Status: Rated PG-13 because of language used in later chapters and Abre (main character) isn't just a character to me, as she has helped me see my own light, which seems ridiculous I know. But it's true.

Imprinted Years

Brave

She was now only a metre from me, so close I could feel her breath scraping against the air I breathed in. I could feel her eyes burning into my own, controlling my heartbeat, my circulation of blood, my now intense breathing. I wanted to scream, run, hit, kill and I didn’t know why all of these emotions ran through me like a dart through the air, about to hit the board.

What if I fell? Instead of hitting my target, I could easily fall if I did so act on any of those conflicted emotions, so I decided to resist, though it seemed harder than it should’ve been. “Let me guess.” She smiled eagerly, consistently powered, assured that I was in her grasp, her control. “You wish to act on it, yes? Hurt me or even yourself. Inflict the demons you wish to, but you’re what? Afraid? Ashamed? Embarrassed, even, by the truest emotions you may ever feel? Angst. I am correct, aren’t I?”

I didn’t answer, I was star struck by how she could read me, both internally and abruptly also.

How? How could she see right through me, like I was glass and she was a very watchful eye, picking up my every fault, my every detail, my every particle?

“So this is a one way conversation, okay, then I’ll…”

I wasn’t going to let her control me, predict me, break me with all of these condescending allegations, or assumptions she threw at me without a thought of consideration. I set out to hit her, my fist balled up into a tight sphere of angst and exasperation, but she was simply too quick.
She took control of my hand, mid-air, the way Jessica did only a few distant hours before, but this serpent wasn’t protecting me from myself like Jessica was. She was attempting to control me, instruct me, I could tell this by how she glared at me, like I’d just asked for my own punishment.

Jessica looked at me with disappointment and shame, which made me understand what I was doing was wrong, but this thing before me, this serpent, her glare wasn’t out of shame or concern, it was instead out of ambition. She wished for a battle, she wanted me to fight her. She’d planned this, she wanted me to aim to hurt her, so then she could fight me for who I really was back then. A cold hearted reptile like her. A serpent, ready to bite at any hand that neared me.

“My, my, my,” she sneered at me, her eyes filled with tense demands and deadly accusations, I now knew what fear was and that whatever that was, this serpent was filled to the rim with it, “I’ve never seen one of your kind so…” She twisted my arm in a contorted, torturous fashion, making me cringe and gasp in harsh pain.

“Idiotically brave!” She laughed a murderous, brutal croak in my ear, as she pulled my now exceedingly sore arm back with a fast jolt. She had me under her thumb and all I could do was either beg, or sustain the pain to make myself seem less pathetic and weak than she assumed I was. I decided with the latter, though my now clenched teeth screamed at me to plead, but I refused them that, as I needed to at least appear stronger than I felt I was then.

Instead of crying with every painful and psychotic twist she inflicted on my arm, I laughed hysterically, like I’d lost my sanity, making it seem like I found the situation harmless and seemingly funny, not excruciatingly cruel and that I really felt like I was in teasing agony. She laughed with me, but hers was different than how mine was fake and acted out, hers was real. She actually did find this funny and my harm was harmless to her and her conscience. She really was evil, or was she just messed up?

Is there really any difference?

Can someone be a certain way because of nature or nurture, if so nature, then can his or her actions be classed as pure evil? If so nurture is his or her actions all down to the beings that made them that way? Is there such thing as evil? Was I that way or am I still that way in parts, as being like her, wicked and unforgiving, used to feel natural to me? Is that still within me? The heart that beats within me now, may still be the heart that longs for pain, hurt, power and most overall, control. I may still be the same monster she made me. I may still currently be, in parts, a cold blooded, twisted, incurable serpent, who was and still is, only after that hand to bite.

“You knew that was a wrong move, didn’t you?” she hissed in my ear, like a snake would when it would attack the mice fed to it, as I’d chosen this. I’d fed myself to her. “You still did it though, I can’t decide, Abre. Whether that was simply out of idiotic impulses, or insane bravery, formed out of rash decisions and a natural instinct to fight those that stand between what you want and where you currently stand.”

