Imprinted Years

Don’t ever think I tried, because I didn’t. I should’ve at least thought about it, but I discarded that too. I did feel something, but was that enough to excuse my failure and let in my past?

I hid from it, so I could be closer to him.

Trust him, even, but now I see how it all could’ve easily have gone wrong.

I was a liar.

A coward and for that, I will never be sorry.

That was my past; this is my future.

I woke in a room that was currently unknown to me, but I would soon become homely to this room. Feel free to rest, breathe and live here, but now, I was afraid. I believed this to be insane at the time. To be afraid of being in someone else’s home, but now I see it. I wasn’t afraid for my security, not even my safety. Fear of the unknown is a strong, natural impulse to have. I now see how this worry I’d built up wasn’t completely foolish and that I had some right to feel this way. I had been saved, yet I felt I’d been tricked.

I wished to confront the person who’d left me feeling like such a pathetic, weak being, but then I realised that I was one. In my view, anyway, but I still intended to talk to him. The being who had saved me, but who I believed had tricked me. Just like my father. The trickster. The god of mischief himself, who Silica and even others believed I should be proud of. My name carried his legend, but how was that a good thing exactly? I wanted to be remembered for my own life, my own legacy. Not my fathers.

Yes, I do love him, but I also wish to live a life of my own, rather than living in his shadow. He is great, he is masterful, he is strong, but he is also only a part of me. He isn’t all of me and he never will be. I do have a mother out there, even if I didn’t know who she was or where she’d been all my childhood at the time, I knew she was out there. I was a part of them both and I didn’t want to believe that I was exactly like my father. I was honoured to have him as my father, don’t get me wrong, I respect him more than any other, but I don’t wish to live his life. Not after what I’ve seen. I have my own burdens to carry.

“You really should be resting.” I turn to the boy whose voice just rang out in my still frozen ears, but I couldn’t escape hearing his voice and smiling at it too, which was unlike me. It was him; the boy who’d captured me all of those weeks ago. He was here.
He was my saviour, my hero and a total stranger who probably would think I was mad for smiling at him so eagerly. He didn’t know how I felt and he could never know, or so I believed. What if he didn’t like me?

“What if he hates me?”

Both voices shook their heads in disappointment at my slightly pathetic question that was maybe a little extreme.

“Oh yeah! Cos he knows you well enough to “hate” you. Pull yourself together!”

If good was now siding with bad, then surely this must mean that they were right. Mustn’t it?

I now looked down, nervous and unknowing of what to say, but wanting to say more than I should. If I’m honest, I wanted him to like me like I naturally, almost instinctively liked him. You can’t always chose who you fall for, my friend Jessica told me once when she found out about the dream I had about the boy. I never knew I would feel so… alive! Like I would be empty without him even being here. I almost had the urge to just tell him straight out, but I couldn’t of course. I didn’t even know him for goodness sakes!

A human! Out of all beings on Earth, Asgard, anywhere really. Why did I fall for him? It could’ve been so dangerous! Was I ever thinking straight?

“No, you weren’t really.”

I closed my eyes for a moment, then remembering I had previously been stabbed and beaten within an inch of my dark, yet empowering time here on this Earth. I no longer cared if what pleasure I’d felt so far was all made up, pieces of imagination in my brain, as they made me happy. Trusting a true friend, running like my life depended on it, opening up my heart to a fucking human for a change! It was all absolutely mad, crazy, insane to me, but I still wanted more. I don’t fucking care what anyone else says, because in my opinion, after all of this, I believe that being carefree, being crazy in part and being free is what being human should be.

I placed my right hand against where I knew from memory where the wound lay, burdened on my skin always. A reminder of the night that changed my life, which was the ending of one chapter for me but what was also the beginning of a new and brighter one. I was saved from death, but I was also saved from becoming death, as they say death is a taboo. One of the strongest taboos, I believe. If I’d continued down the dark road to emptiness and hollowness, my legacy, if I ever made one for myself, would also be a taboo. I would be a disappointment. A let down, as I would’ve known in my heart, I could’ve changed it so easily, but I never would have. Not if I wasn’t saved. I’d have still have been remembered as the destroyer, not the saviour of nature.

Killing is a sin of nature, but love is a gift.

Love was reinforced within me ever since those arms of the boy I now faced wrapped around my frail body and carried me to safety. Love was when I saw two main faces before I pretty much blacked out. Love was my destiny.

Love is my future.

“You shouldn’t care, so why do you?” My voice was bitter, cold and unnecessarily harsh, but I didn’t see this as a threat in any manner. A warning, I suppose.

“Why are you doing this?”
Even my own emotions were arguing against my action, which was sure a change from the norm.

“Because, I will only end up screwing this up. Like I always do. He’s too… genuine for that.”

I hated it when voices mocked me, especially when they were practically my own, therefore I knew for sure that they were true. Even if I was mad, I knew I could trust the voices in my head. Or could I?

“What if he hates me? What if he hates me? Oh no! That would just be absolutely, tremendously awful!”

I scoffed at them silently, as I couldn’t draw any more attention to myself in public. Which was the scenario I was then in, as this boy was still someone who didn’t see me for my true colours, therefore I believed I must hide them.

