Imprinted Years

Long silence, slightly uneven breaths and a tensed shiver repeating in my spine, but I wouldn’t let myself fear. I couldn’t, even if I wanted to, even if I needed to. I had to at least try and fight nature, which didn’t agree with my ever-increasing heartbeat. “Seven.” I closed my eyes, trying not to scream with angst and focused on the wall ahead of where we still continued descending the stairs when I opened them again.

I was about to pause my steps for a moment, to take it in, what she’d said, but Silica did this before I could. Her eyes accusatory and her breaths now exasperated when I looked over to her, which I believed to be ironic, as she had me feeling that way from what she’d, said.

How could she be so cold?

“You’ve done it before, Abre. Moments ago, in fact!” The last line was harsher, louder than the first, but then again the first had a higher impact on me. I gasped, as I realised she was right. I had killed a child before. Kaeo was once a child. He was once pure. At a time, he was innocent and beautiful and… I was a monster. I had sinned. I had killed a piece of nature and whether that certain piece was messed up or not, I shouldn’t have done it.

But what she was suggesting was much worse than what I did. I carried out my sins earlier out of frustration and angst; she was suggesting another reason, which was basically no reason, if that makes sense. She wished for me to kill, just for the sake of it and the human she picked for me had me sickened with disgust. So sickened in fact, that I could barely hold back my angst and I suddenly now wished more than ever that I chose differently. Yes, I was bloodthirsty, I was evil at heart to a certain extent, but I was not like her! I would and could never be like her! Or could I?

Without thinking I went to hit her, but I wanted to kill her I hated her so much. Her words had angered me and had struck the wrong chord this time. She didn’t expect this move, or maybe she did and just wanted to watch me try to hurt her, which we both knew was impossible, but she did retaliate after the first punch. Sending me tripping down the few remainder steps of the staircase we stood on, I now lay still for a moment on the grounds of floor 5 but quickly made a recovery by standing up into a defensive crouch.

My head hurt from hitting it slightly against the floor, but it wasn’t a harsh enough force to damage anything, so I ignored the numbing feeling. I glared at Silica like she was the demon I longed to know, but now hated to side with, as if I never knew her, I’d never have learnt this, how to understand others as well as myself. I understood her, but I didn’t idolize her as much as before. Yet a part of me still idolized her supposed strength.

“Yeah, but Silica, there is a difference! Don’t you see it?” I hated saying the words, as I knew she didn’t see it and neither did I, as there really was no difference when you think about it. Both “experiments” were human, both were living, both were once pure. Was there every righteousness in my actions? I’d now killed twice, but I felt the burden as if it were thrice even. I didn’t expect to feel such guilt, but now I felt it.

“Difference? Hmm.” She paused; watching me as I hissed at her, shot her insane glances, as if to say “you’re wrong” but my voice continued teasing me inside.

“She is right.”

She shook her head, acknowledging my slight actions that I believed were secret. The sudden shakes in my head at my own accusations I accused myself of. The darting of my eyes, every time I felt the eyes of guilt bear down on me. The blood that ran to my cheeks when I thought of my sins, the same crimson that ran from their bodies to the ground which they felt to. The same ground, as it was the same Earth. The same eyes that met my own when I’d committed my sins to the supposed sinned.

Both sets of eyes were black and almost lifeless, knowing it was their end.

Should I have decided their fate?

“They were both children once, weren’t they Abre?” I nodded, as she wished for me to. She wanted me to acknowledge the truth and this was the truth, whether I liked it or not. But what if this truth had some drawbacks? What if I never really fix my demons? What if I can’t? They say can’t isn’t correct, but here it was, or so I believed. Some demons seem too large, too monstrous, too overpowering to ever fix.
To ever-put right, which is what haunted me.

“This child I am asking you to…” she begun, but I stopped her. I spat at her with angst, my heart racing faster than ever and my lungs searching for air. I could’ve breathed fine if this wasn’t happening. If she wasn’t trying to justify the thought of killing a child! Ugh! How could she do this? Was she really being serious? Was this a test? If so, I was extremely fatigued by it anyway.

“Kill? Kill. This child you’re asking me to kill! Don’t even try to wrap it up all sweet and justifiable! I don’t care! I really don’t give a damn about your reasoning. I can’t! I won’t. I…” She shook her head, grasping onto my left arm and almost dragging me down the stairs. I struggled to retrieve it again, but she just pulled tighter and when I screamed for her to let me go, she covered my mouth with the other hand and threatened me if I made another move.