She turned, meaning to show me what she meant by that last line. What I wanted, without even thinking about it, was to see if my friend was still alive and well and she knew this. Was this a trick? Had she hurt her? I was going to find out, with one quick action out of exasperation and desire to find out the truth, I pulled away from her controlling grasp, but I could tell she let me free myself. If she’d wanted me there, I’d still have been there. I knew it, but I no longer cared about her control over me. I wanted answers.

“Tell me she’s okay.” I kept my voice acceptably calm, as I couldn’t manage to seem overly reassured right now, my heart longed for her to be okay. I wanted her to be all right. I did love her, not in the way love normally is associated with, but in a different, more impacting sense. She was someone who I could never break from, even if I tried my hardest to do so. I need her now still; I need her memory and her wise words in my mind, like I did then. She meant everything to me and I didn’t even see it with my own eyes at the time. She still does, only not in a dependant way anymore. I’ve grown enough on my own to survive, but I still need her sometimes.

Not in the way I’d like to need her with me, but I still do. The serpent took a few steps away from me, giving me some space to move again without her taking up so much of my personal space, or maybe she was nearing the door. Tormenting me. I didn’t know which.

“She’s fine, but things can change,” she smiled again at me, only now she was hiding something, I could tell.

“Please, can you…” I began to ask, well, I wished to demand her, but I feared her actions that would continue my sentence if I did, but she beat me to it anyway.

“Leave? Yes, I will. For now, only remember this, Abre,” she pulled the corners of her top lip back, sensing my fear and keeping it sustained and I only then realised she’d said my name beforehand. “Don’t contemplate your emotions, Abre. Be arrogant, be callous, like the winner you really are. Kindness and modesty will make you lose this game, Abre. Strength in the heart is nothing, when you can’t even arise the strength in your fists, you’re mind. Emotions may reveal deep waters that you feel you must be appreciative of, but the adrenaline formed by weakening others, breaking them, is much more powerful. You don’t need a caring, awing heart to succeed in this candid, critical life we live, Abre. You need to be contemptuous, direct, and egotistical.

Be selfish, be arrogant, and be heartless. You need none of those pathetic things that most live of. You don’t need love, honesty or peace. Have you seen our world in which we live? Does it work? You try to be a good, earnest person and you get hurt, but if you’re sadistic, cruel, masterful, then you win the game. Think it through, Abre.”

She then pushed past me, proving her point of being contemptuous and I then saw her for who she really was.

Manipulative, controlling and every other hateful, discriminating word you can think of, so before she could leave me standing in disturbed darkness, I hissed one last thing back at her.

“You’re wrong, serpent.”

She laughed continuously, until she reached the end of the staircase and she didn’t care to look back at me when she finally whispered, loud enough for me to hear, but silent and impacting enough for me to contemplate over it.

“Don’t lie. Don’t pretend you don’t understand, young, indecisive Abre. You don’t know it yet, do you? You’re as much as a serpent as I am. You may know it, but if you do, you’re hiding it.”

She then ran away from where I still stood, frozen and afraid, like I was when I first saw her. But I was no longer so afraid of her in this sense, I was now afraid of myself.



I then took a deep breathe in, assuring myself that I was alone now, well, apart from Jessica, but that she wasn’t bad company. I was certainly glad that it, who I referred to as the serpent, had left and that I was now alone, but a small part of me longed for her to stay a little while longer. I was eager to know what she meant by “you’re as much as a serpent as I am.” I could take an educated guess as what she meant, by relating the word “serpent” to cold hearted and cold blooded.

Like I thought she was which therefore lead me to her newly adapted nickname, she was saying that I was just as sadistic and condescending as she was.

