2 - THE DESTRUCTION OF THANEA
"Your fears are useless."
- Wynter Eteva
As the voice registered, all of her senses went numb followed by her entire body. The girl thought maybe it was because her body was already giving up.
This is my life. Mother won't be stopped.
"Get up."
The voice demanded again, its tone slightly raising.
I can't.
In addition to the numbness, the girl felt so tired. Thanea couldn't seem to find the strength to move her limbs. But without any warning, a burning sensation attacked Thanea's left eye. As time passed, the sensation transformed into pain that Thanea was almost tempted to pull out her left eye from its socket.
"Get up, Thanea!"
The tone was now a command, and miraculously, her body followed. Thanea found herself already on foot as her mother stared at her with confusion.
"How can you stand after all of that?" Rize asked and her face contorted into fury.
Thanea had a similar question. It was as if her body moved on its own. Her breathing was cut off when Rize's hands went to her neck, strangling her. Thanea tried to push Rize's arms away but Rize's strength overcome hers.
"I hate you! I really hate you!" the monster pretending to be a mother shrieked with unrivalled agitation. Dick, on the other hand, was just scratching his head, visibly irritated. Without saying anything, Dick started walking away. Most likely, he's going to go back on his own to the Correns' mansion.
Why do you hate me so much?
Thanea might have voice it out loud because Rize answered,
"I..I don't know! How should I know? You just...just...get on my nerves! I just hate you!"
The girl knew it was her sister's fault. Similar to what she did to others, Rinella had used gramarye so that Rize would have this unreasonable hatred towards Thanea. Even when she's physically gone, Rinella's ghost was still roaming. It might never leave her side. The ghost wasn't there to guide. It was there to hunt and make sure that Thanea suffered until the end of her time.
"M-Mother, c-can't breathe.."
Thanea attempted to inhale some air but Rize's grasp was so tight around her neck. Instead of loosening, Rize strengthened her grip. Thanea's face was losing its color as time passed. Rize, on the other hand, was beaming as she watched Thanea's struggle for air.
"I'm getting tired of our game, daughter. This should end now and I personally approved dying this way is a suitable ending."
When the girl realized that Rize had no plans to let her go, that her own mother was trying to kill her for real, instead of fear Thanea felt overwhelming despair. It was more painful than any of the physical attacks she experienced from Rize. It tasted bitter compared to the soap Rize forced on her mouth yesterday. It was the worst of all nightmares she had even when the sun was out and she was awake. This killing intent was way beyond Dick's apathy.
But despite of the pain and despair, Thanea didn't want to die. When she realized that her will was still to live, Thanea managed a strangled laugh.
"Mother, d-did you even love me even at least for o-once?"
The question came out of nowhere. It felt futile to ask but if this was going to be her last moments, Thanea wanted to know if Rize was capable of love. Even a kernel or a dust of it. It mattered back then. It was the last tether. The final question.
But Rize just shrieked,
"Why are you still alive?"
Asking was a lost cause. Rize opened her mouth again to speak. Unbidden hope rise in Thanea,
"Love you? Hmmm, let me think. Fortunately..."
Please. Even at least once. Tell me you felt something other than hate. That's more than enough.
"None. No. Don't make me laugh. Why would I love someone like you when all I want is to hate you?"
The girl's hope crashed like a ruined sand castle. It was too weak to remain high and maintain its shape anyway so the castle came crashing back to what it was before-small pieces of broken sediments.
After all these time of abuse, Thanea had hoped. But now that even this hope was gone, hatred took over. Thanea hated them. Not only Rize. Thanea hated the Correns for none was different. This fucked up Royal Family, they were all the same.
With hopelessness, despair, and hatred as the final and most powerful ingredient-a concoction of unwarranted desire to exterminate someone's life was made.
Her throat was still being crushed by Rize's grip when Thanea found a rush of strength to speak in a tone she hadn't use before,
"I hope all of you, all of these monsters called Correns, would just leave me alone and perish from this land."
This proclamation only made Rize laughed because for her, Thanea's words were foolish and nothing but empty last words of someone who's about to die soon. Rize was also slightly amused that for the first time in a long time, Thanea was trying to fight. Useless, yes, but it's a form of struggle nevertheless. A struggling prey was fun to toy with.
"How funny, daughter-!"
Rize wasn't able to continue because there's a sudden painful constriction on her chest. It was followed by the inability to breathe. Looking down to stare at her chest, Rize was aware that her heart had stopped beating, and with the remaining seconds she had, Rize lifted her chin to look at Thanea.
The mother didn't see her adopted daughter.
