Disclaimer: mentions of abuse, depression, parental neglect… read at your own risk.
Back on Riverton Island, as the inner rage of Death's Source stripped citizens of their skeletons, reducing their skins to mere hollow shells. Inside the angered storm, dead Katie lay dreaming.
The streets of forgotten memories whispered a chilling song, to the Empire's denizens, they shivered to the core, only staring at the girl untouched by the weather's cold. Hands simply by her sides with hidden feet driving her forward, the trail she left behind was like that of a wandering ghost searching through the afterlife. Attempting to locate their final resting place, in a way, she, too, was like a spirit. Maybe not as innocent as Heaven's golden angels, but like a freed sinner from Hell's streets curiously roaming the darkness of the world as if wondering to herself in the city's deafening silence: 'where did it all go wrong?'
Kate remembered just an hour ago, by the blonde's side, her grandmother, or rather, the apparition of her...
'For someone so old, she's such an idiot.'
That thought seemed to be the only constant as she continued to stroll through this city's forgotten alley. The roads were lifeless, only illuminated by a single lamppost embedded into a corner, the woman could feel her face half-enlightened by that source. Oddly enough, as the shroud of darkness was obliterated and this infiltration of luminescence appeared, she stopped. Cawing crows, alight moon, dark sky, foreboding clouds.
'I feel like I've seen this somewhere before,' She thought from afar, spotting a new bench... she shrugged her shoulders.
Jogging momentarily, she bent her knees, back now turned. Assuming a seated posture on another bench, head retracting for the nape to settle against the furniture's straightened border. The reflection of that blinding light bounced off the window's glass to shine against her dazzling eyes, not in the present, but a forgettable past. Bruises scattered on her body, blood pouring down her nostrils, a slight sniffle following after, a palm reached forward...
'Full moon. The end of something, huh..?'
A cover to shade the effect of that gleam, beams broke through fingers' corners, leaving her eyes to squint. Only now, protected by her hand from lunar's blinding light, could her eyes glisten at this sight. In that tomb, where the night was endless, that single light was her hope. Through all the hurt and torment of her past, how funny, that a single moment of a shining moon could stand out from the rest. If this were fate, in the past, and presently, she laughed echoed across time, at this scenery. To think something as fickle as destiny were to exist; a tear staining ivory skin, pouring out an eye's corner, she smiled.
But the power of that smile was unforetold.
Some semblance of happiness she felt as she gazed at the moon's whiteness like everything could be erased, and only she, the important one, could persist. In a world like this, cruel and corrupt to its very rotten core, maybe that was her escape. That tranquil lunar bright, her partner, as she contemplated in the endless abyss of the perpetual nighttime. As much as she wanted to drown in the ignorance of that light, that thought was like cancer, inescapably feeding away at the heart until the answer was found.
'Why did we abandon them? Why didn't I think about this before?'
Those words from when she entered the realm of Chaos, how arrogant was she to truly believe in them?
'Consideration is slammed into my bones… selflessness, how stupid am I? How blind have I been and for how long? I asked myself is life worth living. Of course, it is, isn't it? I have friends waiting home for me, I have people who love me. Ace, Kima, June, Alex, if he's alive. I know they love me, but… what kind of people are they?'
Familiar faces she grew to love. June's adorable grin, Kima's soothing smile, Ace's mischievous smirk. Their arms embraced her in their warmth, but, she didn't smile- how could she? At the source of frustration, she held her head with squinted eyes.
'They saved me, but who else did they save? Why am I only just realizing now, of all times…
I never asked if Ace was innocent or not.'
'From this point on, I'm announcing the organization of an anti-oppression group. We'll slaughter those guilty and ensure the victims who had to suffer will find nothing less but justice in the bodies we'll leave. This is an organization headed by the Scarlet King.'
Like entranced into a daze, Katie shook her head and scratched her skin. Standing tall, her neck cracked from side to side, continuing with her back, then her fingers, the thoughts seemed to flow automatically.
'What am I talking about? Doesn't matter if Ace is or isn't innocent. Even if he did do what he did, it doesn't matter, they were all prices. He did what he had to do. Since when did we care about the lives we extinguished?'