This did worry me more than I should’ve let it, it started a tiny pea in my head, small enough to wipe out, but I chose to let it accumulate to something much larger and harder to destroy. Maybe that’s how it started for her. One tiny, unexpected, easily curable thought slowly turned into one massive and uncontrollable mistake.

Maybe she used to be like I was then, caring and thoughtful of what was right and wrong. I wasn’t always like that, don’t get me wrong, but I’d learnt as I’d gotten older that I could be like that and that’s who I wanted to be, but what she said had impacted me a lot more than I realised at the time. A lot more that was allowable for myself to let in, as I was now considering if right was actually right.

I now considered, if every correct or genuine move I’d ever made was justified. I’d made friends with someone who I believed was an enemy. I trusted someone who knew too much about myself and kept herself hidden from the matter and I’d begun understanding those who I was meant to harm. Those who I was meant to hate, naturally not mentally.

Humans.

I wasn’t one of them, I didn’t fit and I certainly didn’t feel comforted around any of them. Jessica was different, as a part of me knew she couldn’t have been one of them. She was too wise, too unearthly, too powerful, but in her own way. She wasn’t a dictator, nor a follower. She was qualified for this life, but wasn’t part of it. Her entire presence seems decades old, when in her eyes and face, she’s no older than nineteen or twenty. She was a teenager like I, I could tell by how she acted and talked sometimes, but she knew how to be older. #

Wiser.

Like she’d lived this life many years before I even began.

When I’d recovered myself, I continued on into Jessica’s room, right ahead of where I beforehand stood, silent and still, due to the events over the last few minutes. When I neared the doorway to where she slept, assumingly deep and restful, I closed my eyes, telling myself I’d be okay and that she wouldn’t be back again for at least a few more hours. I didn’t underestimate her though, though it would’ve been easy to. I knew her character, her personality, and her control now, even though I’d only been in her company for a few mere minutes.

I knew what she was capable of and how I should fear her presence at all times. She wouldn’t come back in the next few hours though, that’d be way too soon. Maybe tomorrow, but that was only if she’d want something else from me, apart from my questionable looks and distinct fear whenever I sensed her. She’d only come back if she wanted something or someone. That someone would be me, I guessed.

I then walked into the yet again dark, musky room, where I had to guide myself by the wall, as now I couldn’t see anything. Not even a figure to tell me if and whether I was alone.
I wasn’t, as I heard breathing coming from my left. Jessica, I knew this as the breathing was even and precise and it came from the exact corner of the room. The good ability developed throughout practising my skills and senses, was that now, my five senses that most had been stronger. So I knew exactly where sound came from, exactly where someone stood, exactly where scents arisen from, the touch of anything was heavier and last but not least, the taste of the air sizzled against my tongue.

Staining it.

If it were warm, I’d taste it hotter and the same for if it were cold. So I knew that this being was now her, but my guard still told me to be aware. Why I don’t know, maybe the serpent had gotten the better of me.

I strolled over to where I heard her, sensed her, scented her out in the mists of blinding darkness and stood by her left side. I slowly, carefully and as quietly as I could manage to do, sat down next to where she sat propped up against the cold, aging and cobwebbed wall.

When I too was propped up, legs stretched out in front of me and my eyes beginning to drift to what now seemed like an escape and a sentence to suffering that was now sleep, I looked over to her, watching her even though I couldn’t see her. I smiled to myself, glad that she could get some sleep, whilst I was battling with conflicting emotions.

This was the part of myself that I valued and took in. I cared. I loved and I wished for her to be well, even when I wasn’t. I was and still am proud of that person, but no one can be perfect all of the time, I suppose.

So I then let my head tap against the cooling wall behind me, fighting off the sentence and escape sleep had now become. One view on it was that it was an escape from any demon’s grasp and that I was now free to live my own life in my own world, whilst I slept. On the other hand, sleep had become a sentence, as when I’d wake up from it, I’d feel the once heavenly, pure, justified light and I’d now feel afraid of it.

