Chapter 5 Rifting Through Memories #2
The vision of me continued on, yet we didn't move from where we stood, as if we were rooted to the spot. We watched the distance between us grow, and that’s when it happened.
Suddenly, we zoomed in, and then she was right there next to us once again.
The dizzy motion pulled the image of the past toward us, like we were some sort of magnet this memory was drawn to.
Which meant that she would never get too far out of sight before we were right back there next to her.
But watching this on repeat made me realize there were parts of this day that not even I remembered.
Though here we were, reliving them, and I wondered if The General was the key that unlocked these memories, enabling me to discover them.
The past version of me continued to walk along the trail before suddenly stopping dead.
This, of course, was a part of the past I couldn’t recall.
I do, however, remember questioning how I had even gotten to the place I seemed to be heading toward now, after my scars had appeared. Which seemed to happen the second a strange voice was heard whispering on the wind.
I didn’t understand the words, they were foreign to me, but I understood what they were trying to accomplish well enough as I entered a trance-like state.
“I don't remember this,” I whispered, my voice pained as I was forced to witness a dream-like state overcome my body. I was a mindless entity that followed aimlessly to the sound of the voice that was luring me up the hill. The General remained silent as we simply continued to zoom closer.
The further my image walked, the louder the voice grew.
As if becoming more urgent… more demanding.
Yet despite the language not being one I understood, I could tell instantly that I was the only one experiencing it.
Especially when his arm tensed around me, and I felt the anger coming off him in waves.
Which told me all I needed to know. That this is what he had been expecting to find. It was a language clear enough for him to understand, he knew exactly what was being said to lure me away from the trail. The one I had so innocently been walking along with, not a single soul around to warn me.
The voice continued to grow louder, as if it were being bellowed in my mind, and my hand rose to my head like I had been trying to fight against its control.
As if I had been trying to find my way back to myself.
Back to my body and mind so as they may become one once more.
But then, I gasped, because up ahead I saw a beam of light rising up from the earth.
It was like the land had fractured, with a small crack about a foot in length that allowed a sliver of another world to escape from it.
The sight was so triggering that I started to fight against The General's hold.
“No! No… Let me go! I can't see this. I can’t!” I pleaded, and I didn’t know why, but it was as if something inside me was trying to burst out of me. The fear was so deep it wanted to consume me. I felt like I was drowning in it.
“Easy. Calm for me,” The General said, trying in vain to calm me. But it was no use, because not even his voice was powerful enough to stop me from fighting it.
From fighting him.
Thankfully, it was enough to break the connection in more ways than one. My fear gave me the strength I needed to break free of him and this vision he had forced me to endure.
I finally managed to wrench myself out of his arms, but I fell forward, heading for the grass at my feet one moment and then the table the next. My hands found the wood, the slap of my palms echoing through the room.
Again, a cry tore out of me. A pained scream that was as despairing as it sounded, and tremors wracked my body.
But then, the second I saw The General reach out to touch me, I quickly spun away.
Doing so in clumsy steps that caused me to fall sideways into the edge of the table that jabbed into my belly, making me call out in pain.
Yet the tears I could feel running down my cheeks weren’t born from discomfort, they were ones that had started to fall long before.
“Alexandra.” The way he said my name was as if he was trying to bring me back to myself, but it was no good. I was lost… lost in the world he had forced me to face.
In my anger, I turned around, pointed a shaky finger his way, and accused, “You did this… you… you did this to me!”
He started to shake his head, taking a step back as if I had struck him, and for once, he didn’t have the words to argue this fact.
“I… I…”
“You did this to me!” I interrupted with a shout, and when he tried to reach for me, I took a staggered step backward.
Only this time, when I fell into the table, it caused the orb to tip and roll toward me.
It was as if it was drawn to me and in turn, I to it.
For reasons unknown, my hand snatched out and caught it.
Like some supernatural force had overtaken me and forced the connection back.
And just like last time, it felt like pure energy zapping through me, keeping me in its electrifying hold.
Only this time, without The General's arms to keep me anchored, I instantly felt lost.
I had become Alice tumbling down the rabbit hole, and with nothing to tether me back to my world, I screamed out for help.
But it was no use, it already had its hooks in me, and images started to flash in front of me.
