Fighting the Losing Battle

Chapter 11 - A Touch of Insanity

Thank you for waiting - I hope it's worth it! Don't hesitate to let me know what you think! :) x

*

Kira POV

Something is wrong here. Something is missing. Something has been lost. I have lost it, all of it, everything is lost. A part of me, I have lost a part of me, and I can't find a way back to it, I can't find my way, it's been lost, and I don't know if I will ever get it back. I don't know if I can ever get it back. Something is wrong here and I can't win, I can only lose, can only lose, more and more. The losing will never end, not until all of me is gone, not until everything that defines me is lost, not until there is no return. No way back to my own life, I can't escape, and they are making me lose myself. Or maybe it's me, making me lose myself, maybe it's all my fault. I should have realised, shouldn't have let myself get caught, should have run harder, faster. I should have got away. It's all my fault, and now I am losing, I am losing everything. I have lost my life, I have lost my family, I have lost everything I once cared for. I have lost my freedom. I have lost all feeling. I want to care, I really do, but I can't. I can't. I want it, so badly, I want the ability to love, but I can't. I am numb. I have lost it all. And I don't know how to make things better, not this time. In the past, I have always been able to run away. Not anymore, not this time. I can't run now. I can't hide. I am stuck here in this prison, with no escape. I am stuck here, and I have lost everything; I'm trapped, and I can't breathe, and it's all my fault. And now I think I might be losing my mind, my sanity. I used to know who I was, I used to be strong, but not anymore. Who am I? I can't think. I mustn't think. Thinking is bad, thinking hurts, and reminds me of all the pain, and then I start to wonder what the point is, what the point of life is. It's not like there is anyone left to care, they are all dead, no one will miss me. But I mustn't think that. I just have to keep fighting. But I don't know how to fight anymore. Why me? I'm not strong, like everyone seems to think I am, I'm weak, weaker than anybody in this lost world. I can't win, I can't ever win, and I'm so alone. Maybe I should give up now. Maybe it would be better to lose my mind... Everything is wrong here, everything is lost. Lost. Lost. LOST.

*

I wake with a start, cold and alone. It doesn't take long to remember where I am. How could it? The icy floor and stale air refuses to let me forget, even for a second. Even in my dreams. It's all I can focus on. Talking of dreams, something is wrong. Something changed, at some point, although I can't pinpoint when exactly it was. I find I have been struggling to recall things, and I have lost all sense of time. All I know is I'm trapped in a nightmare, a cold, unfeeling nightmare. Ever since I arrived here, I have been drifting in and out of sleep, a restless sleep, that leaves me more tired than I was before. And each time I feel my eyes closing, the dreams creep in, just like that. They are unlike any dreams I have ever experienced before. I thought that unconsciousness was meant to be painless, a place to escape from life, but it's not, not for me, not anymore. I never thought that dreams could affect a person so much, but...these are different. They are so real...Sometimes when I wake, I can't tell which parts of my life are happening, and which I have just imagined. Sometimes, I can't even tell if I am awake at all. I can't control it, and it frightens me.

They started as just a jumble of words, at first, strings of nonsensical phrases, the ramblings of madness. That was worrying enough. They left me confused, puzzling away the long hours in this cell, trying to find meaning in the meaningless. But, as time passed, and the more I strained to understand those ramblings, the more they began to make sense, the more I could relate them to my own life. More than once, I have wondered if, just maybe, those crazy words aren't so crazy after all. And then I start to wonder whether these dreams are showing my true feelings, rather than the hollow ravings of a stranger.

And now? Now I don't know. I just don't know anymore. I can feel reality and dream blurring into one, as I seamlessly slip in and out of uneasy slumber, can feel a part of me draining away, and I can't fight it. I keep trying, so desperately, to hold onto myself, to stay in control of my own reality, but I can feel myself draining away; like water through clutching fingers, the tighter I grasp, the harder I try, the more hopeless it all becomes. I want to fight it, I really do, but I don't know how to. At times, everything feels okay. I feel almost...hopeful? But then the dreams return. Every awakening brings the realisation that I am alone. And that hurts more than anything in the world.

I was taught to fight as a child, was trained to be a warrior, a survivor...but none of that physical training can help now. This is a test of my mental strength, my ability to keep a hold on my willpower, even when everything that I once held dear to me is gone...

Not that long ago, I would have had confidence in myself, in my abilities to stay strong. But then, not that long ago, I believed that I would always outrun them, that I was invincible – well, not quite invincible, but certainly strong enough to take them on, and stand a pretty good chance of surviving. I had thought that, if it ever came to a fight, I would be capable of beating them – I mean, I had survived this long, when no one else had, right? It sounds stupid now, sat here, but I had believed, ever since I had been on my own,that there was a higher power keeping me alive, not a God as such, but the spirits of my people, my parents, keeping me safe – not so safe as to become complacent, but safe from any real harm... I know, it's impossible, ridiculous, but I believed it; it kept me strong and I stayed alive. Until now. I guess now, well, now I know I've just been lucky. It's certainly not talent – I had the standard training, but my parents were killed before my powers developed, so I have no specialised training. Without all of the training that the rest of my people had, how else could I possibly have survived, if it wasn't for luck?

I can't save my people. They are dead. They won't be coming back to help me.

I have lost everyone that I ever loved. I have lost those among my people whom I hated. It's when you realise that you miss them all, the loved and the hated, that you realise that you are truly alone.

I realise now, there's no one there, no one protecting me from afar. It's just me, on my own, and I can't see a way out of this. I never really thought about what to do if I got caught. I mean, they've always just killed on sight, so it was never a possibility for me – if they caught me, I assumed it would be a fight, to live or die. I lived my life as though every moment was just that, live or die – there was no in between, no option of 'prisoner'. I always assumed that, if they found me, that if I was to die at their hands, I would go down fighting. I wasn't going to give up without a fight. I wanted my fight, my physical fight, not this. I never once imagined that it would be like this, locked away, a prisoner, the mental battle, feeling myself slipping away and unable to fight back. It hits me, that I've always been able to fight back, through my entire life. Getting caught, that has knocked my confidence. Hugely. I've been blaming myself, doubting myself ever since. I don't know what I am capable of anymore. I don't know if I can get through this, if I can survive.

How much of my survival so far has just been luck, and how much has been me, fighting? That's the question that keeps bothering me. All the time that I doubt myself, that I doubt my own natural instinct to survive, I have a problem.

Because I think my luck has run out.