Like I must hide from it or sleep once more to kill the feeling of sudden isolation and pain. I felt different. Like someone or something had changed me and I knew if something had, it was her. I knew it. I felt it. She made me fear the light, as she let me feel what it was like to be in the dark for real. I thought I already knew. I knew nothing before her and I still don’t know whether that’s a good or bad thing.

I woke in the middle of the night, well, technically 03:07am in the morning, but I was too exasperatingly fatigued and deeply fazed in my own small, spinning world around me, I didn’t really take much care about what time it was exactly. Anyway, what woke me so suddenly and incredibly in bad timing, was a dream I’d had during my few hours of sleep. I couldn’t call this dream a nightmare, as I didn’t fear it, it intrigued me, confused me, angered me, but it didn’t scare me at all, really.

I had to sit up for a few moments, recovering my mental strengths, so that I could recap on the experience I’d just had. Dark, it was and cold, haunting, stalking upon me like demons would an innocent, pure soul, but I was never afraid. Not once, which was what had me paranoid and anxious.

They say anxiety can come in two forms; excitement or worrisome. Right then in the dream and currently, as I sat with a dear friend, but felt so alone in this mysterious yet homely house, I felt both feelings. The worrisome part was only formed out of my curiosity, as to why I was excited by such a menacing and twisted story or play I’d made up in my now worryingly imaginative and impact filled mind.
One dream, if you can call it that, which was completed with darkness that I now saw clearer than light itself within me. The excitement filled my fatigued bones and my muddled mind with a strange kind of adrenaline. It didn’t force me to instantly wake up and start being active or anything, but it did make me feel awake enough to not sleep, as if I knew I must recap on this to make sense of it. I was so enamoured by this dream, yet I longed for myself to distance from it. Hate it, be angry at it and wish for it to be only and forever only a dream to me. But parts of it were real and I couldn’t seem to find a way to escape that.



I was alone. I was waiting for someone, or something rather than an actual being, this would be the marking of my death. I knew it, as I sensed it and my senses weren’t often wrong. I wasn’t afraid. Not of death, but I was afraid of life. What could happen, which road I’d choose to continue down, death was merely the ending, whilst life is and will always be, the part that you must strive for, to make complete use out of.

What I mean by this is that in this life, you must carry on with ambitions and goals set, either ones you’ve conjured up or others set for you, but death, you simply don’t. I don’t know what happens when you do, or when I will die, but I guess no one can ever know. It’s the questions wondered by many, questioned by millions and death is also what some parts of the world prefer, compared to the life they live. I now understand why, having grown older and wiser myself, why they pray for such things.

Death, it still makes me shiver even though I fear nothing.

The word itself, it’s dark and remorseful, but who’s actually sure about what it means? Does it mean a place where you go when you can no longer fight? What is it? I know people say that “death is when you die” but maybe it isn’t. Buddhists believe in afterlife, well, reincarnation and Christians believe in Heaven. Are they both similar in ways? If there was an afterlife, would it be like a heaven? I wonder, if all the mistakes, memories, feelings, emotions, people, pets, all of these things we treasure even if we wish not to, I wonder if they follow with us. Maybe they will or simply maybe, we just float. Like a basketball floating above water, but never being able to sink beneath and never being able to move and swim across the ocean.

Anyway, so I was here alone currently, thinking of nothing but what death may bring to me. I didn’t know whether to think positive or negative, happy or sad, hurt or healed, I just genuinely felt numb. I tried to think optimistically, telling myself “it might not happen, you may be safe.” But “might” and “may be” were not negotiable now, I wanted the truth and I couldn’t keep going off guesswork.

I was dressed grimly, as all I wore was a black vest, dark grey denim jeans and a necklace around my neck, which I swore to wear everyday until the day of my death. Which was today. I now looked down to my hands, folded carelessly into the other and then noticed the jeans I’d on were the same I wore the day I stalked upon my past nemesis but my now true friend, Jessica.

