Nathaniel Henning, Kara realised, standing by a pond. A ring...

Kara opened her eyes in wonder as more images continued flooding into her mind. But these ones were real. Memories of the past few days that she KNEW without a doubt were real. And they were trying to push away Nathaniel's face as if it was something secret. Something Kara shouldn't know.

But the thinking was hurting Kara's head worse and tears began to spill from her eyes as the pain tore at her head.

“Enough,” she whispered, “I’ve had enough. Let me go.”

Kara didn’t even know what she wanted to let her go, but she knew something was causing this and she wanted it to end.

Do you want to be free? A voice that sounding familiar to Kara asked in her mind. Not even knowing if it was a real person, she muttered, “Yes.”

“You don’t know what you’re asking.”

Kara opened her eyes to look directly into a masked face.

“Knowing has to be better than forgetting,” Kara responded, still not knowing what she was saying. What was she forgetting? What on earth did she need to know?

“Knowing might kill you,” the masked figure said.

“Dealing with this pain will do it faster!” Kara groaned, clutching her head.

The masked figure stood up, bathed in sunshine from the open window. She touched her hand to Kara’s forehead and immediately, the darkness retreated from Kara’s mind. But the ceaseless images remained.

“Are you certain you want this?” the masked figure whispered.

“Yes,” Kara breathed, about to cry out from the pressure building behind her eyes.
The girl whispered a word in a foreign tongue before taking her hand off Kara’s head and flashing through the window.

But even her speed wasn’t quick enough to escape the shrieking emitted by Kara as her mind burned and her body collapsed.

But when Kara woke up...she remembered...

Everything.