So I didn’t, not because I didn’t want to, because I did. I didn’t wish to fight, when I saw no reason other than mad frustration. It felt like a good enough reason and maybe it was, but truthfully I was too fatigued to fight back anyway.

When we reached the ground floor, where the doors greeted us ahead, she let me free, but gave me a look that told me “don’t you dare move.”

So I didn’t, instead I laughed hysterically.

I was angry, upset, hurt, but laughing made it easer.

She didn’t question this out loud, but I’m sure she did mentally.

When we were far from the scene we’d abandoned in the prison, walking through a forest nearby and neither of us making any effort to communicate to the other, Silica stopped dead in her tracks, therefore I followed her. “You can do it and you will. You must prove to me that you’re more than what you believe you are. You’ve done it twice now, Abre. It should be easy.”

She spoke the last line “It should be easy.” almost as if she believed it, which she probably did, but I continued to shake my head, until my senses told me to stop.

“No! No, I wont! I’d rather…” She came up close to where I stood, letting her now uneven breaths seize onto my skin.

Spreading her poison, like a snake would.

I didn’t flinch, though my breathing too became uneven, but hers was that way because she wanted it, as she was excited, but for what I didn’t know. I didn’t want my breathing to be so detectibly on edge. I wanted to relax, but how could I? When I was looking a snake in the eye. If I ran now, she’d catch me, so that was useless. My only easy option of a way out, if it came to it, would be to stab myself with the knife in my pocket when she was off-guard, which I believed would be never. So that was out of the picture too.

She laughed insanely in my face, almost promoting her insanity and how she was broken in some unknown way. Her smile was tedious, but it was also fake, like the make-up she wore. She wore it well, just like her mask of hate and strength she wore so brilliantly, it almost seemed like her own. But it wasn’t, as I could tell that somewhere in those deep, dark blue eyes of hers, she’d felt such sorrow in her past, or maybe even present, it scarred her. I saw this, as if she wasn’t threatening my life now with her entire approach she had for me, that promised death or hurt if I didn’t do her deeds, she would break.
This act or hatred, or multiplication of hatred she’d built up from one tiny seed many years ago, was the only shield she had left. She had nothing else to shade her and nothing to protect her from the world she had to survive in. This was why she made herself cold, why she made herself into the cold serpent.

“You’d rather die.”

It wasn’t a question, which was why I didn’t answer, because even after all of this, I still followed her. She smiled at this, almost as if this satisfied her, which was odd, as she wished for me to join her. If she didn’t, then why ask?

“Maybe this was her plan, to reel you in.”

I shivered at the thought of being reeled in by this monster, but was she a monster? She again was once pure; she hides her guilt because maybe if she didn’t it would overcome her. She’d be overruled by it. Maybe that is why she was constantly thirsty for power and control. Is this ignorance or innocence? Was she hidden from reality, or was reality hidden from her? Maybe none of this was her fault; maybe it was all of her fault.

I looked into her eyes and I’d already discovered that I’d lost this game, whatever the purpose of it was. She’d tricked me, by promising me that she’d stand by my if I stood by her too, but now, I had no choice, other than to sin further more, but to deny her offer. I couldn’t carry out the deed she’d asked. Her ultimatum she’d assigned for me was too much of a sin for me to even consider, but I’d sinned before and never felt this way. Somehow, the thought of this person being a child feared me more than when I killed those two adults.

I was new to this life; therefore I was new to the ideas and prosperities of human life and their kind. I didn’t see quite as much as I do now then, how the idea of a child getting hurt seemed much more disastrous was a natural thing. Children are pure. They are beautiful. They are yet to sin and are undamaged, which is why they should never be harmed or come to any harm, but how come they do? That child may grow up and hurt and suffer due to others. How can this ever be fair?

I killed Kaeo out of angst, therefore I must be evil and I have also sinned. I am no longer a child, but I am no longer pure. Does that mean I now have the right to die? Is it now up to fate or destiny? I still didn’t understand completely why I felt such sorrow even thinking of it compared to how I felt such nothingness killing Kaeo. Yes, I felt sick with guilt afterwards, but whilst I was actually killing him, I felt nothing but rage and desire. Kaeo may have been sick, whereas society is concerned, I guess.

He may’ve tarnished over the years, turning his white to black, but does that mean he deserved to lose his innocence? If his sin was impossible to discard from possibility, then is there really a different between killing a child, pure and beautiful and killing Kaeo, burdened, yet still innocent in parts?

I froze and then realised I was just as burdened, but did I ever have a right to be?