I gasped in shock as I pulled my head up, both controlled and distraught over my realisation and saw my dreaded fear. Surrounding me where jagged rocks, a dim winters sky and no soul what so ever. But I wasn’t going to be alone; I knew this as I’d actually lived this before. I’d no shoes or socks, as I preferred the feeling of coldness against my feet, stabbing into them like knives, or the rocks that actually did jab them. But why here, why this memory, why this part of my life? I was taken by surprise and shock by all of this, but I didn’t fear it remotely enough to wake up from this very strange, yet enamouring dream I was now experiencing, which made me feel ambivalent feelings of what I can quite put my finger on.

When I was calmed enough to breath evenly again, I stood my ground, expecting something bad or unwanted to happen, as this air about me didn’t smell or taste too good. A part of me then realised that I wanted to die here, as if I wasn’t the one who did, I knew exactly who could be a possible contestant for that place and I wouldn’t risk that. Ever. Even if she came at me, charging at me like a vampire would to its victim.

I’d block out the pain until the blessed death would find me and then I’d no longer have to feel whatever agony she inflicted onto me.

But I didn’t want the cowards way out of this, I wasn’t the bravest Asgardian ever, but I was brave. I just needed to know that, so then I could fight whatever emotions tried to come between me and whatever lay before me.

Then, as I tilted my sore, fatigued head to the left side, I saw her. The cold serpent I’d crossed earlier on, her cocky, arrogant smile greeted my stunned face, as she rather gracefully, to my surprise approached me.

There was nothing graceful about the eyes that met mine, though. Dark, cold, sinister, menacing and every other sadistic word thinkable, she was all of those and so much more. She craved fear, she craved me dead, yet she wished for me alive, so then she could watch me squirm and shiver beneath her wrath. I forced myself to be stern, unfazed, but it was difficult and I sensed she could see right through it. Right through me, like I was glass again, but this time, I may break.

“So,” she lingered on the word, making her harsh, ice tone drift too much for my liking, but I pretended I couldn’t care less, “we meet again?” The question seemed to be portrayed as a statement, but I knew, with how she once again continued these few word on, like they needed to be emphasised, that she was after an answer. No matter how detailed or little, she just wanted to hear my voice, which was shaky and slightly confused. Understandably so, I believe.

“I-I,” what do I say? I don’t actually know why I’m here, waiting for the end. Why should I wait so patiently, so pleasantly? Shouldn’t I just kill her now, well, try to anyway? Shouldn’t I at least try to put up some pathetic fight, just to show her that I wont go down without trying to stay afloat? The pride inside of me told me not to be so selfish and rash, I had to think this through. I couldn’t fight like a fool and let her beat me with her fists or whatever weapons she may posses! I should fight the only way I truly excel at, if I try at it hard enough. I’ve to fight her with my knowledge and my own tactics, not stupid actions that only make me out to be weak and immature.

“I don’t know, if I’m honest, which I will be today.” She smiled in a teasing, tormenting way, as if testing my statement in her mind, “only because I know I can be honest and I’m assured that you can be too, yes?”

She nodded, I’d her intrigued now, meeting her dark eyes with mine and linking us as one. I wouldn’t back down, not in what I was about to say or do. This was my time to fight back, in my own way and my own rhythm. She will appreciate that. “Well, how old are you, Silica?” I ask her and then shake in shock when I realise I know her name. I knew her name! How? I didn’t care to question it, I distanced myself from the shakiness before it could consume and threaten me inside.

Instead of fearing my newly found knowledge that I didn’t even know I had, I used it in my favour and that is what built up my one force now. Power. Power over the name of this serpent, power over how she played, which was enough to throw her off guard.
“H-how do you know my name?” her stutter wasn’t in the usual form that it is normally referred to, as she wasn’t quite afraid of the fact that I knew. She wasn’t afraid of much, really, but she was startled, which lead to her confusion.

“Simple.” Was it? I didn’t think it was. What was I saying? “Because I wanted to know your name, you know mine, don’t you?” I gave her time to process this, “is it fair that I don’t know yours?”

