Immortals | ✓

00 | art

"May you never give them the satisfaction they crave for,

may you never let the pain distract you from the hunt;

may you live beyond their curses and cries;

may you continue to do so, forevermore"

━━ αθάνατοι ━━

HER eyes haven't been this distant since I have known her, but, most of my knowledge comes from the past week and let's face it, twenty questions weren't necessarily on our agenda.

Her gaze doesn't fall upon me despite the fact that I stand mere yards away from her, a thin glass wall separating us, so she continues to look towards the darkening sky, caught in her own musings. The book resting between her palms is the same as before and something tells me that she hasn't moved past a single page since I left.

It takes a split second for my mind to replay the moment when my gaze had found her for the first time, a memory which was made months ago but remains crystal clear in my mind; it couldn't and wouldn't blur even if I tried. She had been sitting near her dorm room's window that morning when I had arrived at the Academy but her eyes were focused on her book back then, paying attention to nothing but the aged book in her hands, as if whatever transpired in her periphery didn't matter, as if nothing else existed.

At the Academy, I shake my head with a chuckle as memories of my last few months in that life flash before me. Most of it is distant nowadays but not blurry like it's turning for the rest of them, including her. I, unlike them, remember, as clearly as I can remember any other day.

My father had left his busy schedule to come all the way to another country to drop me off at the Academy; as if he needed to make sure I wouldn't run away while flying in his jet, and taking the short road trip in his car while being under constant supervision of his chauffeur.

We had argued during the entire flight until we no more could. I can't seem to recall our words anymore, but I know they were far from pleasant. I was pissed off and somehow, even today I can fight him off on the same argument. A couple of months were not going to change our relationship of eighteen years, anyway. Now that I look back, I don't know whether I regret my words or resent his attitude more. Mostly, I don't know, unlike others, what I feel about that bygone life.

Since I was a child, I was told in very clear terms what my purpose in the world was. My year was planned in advance since pre-school as if I was some touring musical artist, clownery is what that felt to me. Years passed by in a blur for me, from piano lessons as a child, to debate clubs and training, to working part-time at my mother's office in the sixth form or working at my dad's office in my spring breaks. But in reality, I knew I was nothing more than a pawn. A pawn in my parents' gloriously annoying, pain-in-the-arse plans. They had one child, to groom, to show off; to use, and they never shied away from an opportunity to do exactly that.

Our conversations circled around my grades and electives, my choice of friendships and my nemesis, and somehow, I had no control over whom I chose to hate or like because relations mattered in their world. Hate wasn't an emotion I could afford unless it was towards someone who didn't matter. Hate was for those inferior to us, hate was for the staff and the working class, and even for the friends, but that wasn't the kind of hate you showed, no, that was the kind of hate you kept buried because they mattered in the society, they mattered to your interests. I didn't realise when, but somewhere lost and confused in this world which seemed like a hoax, like something built of fraud, that I began to hate tirelessly. I despised the very existence of it and everyone who chose to be a part of it.