Regretful Reverie
I hear the arguing as I crest above the yawning maw of the alleyway. Another mugging, or so I assume. Bad luck…for the asshole who thought to rob someone in my neighborhood that is. I swoop down. In some of those old superhero movies the “hero” would always creep along until making a dramatic first strike from the shadows, all the while letting the victim get their ass handed to them. I don’t wait. But I suppose it is a hell of a first strike from the shadows.
I land damn near on top of him before lifting him above my head and throwing him like a ragdoll into the adjacent brick wall. I wince a little internally. I need to find a slightly less lethal method of anger management, I suppose. I open my hearing to its highest levels and listen for a pulse, which I find. Good. One less problem to deal with in the coming days.
Having enhanced hearing can be pretty useful sometimes. I think this as the woman I just saved puts a sonic emitter right up to my ear before I can equalize my hearing. I scream an unnatural scream and hold my head in my hands while trying to instinctually move as far away from her as I can. It doesn’t help, and I start to feel the other me take control. I try to stop him, he’s not nearly as nice as I am, but I can’t and before I know it, he has her up against the wall with a hand wrapped firmly around her throat. My hand. I struggle to regain control, but he’s been left in the lurch for a while, so he’s doing everything he can to stay free from the darkness if only for a little while longer.
I try to scream, try to tell her to play dead because he doesn’t know the difference, but then I feel pain rip across my entire body as my back arches of its own accord. My hands pull away from the woman’s neck and I feel darkness claim me.
The sound of dripping water is the first thing to greet me as I reenter my body. I find myself fully in control as well, thankfully. I’m sitting in a chair. I can feel that much. Still, I see nothing but darkness. As I tilt my head, trying to make out any other nearby sounds, I feel the coarse fabric tied around my eyes rub against my skin. Ah, not normal darkness. I try to elevate my hearing again but get only painful static as if someone turned on a dead tv channel in my head and nothing else is on. I try to stand but feel cold steel wrapped around my wrists, binding me to said chair. I try to break them, but I may as well be a child trying to break through a brick wall.
I sigh. Fuck. I guess one of them found me. But the question is…who? It’s not like there’s a shortage of them at this point. I feel a stinging pain across my face. I’m decently sure that someone just slapped me. I spit blood, though I can’t exactly see where it lands.
“Yeah, I’m awake already, but thanks for that.” I say.
I probably deserve whatever this is, but the ever present need to be an unrepenting smartass is just as strong as it’s always been for me. Old habits die about as hard as I do.
“You gonna keep this over my eyes, or can we avoid the whole Bird Box routine?”
Another slap. Fair enough.
“Say another word, and I’ll gut you.” Says a woman, her voice tinged with a Latin accent. A voice that I can’t exactly place.
Though, I suppose that narrows things down…a little. I hear the sound of boots against concrete. She’s walking away from me. Then I hear the sound of many small metal objects being scraped against steel. That bodes well. Torture then? The squeak of unoiled wheels gets closer and closer, as well as the sound of jangling metal and the boots again. I sigh again.
“Look, I’m sure you have a perfectly valid reason for all of this, but it won’t go how you think. You’re far from the first person to try, and you probably won’t be the last. Excuse the stereotypes.” I say, and then darkness gives way to sudden bright light. I hiss in surprise at just how blinding it is. Then I look my would-be assailant up and down with half open eyes. Combat boots, leather jacket, amazing figure. Then I see her face, and my reality crashes down in a way I didn’t think was possible anymore.
“Sofia…” is all I can get out before she slaps me again. I don’t even react. She can’t possibly top the slap to the face that is seeing her again.
“Don’t say my name. Not like he used to. You are not him!” she screams in my face. That stings more than the slaps did, but I still keep my face passive. She doesn’t know, and I don’t think I want to tell her. How could it possibly make things any better? Therefore, what’s the point.
I just watch her, memories like raindrops flitting in and out of my mind, drowning me in a monsoon of regretful reverie. I actually feel tears threatening to reveal exactly how I feel in this moment. I look away. I hate myself for this because she has more reason than anyone I can think of to know the truth, but I can’t let her. I can’t have her, and she can’t have me. Not anymore. I feel her nails dig into my chin as she wrenches my gaze back to hers.
“NO! You look at me. Do you know me? Really know me?! Or are you just seeing me through his eyes, his mind?” she asks. I look up into brown eyes, once so warm and inviting, a safe refuge from any storm that threatened me. Now, I see nothing but hate and pain. The tears finally succeed in their escape. I don’t try to stop it anymore.
“I’m so sorry Sofi. It was the only way.” I feel her grip on my face loosen just a little. Then it tightens again.
“No. You’re not him. He wouldn’t leave me like YOU did!”
“It didn’t take me Sofi, I took it.” I say.
I can’t do this. She has to know. Every dream I’ve had, every stray thought, every moment where this situation has played out in my mind for the last two years comes rushing forward and suddenly I don’t care anymore. I just want her back.
“It was the only way to save you, to bring you back. And then…I realized, he was never going to stop. He would use me to do horrible things to people. He has used me to do horrible things to people. But I found a way to put him aside, to trap him in a part of my mind so deep and dark that it made nothing more than an animal out of him. I wanted to come back, so badly. But I couldn’t. I can’t. Not until I find a way to be free of him for good. For US to be free of him for good.”
Sofia looks at me like I just slapped her back. I see the look in her eyes. She wants so badly to believe me, but she can’t. Suddenly the doubt creeps back in, slowly at first. Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything. Maybe I can play it off, just laugh, pretend to be the soulless demon she thinks I am. That she almost needs me to be. Otherwise, how can she keep going, knowing that I’m still here and chained to this monster.
Then she does something that I honestly couldn’t have seen coming. She kisses me. Soft lips grace my own and all of those memories come back again, tempting me with something I shouldn’t be allowed to have again, but want so badly. More than anything. Then she starts crying. It makes me feel like my heart is being ripped out and replaced with a block of frozen lead.
“I want to believe you.” she says, sobbing and pushing my hair back and trying to see me how she once did. Trying to tell if I’m still in here. “I know.” Is all I can manage to say.
I feel a sudden surge of strength, like a fog has lifted, and I realize that whatever she did to nullify my abilities is gone. I lean forward and kiss her back, wishing I could run my hand through her midnight locks like I used to. Then I rip the chains holding me to scrap metal and jump through the nearest window before she can stop me.
I don’t look back because I know what that will do to me, and her. All I can do, as I rise into the sky, is hold on to that dream. That goal. I will find a way to be free of this thing, I swear it.
For her.