Her eyes turned from dark to black as she charged towards me, but I was ready. I hit her stomach with my now balled up fist before she could catch me off guard, but as expected, she came back with a harder more brutal force. She pulled at my leg from the floor, which lead to my cold, yet strengthened body fall to the ground and she then pinned me down. Here it was, my ending, but I wasn’t afraid. “I’m not afraid, I’m brave, and I can do this!” I repeated several times to myself before I had the courage and energy to push her off me, which took a lot of force, as she was strong.

Very strong indeed, which wasn’t a bad thing. She was my competitor. She wasn’t meant to be pitiful. Even if she did value me in any respect, she’d still condescend me.

“This one’s a fighter,” she says to herself, is she that psycho she must talk to herself, even around company? I thought it’d be a good trash talk themed line to throw at her, but that was childish and useless, in this situation.

“No, I’m just not quite shy enough to hide from the punches you throw, although I would prefer this if we settled it, not fought it out!” I shouted at her through exasperated, gritted teeth, whilst writhing beneath her now, as she’d yet again pinned me down. I would beg for her to give me some mercy, but no, I wasn’t that stupid. If anything she would probably just make me suffer more. She then let go of her control over my now weakened body, but I was still strong enough to stand my guard again, if I needed to do so.

But I then realised that even though my now aching body was free from the agony she put me through only moments ago, she would never loosen her control on me mentally. In her eyes I was her soldier, her fighter, her possession, whether I liked it or not.

She then stood from where she had me pinned only seconds earlier and I slowly stood up with her, my bones still hurting, as I think she’d bruised them rather badly when she knocked me down. But now, her glances at me weren’t murderous or dark like before when she came at me like a knife to the wall, her eyes weren’t black anymore, they were her natural colour.

Deep blue and her expression wasn’t fury or exasperation, it was currently… enamoured. Yes, that’s the only way I could phrase it.

Enamoured.

She looked at me, as if I’d captivated her, or something I did had anyway. I smiled to myself inside, feeling a wild; yet wrong pleasure at her convincing praise with me. She needn’t say so, I just knew by how she watched me carefully, like I interested or intrigued her. But I knew it was wrong of me to like her appraisal, as she was brutal, arrogant and unforgiving. Things she’d admitted to being, which admittedly, where reasons why I admired her so.

She now distanced her confident, confined self from me, giving me some space to breathe again and arrange myself once more. I smoothed down my jeans, as they were now covered in odd creases and stained with water from the rocks. I know water doesn’t stain exactly, but every time I’d look at them now, I’d see the water and I’d remember this day. Whether it is for the good or bad. I’d remember it.
She smiled a smile that seemed deceivably genuine, as I knew her games by now. I’d begun to instantly detect that false admiration was actually lies. Her face was covered with the demons that lies were, even if she did admire me, I guessed it was for the wrong reasons.

“Hmm, you’ve grown, Abre,” she stalked a little closer to where I now stood, ready and recovered enough to defend anything she had to inflict, whether it be verbal or action. “I see it now, wow, she did do a good job, didn’t she?”

I was about to ask who, but then I wanted her to continue, as she might tell me anyway, also she could maybe let slip of reasons as to why all of this unexpected admiration she now felt towards me. “I admire that you still can fight, even though you’ve changed so much since…” She smiled at me carelessly, as if my life actually meant so little to her and then sighed. Whatever she wanted to say, for some reason she couldn’t or changed her mind for some important reason. “Why do I bother about you? It’s your title, not you yourself, that makes you noticeable, Abre and don’t act stupid with me,” she took a step forward, now she was only roughly a foot away from me, which made me feel uncontrollably paranoid.

“Abre Laufeyson! Darn it! I thought you’d be better than this, not just someone who’s against fighting their enemies and would rather hide out with her “best friend” instead of being a real leader! A real person, even!” I hissed at her, angered by her tone, she shouldn’t be able to talk to me like that! I’m…

“I am the daughter of Loki Laufeyson, yes, but I do speak my own mind and I am not human, neither are you. What do you mean, being a “real” leader? What is that exactly?”