Katie continued her walking, only flickering golden lights and continuous steaming covers embedded into concrete streets could enter her ears. An invisible breath venting from her lips, nails digging into the skin, this irritating frustration, the innermost conflict she couldn't contain, it all culminated into an aloud, elongated groan pouring from her mouth.
"UGHHHHHH!"
She continued to walk, garnering passerbys' stares, she sighed, unaware of their invading gazes.
'I'm so confused. Why should I care if we abandoned the Capital? After all that time, why do I care… why do those thoughts resurge now, after I thought I set aside such petty pride? To care only for those who do, that was what I promised myself, right?'
Vanishing into the night with infinite questions raging within, Katie kept moving, despite what she felt and how long she felt that way, the kind of person Ace was, there was one undeniable. That redheaded cousin taught her the greatest lesson of all. 'Acceptance.' To think she was mature enough to grasp it fully, how ignorant was she? If nothing else, she would be herself, the way she wanted to, the way she was born to be. A capable person; worthy of happiness and prepared to keep on living.
What she was met with was not Heaven's light, rather, it reminded her of a scene from a book. Katie reared her head upward, called by the sounds of laughter, of cheering, of... people. People. Humans. Suddenly, an outsider's cry infiltrated their private happiness. Eventually, the music quelled, replaced by worried pitter-patters of approaching footsteps.
"It's Katie! IT'S KATIE, EVERYONE!" Cried a muffled masculine voice, but those comforting words were soon forgotten as her mind's last words choked out slowly.
'Ah, that's right... I'm not worthy of this. Of being around such... kindness.'
Katie Moon:
Back then, the best way to describe it was like experiencing Hell itself. Even now, as I remember that horrifying past, I suppress the urge to vomit. The Source of my hatred. My parents.
The world was cold, the sky, the clouds; all grey. I remember my father's indistinct yells as he guided me down the sidewalk, flaring chimera grins to passing couples sending worried stares. We eventually reached our destination.
It was the park. The colors were muted, we walked together to the bench. I tried to flee, sit further at the edge, but he slid closer. I could practically feel the snake's tongue slithering along the base of my neck. I... watched as a father played with his baby daughter in the sand.
His gleaming smile was as bright as the sun's blinding vibrancy, her giggle, so childish, so comforting to the ears it sent venting laughter. Flailing her arms around with continuous joy pouring out her being, the father lifted his darling child from behind, now standing tall, their heads shook together. It was almost as those the tips of their nostrils kissed. At that moment, it felt like forever, but as I continued to watch, I realized... it was slowly fleeting.
'Don't go.'
I wished it were me. I wished I had someone by my side that loved me as much as that. I wish I had a father who loved me, a mother who loved me. Why didn't I have those things, I asked myself. I assumed this to be a silent inquiry I was questioning in my mind, but the conniving schemer was intelligent in his evil. Somehow, someway, he felt my longing.
'Why can't I be loved like that?'
He made sure I looked him in the eye, all that swirling madness in the center like a chaotic portal readying to open the gates to Hell at any moment, I remember my cheeks filling with retched chunks. He looked me in the eyes with such malice and continued to say...
'Because you're a horrible person.'
That was when it all made sense. People walked by on the engraved stone path, whispering worriedly about me, but never taking an action. He said that in public, people saw I was shivering in my seat, riddled with goosebumps, my legs exposed from the fishnets I wore. I wanted someone to notice, but nobody did.
The universe doesn't give a damn about me. If I'm such a horrible person that I garner such treatment, what does that make my 'father'? If his deeds are forgiven, but mine isn't, I must be the worst. I must not even be human.
'Because you're a horrible human being.'
I thought I set aside such petty pride. Proving to myself and others I was worthy of their grace, I searched for a reason to keep living. I thought Ace to be an angel, and when he did the wrong thing, I suppressed myself and took it out on others. Isn't that the same thing they used to do? When will I finally be able to accept the truth of their horrendous abuse and break free from this cycle? When... will this cycle of hatred...
Finally, end?'
To Be Continued.