The Pain Inside

Chapter 13

    "I like it better this way", even as the world came back into focus around her, Kat heard those words as if carried to her on the wind from a distance, the voice behind them indistinct, but the words themselves clear. "It's peaceful now. That's how I always imagined it would be, peaceful," the voice went on as Kat took stock of her surroundings. She was back in front of the Sheriff's Station, precisely where she'd been when she'd last left this world, when the Stranger had come for her and... The sheriff himself, but no, the man was gone. There was dead silence around her, not a person in sight anywhere, not a bird singing, or a cricket chirping, nothing within hearing distance, except for the voice. "No one can hurt me now."

    "MATT?" Kat called out, turning this way and that, hoping for a glimpse of something, anything, that might tell her where he was in this place.

    "Alone is the only place where I could truly be myself," the voice went on, oblivious to her shout. "I got so tired of having to hide, not away from people, but when I was with them. Of having to wear a mask, all the time. So that they'd never know how I felt, what I thought. So that they wouldn't pity me, or pull away from me, because of something I couldn't control," it was like the breeze itself was bringing the words right to her. Kat couldn't get the slightest handle on where they were coming from, what direction the speaker might be in. "The longer I did it, the more I realized how different I was from them. All of them. One more thing to have to hide. And yet, at times, I worked so hard to take on the role I'd created, to be what I thought they wanted me to be, that the lines blurred, and for a moment even I had trouble telling what was the real me, and what was the mask I was making myself wear. Those times were some of the worst, when I was so desperate to keep people from seeing the real me, that I made even myself lose sight of it. It would never last though, I'd always come crashing back to myself, and then I'd just try even harder to be someone else. I couldn't just tell people how I felt, show them what I was going through, say the things that were really on my mind. No one wants to be around someone who's always depressed. I had to keep lying, to everyone. No one could see the real me, no one. At least now... I don't have to wear the mask anymore."

   Kat was about to try shouting again when, as she continued to spin around, she finally spotted the approaching figure in the distance. It was quite a ways down the road, so at the pace it seemed to be walking it would take at least a couple minutes to reach her. She couldn't get a clear enough look at this distance to see their face, but the size of them made it clear they weren't the younger Matthew from this world. However, the dark hooded clothing, and the emptiness of the rest of the world, left one clear possibility as to who it could be. The Stranger.

    "And yet, I'm so alone..." the voice said. Though she still couldn't pinpoint it, it wasn't coming from the Stranger, that much was clear. "Even when I was around people, I felt alone, but now it's even worse. But isn't this better? However alone I might feel... At least I'm not having to live a lie. I'm not having to hide things, not having to worry about people seeing the truth. And it's peaceful. At least it's peaceful..."

    She had a little over a minute left. The Stranger's pace was steady, unhurried. It knew she wasn't going anywhere, and it could approach her at its leisure. She wasn't sure how to handle it, what she was going to do. How much of the shadow was there in the thing? She'd thought Matthew had almost... Banished the shadow, in the last world. In fact, she wasn't entirely sure what had happened, whether it had partially merged with him. But then, she realized, it had always been a part of him, perhaps he'd just finally taken it under control. But not the Stranger. What did it represent?