He shrugged, held out his hand and for some insane reason I took it and he smiled at me thankfully after doing so, which made me smile too.

“Benedict and you are?”

“Abre, Abre r Laufeyson.” I said it without thinking. My full name! My entire name! Maybe he didn’t know who my father was and even if he did, luckily he’d believe it to be a joke. No need to worry.

Cannot worry.

“You fucked it up royally!”

I laughed at them, instead of retaliating, as I knew I’d screwed it up and I didn’t need their input here.

“You have still not answered my question, Benedict. Why did you save me?” He laughed, raising his eyebrows a little and standing up from where he sat on a wooden log by the fire. He walked over to where I now lay propped up on the sofa, gazing at him wide eyes. Why was he being so nice to me? I could tell by his sweet smile, his caring sense, his whole atmosphere, which was warm and welcoming, he wanted me to feel at home here. But why did he want this? He could save any girl, why me?

He sat at the end of the sofa right next to me and I tried to sit up to see him better, but winced at the shooting pain that hit the wound just below my chest. Benedict’s eyes were now alarmed and they darted to mine in pure panic. “I’m fine.” I scowled a little too aggressively, to say that he was aiming to help me. I was acting as if he was trying to kill me or prolong my pain even. “It’s okay, I understand. I’ve had my fair share. I mean, I understand what weakness feels like. Especially when I have once believed taking certain foolish actions only made me stronger. I may not understand your physical pain, but that I will try and help you with. I do, besides that, understand what you’re going through.”

His smile was so beautiful and powerful; I almost didn’t feel angst at him for trying to aid not only my physical, but my mental state too. I knew how I felt and I believed that me knowing was all I needed to get me through it. I was wrong. “You think you know me.” He shook his head and placed a hand on my knee, making me feel warm fuzziness inside, which was odd.

“I want to know you, but I do understand. That is what I mean, Abre Laufeyson.” I smiled, as now I couldn’t help it.
He wanted to know me, which meant he must like me at least a teeny tiny bit. I let myself hope for a minute that a sweet fairytale was possible, but then I remembered my wounds; inside and out. My demons and my faults, after thinking over these things, I then saw this “dream” of mine of us being something, crash down right in front of my eyes. If he was truly closest to perfect out of all others, then he was far from what I was. I was a coward. That I couldn’t overcome overnight.

“You think you do, there is a difference.” Why did I always feel the need to prove others wrong? Even when I liked him, when I felt I needed him sort of, I tried to push him away. Yes he stayed, which shows how true he is. He never left when I hurt him, when I shouted at him to leave. He stayed by me and I’m shamed to say I couldn’t exactly return the favour. I never walked away exactly, but I did turn my back on him. I hid from the person I became when I was around him. The natural, beautiful, if ever possible, side of me, which I’d rather discard than let in.

I saw it as deceit, but I was wrong. I had deceived myself all along, but I never opposed to it.

Does that mean that the darkness is meant for me? Is it my fate?

“Is there?” his smile seemed to randomly change from slightly serious to cheeky, which made me chuckle and when he wrapped his right arm around me, holding me, saving me, I couldn’t help but smile like an ecstatic fool.

“What I meant was that if I was you, I’d run.” I looked away shyly, as I knew that this was true for me. If I were him, I would walk away from this being I’d become. I’d never return to see my face or speak to me again, as I believed myself to be poison. Like wine, I suppose. The older I got, the more powerful I became, which I saw as me growing too fast.

I was already beginning to think harshly of the unknown yet supposedly homely world around me and I was only sixteen years old at the time.

I believed power to equal to strength, but if that theory was accurate, then why did I feel so weak I’d collapse every time this perfect image before me smiled that immaculate smile of his?

“Because you feel you don’t deserve his kindness, but you do.”

I laughed sarcastically, knowing how I believed this thought to be completely absurd! Me? Deserving of such a kind-hearted, flawless, immaculate being of pure nature and innocence? He wasn’t a sinner. His smile was too genuine, too embracing for him to be. He may have had dark days, but he’d never lived there. I can tell these things, as any other could who knows what true darkness feels like. Don’t think that this gives me any kind of power, because it really doesn’t. If anything, it only makes me weaker.

“Of course you don’t deserve it! His hands are bare! Rather than covered with blood, hate and envy! Yours are red! Redder than crimson itself. The same crimson you’ve witnessed too many times. You are cursed; he is free. You will poison him! Like her… the Cold Serpent!”

I shivered at her nickname repeated in my mind, but it wasn’t me repeating it, was it? It couldn’t have been! Why would I force myself to sustain such torture? I enclosed my hands around my ears, pushing away Benedict’s arm that was previously wrapping me up in his warmth and I then felt sick to the core for pushing him away so violently. Though I feared if I didn’t discard his efforts to comfort him, I’d do more than push him aside. I’d do something I’d regret and I wouldn’t think through it enough to stop myself.
I would hate myself afterwards, knowing I could have stopped it, but on the other hand, knowing my ill mind wouldn’t have let me do so. I would be stuck with such sick emotions of ambivalence. I’d twist and turn every night, only seeing more and more and more crimson filling my life.

My world.

My emptiness would become my source.

Light would no longer shine here.

I was an alien here, as I had no real world to call my own.

My world, whether it existed or not, was now becoming darkness…