The Zodiac Spirit Guardians

Playing With Fire

I don't wake up to pain, I wake up to silence. It's eerie and derisive. There's almost a sound to silence, like a pain radiating in my ears from lack of vibrations in the air. I was half-expecting to open my eyes to a prison cell, or a dungeon with bars all around me, or a room without windows or a bed, but this is different.

Each wall has a large arched window that looks out to the massive hallways surrounding this room. Inside the room, there's hardly a thing. It lacks furniture, decorations, rugs, curtains, fans, lights, and everything most rooms contain. The only source of light streams in from the surrounding windows. Mirrors hang on every wall, and I spot myself in them. My robe that was torn to shreds and dyed red with blood, has been taken away and replaced with a long sleeve white dress. Lace designs cover the entire fabric, almost making my skin visible underneath. My knotted hair, with strands in every direction, has been combed straight and washed, even styled into a flowered headband. I'm still barefoot, but I realize They've dressed me to mock me. Purity is no longer in my repertoire, and this is what I get for trying to fool Them: a constant reminder that I failed.

Looking around me through the windows, I find nothing but rooms. I can't see the outside world, and I immediately realize what they've done. This room must be right in the center of the fortress, surrounded by rooms upon rooms and buildings upon buildings. They've made the entire fortress my cage and my bars.

I stare at myself in the mirror. The same face I've always had looks back at me, the thin dark eyebrows with a soft arch, pale almost snow colored skin, a mouth with a thinner upper lip, big ash colored eyes and deep black eyelashes curving toward the sky, and a smooth bone structure forming an oval shaped face with a hint of a heart jawline. I can recall the thoughts I had just a few days ago, when that dream haunted me in my sleep. In that moment, I hadn't known that the warrior girl version of me was already my reality. I'm her on the inside, always have been. Even as I glare at the pretty face in the mirror, I know she's in there. And she would love to dye this dress red.

My face is condemned to hold a smile so vulgar it rattles my bones to the marrow. I gracefully draw my arms up in an X in front of my body, reflecting the girl in the mirror. I give her one last glimpse and gently ease my eyes closed. The blackness churns, rising from my gut to my stomach in a flurry of darkness. It infiltrates my lungs and devours my throat, all at once my insides erupt in an explosion of power.

I obliterate it all.