She sighed once more, this time with exasperation not exhaustion or confusion, but she answered my question, anyway. Which I was grateful for, even if I didn’t expect to be, as I believed she’d leave and never answer me at all.

“A real leader, in my view, is a person, or whatever you think you are, who is unknown to fear and conflicting feelings. One who is brutal, but is honest about it. That’s why I truly was admired by your “honesty” as that is what I value. I know you know what it’s like to want to be overpowered, I can sense you more than you think and I also know how a part of you wishes to be like this. Cold, yet in charge and capable of anything. You can be the greatest specimen this world has ever known, or maybe never heard anything of, but you cant be what you are now. You must change…

You must and yes, if you don’t change then you will soon die and I believe this is, as you believed, the place where you will end your journey in this life. I’ve seen both outcomes to both choices and trust me, you want the selfish choice, even if it’s difficult were your conscience is concerned. I trust you to choose wisely and to remember and believe that if you choose, as in my own personal opinions, the road that is wrong for you, death will find you. I can promise you that.”

She then was gone; like Jessica had disappeared the first time I’d ever seen her. Could I betray a friend and a nation just to be selfish and immortal? Or would I choose the side, which now, seemed obviously right to me?

What she’d said had affected me too strongly though, she had a harsh impact on my thoughts and soul, which still worries me now.



When I woke, I had the numb, yet painfully enamouring feeling that all she’d said in the dream and in reality only hours earlier, was right.
I shivered for ten solid minutes, gathering myself back into the present me, the real me and tried to continue leaving the girl who longed to side with the devil aside. But I found it harder than I ever imagined anything could be.

When I tried to stand, I collapsed back down into the spot where I’d sat, dreamt and shook myself to sanity again, which was where I belonged. Here. I can’t go out again, not after what greeted my last return. I closed my eyes, hiding the shame that came with the lingering wonder of what it would be like to be Silica’s sidekick. Instead of being Jessica’s friend, because it was plainly simple to me then and now, that I couldn’t ever have them both. As even if Jessica did still want to stay with me whilst I went out about doing things she’d hate to witness or be a part of now, even if she did pull through it, I don’t think I could.

Not when I knew how disappointed she was with me and how I’d hurt her by leaving her side. If I did wish for that life, I’d need to choose Silica over Jessica and know that I may never see my true, compassionate and extraordinary friend ever again. Although then, I didn’t truly value our friendship, now, after living through many ups and downs, I do.

“So.” I muttered to myself quietly, although it was obvious what I felt like, even though I talked so low and meaninglessly. “Which to choose. I only get one chance at this and I may end up with a million regrets afterwards.”

I smiled to myself hysterically, I didn’t feel pain or hurt or confusion now, as I let myself block it with all the force and adrenaline I had within me. I couldn’t face it, well, I didn’t want to and I certainly didn’t know how or what to choose.

My head told me to be selfish, arrogant and powerful, like Silica told me to be, which I admit did actually inspire me in some sick, twisted way to be like her, but my heart told me strongly, heartbreakingly, as I felt as I’d already chosen without even confirming it, that I should care, love and admire those who really matter.

Well, in this case, Jessica Marie White and my father of course, but I truly didn’t know which side of me he’d prefer. My sadistic, power crazed, controlling mind, or my physically weak body, due to the lack of needing to have my guard up, self, yet mentally and emotionally strong heart within me.

Which is better, to be respected, or to be loved? To be feared, or to be admired? To be careless, or to care? I felt impacted with ambivalent emotions, none of them helping me to decide once and for all. I needed to do this, I needed to choose, or else what would happen to me?

I guessed that if I didn’t make up some choice soon, all of the contradicting emotions within me, would simply make both my heart and mind weak, forcing my systems to shut down and my sanity be lost.

Forever.