Bodies lay scattered on the ground, only a few were left standing. Angels of light. Angels of night. Their eyes fell upon me. Lowering my head, my shaking hands come into view. Slowly, they begin to glow a golden hue. Shortly after, a burning sensat...
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"Save yourself, before it's too late,"
Upon opening my eyes, I expected to be greeted with the beautiful scenery of Basileia, but that didn't seem to be the case. Instead, I was greeted with nothing but darkness. The cold grew as the space around me felt more unwelcoming with every passing second. It was weird to not wake up in Basileia after falling asleep at night. So much so, I found myself not being able to recall the last time I had a normal dream. At least that's what I thought would be happening time. Just a regular dream, but the atmosphere felt off. I seemed too aware of what was going on around me for this to be a dream. So if I wasn't in Basileia, then where was I?
Glancing around, there seemed to be no trace of details to figure out where I was. It was too dark to see anything, even with me reaching my hands out in front of me, I could only imagine that they were there. Slowly moving forward within the vast space, trying to feel for anything around me, there seemed to be nothing within my reach. Nothing but empty space that lays before me. With all the details I was learning about the place I found myself in, they were all deemed useless as I still couldn't figure out where I was. One thing I knew for sure was the eerie feeling I felt when I first got here, which seemed to be growing stronger, creeping at a steady pace. I also couldn't fight the feeling that I was being watched. Maybe it was all just part of my imagination, meant to scare me in the darkness; but I could feel a set of eyes, their burning gaze, trained on me.
I found myself wanting to call out to whoever was there. To the person who was with me in the dark space, but I couldn't decide if I wanted to know the answer. To know if someone was truly there or just a figment of my imagination. I couldn't decide if it was better to know if I wasn't alone in the dark or wish that I was upon finding out who was with me. I wanted to speak out, but my throat felt too tight to squeeze one word past. It felt as if I spent the last couple of hours screaming and crying until there was nothing left for me to even speak. The feeling itself brought forth a memory I so desperately wanted to forget. This feeling was all too familiar. I couldn't stop the flashes of the memory from circling my head. The image of his hands around my neck, squeezing the life from my body. Until there was almost nothing left.
I hated that memory the most. Looking at the past, with everything that happened between my mom and me, that memory of my dad would be one that would, sadly, stick with me for the rest of my life. No matter how hard I tried to shove it aside. To keep it locked and tucked away in a box. To suppress it anytime it tries to make itself known. I failed miserably every time. And with that memory came one question that I was terrified to ever get an answer for. That when my dad nearly suffocated me to death, was he pleased with himself? Since I couldn't see his face when it happened, I knew I would never truly know the answer. But I also knew that it would destroy me inside if I ever found out.
My world already shifted when I first learned about Basileia. Now it's shifted so much, to the point where I don't even know what direction is which anymore, all because of my dad. When I realized just how cruel he could be, I didn't if I was still in the same world I grew up in. Maybe it was selfish to think, but I didn't understand how he could be so cold-hearted to me. To watch the life fall from my eyes and have no remorse. When it came to anyone but himself, he couldn't care less. That was something I could expect from my mom, but to see it come from my dad was just so hard to let it sink in. My mom portrayed herself to be so closed off from my dad and me, my whole life. There wasn't a time I could recall the last time my mom found it within herself to praise me for anything I've done. I couldn't even remember the last time she's told me she loves me. It was always my dad who said it for her. Who reassured me that my mom still loved me even though she never found within her to mutter the words to me herself. That's what made this all so much harder to process. How could my dad be so evil when he was the only one to show me how much he cared. I couldn't wrap my head around it all. It all just seemed too unrealistic. Impossible.