One after the other, each was uncontrollable and untamed as it forced me to see my life in ruins.
Each memory was one of pure fear and desolation.
It started from those first days I faced this all alone, forced to fight to survive against monsters that shouldn’t have ever become real.
Moments of weakness where I would cry in the dark, my sobs kept silent behind my shaky hands as the Myths would search for me.
My quiet prayers begged for them to leave me alone.
All those times I would finally give in to exhaustion, never knowing if I would wake to see another day or find death in the night.
It was a macabre flicker book of the last three years until it finally slowed and fixated on one single moment.
The day we met.
The General and I, who had made that connection despite the barrier between us. The rest of the world fading away and blurring until nothing was left but the two of us. Only then did the visions start to change, as if he were now the hero in my story.
I felt captured by a force of my own making.
I had no choice but to watch as the impossible began to play out.
Visions of The General and me from this day forth.
Moments in our future that hadn’t yet had the time to play out in reality.
Impossible moments that took me to a far more dangerous places than any my past could conjure up.
The sight of us embracing was not one of control, but one of passion.
The type of hold I wanted to be in, and a pair of arms I never wanted to leave.
Because this was no longer just a vision.
No, it was all of the feelings that came with it.
Emotions bombarded my senses, and I couldn't escape them.
Just seeing the way we fit together, the passion, the desire, the pure and raw lust in our actions.
It felt as if my heart was on fire. The way his lips descended on my own as if no force on Earth could stop him.
As if the whole world could be burning to ash and dust around us, and nothing else mattered to him but claiming me.
And he wasn’t alone.
I returned the sentiment with a fevered touch, as if I wanted to be the one he burned next.
As if he had the power to sear my soul and brand it with a piece of his own.
We kissed like it was our first, like it was one of many…
like it was our last. But then, that image faded away like ink on paper touched by the rain, and it was replaced by something that I knew would haunt me for the rest of my days.
Nothing could have prepared me for this moment.
There, in a place I didn't recognize, stood a lone figure. A dark and forbidding silhouette of a man no more than ten feet away. I couldn't make out his features, which seemed consumed by the shadows, but I knew with every fiber in my body that he was the true meaning of evil.
Up until now, I thought I had known what true dread felt like.
I thought I understood true fear and facets that went with it.
But this being, whoever he was, I knew would teach me the real cause of it.
The true nature of twisted hatred and the lengths it would go to in eradicating all good left in the world.
How to crush the hearts of others.
I knew this for certain, and this hellish figure stood there like some unyielding God, just waiting to play with the ant farm at his fingertips.
We, the humans of this world, were nothing more than his playthings.
Amusing lifeforms ready to be crushed and tortured.
He was just biding his time. But as for me, he had something far worse in store.
I knew it when I saw shadows seeping out of him.
Like serpents, snaking beneath the surface of what was real and what was the veil between Hell and home.
Those same shadows began to stretch out, morphing into something far more sinister. It was a message written in sin, and they started to spell out a haunting question. One I never wanted to be faced with.
‘Who lives or who dies, Alexandra?’
I saw him motion with both his arms held out, and I turned my head, unable to stop myself.
My mouth opened on a sob because there on my right was Riley.
A man I loved, on his knees with his hands bound behind his back, tears clinging to eyes of defeat.
Tears that refused to fall with the blood dripping down his face.
I gasped, his name, barely a whisper, leaving my trembling lips before I was forced to look to my left. And once again, I was faced with the impossible choice. Pain rocked me to my core when I found The General in the same position.
So many chains covered his torso, ones that seemed to burn through his armor right to the flesh. Yet the agony on his face wasn't from what was being done to him, but more for me. And I soon understood why as a demonic voice spoke.
“Make your choice, fated one!”
Which was when I felt a weight in my hand, forcing me to look down. And in it, I found the cause. A glowing dagger that vibrated with the taste of death it seemed to beg me for. I didn't know how, but I recognized it as something I owned, making me wonder when this would happen.
But suddenly, the horror became real, and I started screaming when I heard my name being whispered from behind.
I turned, and the voice that first belonged to The General then started to turn into something far more menacing.
That once handsome face of his began to decay and quickly morphed into a face of death.
It was the exact moment darkness overtook me, and the last sight I saw was that same dagger now plunged into my heart.
Put there by…
The General’s hand.