She saw someone else. The difference was most observable on the girl's left eye. The eye was looking down at Rize as if she was some kind of pest that must be disposed. Rize's eyes widened when she noticed she's no longer strangling Thanea and her hands were just hanging between the two of them.
For Rize, this powerful and frightening presence was familiar. It was the kind of presence her deceased daughter, Rinella, had before. A reflection through Thanea's eyes made Rize saw blood running down on her own face. Like tears, blood were streaming down from her eyes. Her mouth hanged open as it unsuccessfully sought for air. Just some minutes ago, it was her adopted daughter who was fighting to breathe, but now this looked like a curse which had bounced back.
During her last seconds, Rize was able to remember a nightmare...
I was on a plain so wide that you couldn't help but think it might be endless. The ceiling was white and the floor reflected its color. It was cold, very cold, and even when all of the Correns were with me on that strange place, I felt so alone. Tiny bits of ice puncturing our skin started to pour from the eerie white sky. We writhed in that slow painful murderous agony for a very long time. It hurts. The punctures covered all of my skin, exposed or not. After what it seemed like thousands of years of suffering, it finally stopped, and I saw a woman with an ethereal aura.
The woman wore a long purple dress pooling around her feet. With a long wavy brown hair swaying with the wind and cold orange-brown eyes staring directly at me, instinct was screaming to get away as far as my feet could take. Regrettably, my body would not move. We were all paralyzed by fear. Her eyes scared us the most. Those two balls of glowing orange-brown light screamed murder and when those eyes blinked, all I knew was we were stabbed by a sword directly on our heart, a sword whose blade was just as cold as ice. Death was far from being instantaneous. It was a slow and cold murder. Very very cold.
"You greedy and selfish Correns would pay for your sins."
It was the last words I heard before I finally lost consciousness. Death was bliss compared to that pain.
It was Rize's nightmare from a long time ago. As to why she remembered this nightmare as clear as it just happened recently and never left her memory, she didn't know why. A day after she had that nightmare, her husband brought a child with short brown hair and clueless orange-brown eyes. Fury was all she felt because those eyes, those orange-brown eyes, looked so similar with that of the woman from her nightmare.
Rize had known then that the nightmare was a premonition and the girl was destined to be the death of the family she treasured with her whole heart as much as she could treasure something. Rize swore she would fight the nighmare now that she was awake. Rize hated the child with every fiber of her being, and as if unconsciously aware, the remaining Correns, especially her daughter, Rinella, despised her just the same.
Years passed and Rize thought she finally won. She thought that maybe the nightmare did not have any meaning at all. But premonition or not, she did not regret making the child suffer for Thanea's suffering always brought Rize this unexplainable joy. But when a new dawn came and she found her real daughter dead, Rize knew something bad was bound to happen.
She was not aware, neither the remaining Correns, that the nightmare they had nine years ago would transformed itself into reality. They weren't stabbed to death by a sharp piece of ice, but the eye, although it lacked a partner, screamed the same word-kill her.
Kill them.
Before she made her last breath, Rize was able to mutter a single word,
"Winter."
That nightmare was as cold as winter, the sword as sharped as a shard of cold, frozen ice.
And Rize hated it. Hated it all. She hated winter.
That single word compressed Rize's anger and hatred towards her adopted daughter and the unknown woman with a pair of orange-brown eyes. The word winter became a curse.
~•~•~
When Thanea was brought back to reality only to see the lifeless body of her mother, she screamed and ran away from the scene. Although she had no memories that she killed her, she knew it was her fault.
Overcome by the fear of turning into a creature who knew nothing but killing and hurting people, Thanea ran until tiredness made her body collapsed. Laying on the ground, Thanea realized her feet brought her back to the Correns' mansion where she found all of her relatives lifeless just like her mother. Thanea could clearly see Dick's slumped body against the iron gate, mouth opened in a silent scream, eyes vacant. Lifeless.
For the second time that day, Thanea screamed and ran away. When her emotions became knotted, twisting against one another, darkness enveloped her vision. She woke up on a forest floor surrounded by nothing but masses of Wisteria flowers. Thanea was unfamiliar of this place and she got no idea how far she'd ran to reach this part of the forest.
"The flowers are beautiful," that was her first thought.
Suddenly, she heard sounds of swaying Wisteria vines, and Thanea gasped when a woman loomed over her body. She was wearing a long dress pooling around her feet. Most of her features were hidden in shadows except for her right eye. The eye color looked familiar. All of a sudden, the burning sensation returned on Thanea's left eye.
The mysterious woman didn't move and that was when the girl decided to speak,
"Who are you?"
Thanea glimpsed some white teeth. The woman was smiling.
"My original bearer, finally I am returned to thee. Monsters have paid. The nine years of stolen bliss shall return. Borrow my eyes and your desires shall come true. I will bestow upon thee the knowledge of my name, but careful for you shan't forget this name."
