To Drown in Sand

Monday left me broken. Tuesday, I was through with hoping.

Cynical just felt right.

"Love is the worst weapon in the world." He mumbled to himself as he watched the lift stop and his sister wheel herself away.

Sara moved mechanically as she wheeled herself to her old room. She'd moved back in with her parent's since her release from the hospital. Her room was the same as she left it when she bought her condo two years ago. Almost. She ignored the fact that her loft style bed was now and the ground or the fact that the top three shelves of her bookshelf were empty. She kept her eyes focused on her old rig, the bright red finish with black roses scratched and covered with stickers from all over the world. Wheeling herself to it, she somehow managed to pull herself into the elevated seat. Her breaths came out in heavy puffs as her arms trembled from the exertion.

Tears pricked the corners of her eyes as she plugged herself in and came to the main HUD. Dozens of games and filles filled her screen, Yggdrasil floating directly in front of her. Scowling she opened the game's file to delete it when she saw it.

Karma-W.npc

She had started coding her own NPC out of excitement when she first discovered she was pregnant. She'd been so excited and worried when she read the positive test. She couldn't tell anyone yet though. She just just got a new movie deal and Rin had just proposed. It hadn't been the right time. So she made this adorable little girl to hide all of her excitement and insecurities. Every worry secret she had of being left behind when she inevitably took a break, the hidden pressures to remain perfect in the eyes of others, all her fears. They were covered, buried deep within this string of ones and zeros.

That was her before the attack.

This new version of herself couldn't even talk back to the man who attacked her for a sick idea of love. A version of her that found disgust in the idea of love if that's what it meant to have someone's love. Rin said he loved her. Ken claimed to love her. And look where she was now. She didn't want their love. She was someone people automatically loved and looked where that supposed love left her. Broken and alone.

Angry tears blurring her vision, she created a new file. She wouldn't let herself be hurt again. She wouldn't let being loved be a weapon that can be used against her. Love was toxic and she wanted no part of it. None. Pressure rising as she vented her frustrations, Sara labeled her newest file.

Sephiroth-I.npc

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Sephiroth sat silently next to his creator as she wrote furiously in her diary. She had a session with her therapist today and seemed to be upset about something. Karma was still in her casket, having been commanded to stay in there until otherwise. Carrisimi then had him sit with her on the couch and retrieved her diary from his inventory.

Sephiroth was rather proud of the level of trust his creator held in him. He knew every word written in those pages by heart and was granted with a level of knowledge that no other NPC could ever hope to scratch. He was her closest confidant and most trusted servant.

But this also bore a terrible weight. He knew of her pain, the trials she suffered in IRL. And he couldn't do anything to help her. He could only hold onto her pain for her and hope that day he can truly be there for her. But for now, he would protect her diary as he protected her room.

Behind the kind smile of her avatar's face, Sara was an emotional wreck. Her therapist had suggested she keep a diary to vent her feelings between sessions but she'd always been hesitant about it. She'd only kept a diary once before and had found the little pink notebook up for auction barely a week later on a fan site. After that she took to compartmentalizing her feelings. But it was so hard to keep things to herself these days.