Pausing for some seconds to provide Thanea time to prepare, the woman with glowing orange-brown eye continued,
"I am the eye who force enemies to their knees.
I am the eye of war and everything in between.
I am the eye who control all existence.
I am the Eye of Athena."
The one-eyed woman wondered if this girl, the bearer she wanted for years and the only human she would ever trust, would accept her for what she was. For the first time, she felt insecure. The emotion was insane and she knew that it would make the other High Beings laugh. The one-eyed woman paused her musings when the girl reached for her hand. From Thanea's touch, gentleness and respect radiated. The one-eyed woman couldn't help but smile again for this proved she hadn't chosen wrong.
"Hello, I'm Thanea." the girl greeted as she tried to smile despite of the pain she still felt due to the wounds and injuries on her body. Without the girl's knowledge, the one-eyed woman began healing the sources of Thanea's pain one by one.
In the plane where the mysterious woman came from, to utter one's real name towards another meant acceptance. Her insecurity faded only to notice that her time was almost up. The one-eyed woman needed to leave soon but she would make sure she would not leave the human girl helpless.
She made sure to strengthen their bond and called for some help so from now on, Thanea could start travelling the path of survival. The human girl started playing with the woman's long curly hair and the one-eyed woman let her. Unfortunately, the one-eyed woman couldn't stay any longer. Straightening her body, she was about to leave when the human girl asked,
"What's happening to me? Am I turning into a monster like them?"
The one-eyed woman felt her form fading as she replied,
"You cannot turn into a monster when you are already one."
The thought that she was a monster made Thanea's eyes mist with tears. From the moment the one-eyed woman met the girl personally for the first time, she started experiencing these foreign emotions. Foreign because it had been so long since she'd last felt them. One of this was compassion. She cared for the girl, and for this, the one-eyed woman didn't wish to see the girl sad. That's why she said,
"Fortunately, just like these Wisteria flowers, we monsters are varied with different colors. Correns are purely tainted with black, not because they were destined, but because they chose to be black."
Hope returned on Thanea's eyes. It inspired the one-eyed woman to continue. The human girl needed to believe in hope again. Hope never left anyone. There were just times humans felt hope is gone because they no longer believe in it.
"You see, my beloved bearer, it's only with light that one can see the spectrum of colors. Without this light, all that remains is darkness-black."
"I like black but I don't want to be black."
The one-eyed woman immediately understood what Thanea meant. No one was born evil but darkness was tempting. Darkness manipulated people into thinking that its ways were easier and much more fulfilling. That's why many had gone black. Many had chosen to reside in the land of pure darkness.
"In a world where monsters thrive, it is always up to the monster to decide which color to choose. Careful though. Mistakes were made because some colors can blind."
Too late.
There was no time left to explain further for the one-eyed woman was now gone. Only the blooming Wisteria and the calming vibes of the place remained.
Time also did not wait for Thanea to ask why the woman was missing her left eye.
~•~•~
1 year later...
The sound of a cuckoo clock woke Wynter. Her eyes opened and the first thing she saw was the high ceiling decorated with glowing gems of varying colors. She sat and roamed her eyes. Today was her first day of school since she came to Salsea and enrolled at the academy for Unknowns, Pandemonium. Their rooms in the dorm were large enough to accommodate two person. The room was currently casted in shadows as the lights were off and the sun was just about to rise.
"Good morning, Wynter!"
She snapped her attention towards her roommate who now stood by the bed. When Wynter remembered her roommate's name, she returned the greeting,
"Good morning, Rain."
Rain grinned at her. She had a long brown hair and her red eyes seemed to slightly glow in the dark. If only Wynter could get her own room, she would. It's better to be by yourself than to be with the company of another. However, the dorm managers were strict with their rules even when Wynter offered to pay double.
"May I use the shower first?" Rain asked.
"Sure." Wynter answered without hesitation.
Feeling more comfortable now that her roommate was out of sight, Wynter stalked towards the glass window covered by a curtain. Moving the curtain sideway, there she witnessed the merging colors of dawn-orange, blue, purple, and black. Wynter unconsciously raised her right hand to touch the lids of her slightly tingling left eye and thought of her dream. She dreamt of the past...again.
The past hunted her present, casting shadows on her future. Thanea Mikaelie von Correns was gone, buried, and hidden in secret. Thanea was a feared Diamond, and Unknowns were searching for Thanea to ask questions she wasn't capable of answering. The girl knew that she was not yet ready, and now that she was aware of a third party which contributed to the ruination of her childhood...
Thanea, who now goes by name Wynter, planned for revenge.