She kissed me, telling me goodbye for the last time. My soul felt less worn this time; perhaps I could finally be free from this pain I kept injecting myself with. But I loved her, and this game that we played. I loved it because she had no idea... Or I loved it because of how much I loved her. Perhaps I just loved the chase? Or the world was just cruel enough to relieve me of being a masochist while also making me love to self-afflict. What I do know is this: I both loved and hated the stab of the knife of rejection under my skin, over and over again; It was that she left me again, but also gave me a chance for a new beginning. I knew this wouldn't be the last time. It couldn't be, because we were meant to be together.
I was put here to love her, this goddess among mortals, and I would stop fucking up long enough to grow old with her. Or at least, to watch her grow old, her hooded eyes growing matured crow's feet and her glistening hair streaking silver... Something about my interest in her both terrified and excited me. The idea of her aging, well... It made my heart beat out of my chest and my skin tingle up from my feet to my head. And she would love me for what I am... I hoped that one day, this mysterious force within me that made me different from others would be what put me ahead in the race to her heart.
I looked up at the sky and realized... In seven days she would be 40 years old. Forty, and still looking like she could kick my ass at the drop of a stone. Most people would never catch my eye for a moment past the age of 24, but her... Somehow the more she aged, the more alluring her scent; the more wise she became, the more I yearned to listen to her clear, dominating thoughts. In my ever-expanding life I have never once laid eyes upon a human of her caliber. I grinned wide with a tantalizing shiver up my spine as I thought of how spectacular she was.
And yet there we were, saying goodbye for the sixth time. I was standing all alone in my house, the empty air weighing heavily on my mind after she left, and with a start, my determination kicked in. My heart beating faster, I looked to my left at the entryway wall.
I stared at myself in the mirror, wiping unfamiliar tears from my chiseled cheekbones. My long, thick, strawberry blonde hair framed my pointed chin and smokey eyes flawlessly. A look of determination crossed my eyebrows and I resolved to never let this happen again, for the sixth time. I marched over to the bathroom wall, knocked on it once, then twice, then three times and slid the falsity to the side with conviction. The loud crack of the false wall splitting was registered but didn't startle me, as I was too busy hearing my raging thoughts echoing in my ears and heart. With a slap, I firmly hit my palm upon the wood, sliding along the blisters and leaving a trail of perfectly crafted wood underneath. And there it was in its handcrafted glory, my black, wooden, mysterious box. Picking it up carefully, I breathed in its heavenly aroma of old polish mixed with an unidentifiable odor. This was what hope smelled of, and I carried it to the kitchen table.
Taking a deep breath, I gently but firmly pressed in the symbols on each face in the correct order, making a click sound with each impress. The cover flew across the room and hit the wall with a bang and crashed to the floor. I flipped the box over and passports, licenses, birth certificates, credit cards, and social security cards clattered against the polished cherry. Six of each sat on the table, and I could practically hear the personalities murmuring in my head, a little too clearly. I shuffled through the documents and the voices became louder, and clearer.
"How could you do this to her?" asked Vincent, who had been dead for 15 years.
"You monster. What is wrong with you?!" yelled Brielle, who had been dead for 5.
"I WILL KILL YOU." said a familiar but unidentified demonic growl, as my mind felt like it was stabbed through with an ice pick.
They each hounded me, one by one, beginning to overlap each other until I couldn't understand what any of them were saying and they were so loud that I collapsed with my hands covering my ears. I had heard them all before, but that demonic growl hit me even harder than last time.
"YOU FIEND!!"
"MONSTER!!!"
"ABOMINATION!!!"
I crumpled like tissue paper as they tortured me, scraping at my eyes, my chest, my brain... I yelled at them to stop, let me be in peace, that it was all my fault and I was sorry... I could feel them tearing at my memories, biting and scratching at my emotions and the rational parts of my brain... I sobbed loudly as I felt dreams and nightmares once remembered, slipping away as if they were smoke escaping a leaking chamber.
After what seemed like an eternity, I came into consciousness again around 3:00 A.M. I found myself on the plush carpet of my bedroom closet, in the pitch black, feeling as though I had drunk nothing but rum for a week straight. My mouth feeling like sand but tasting like bile, I apparently had vomited. I made the mistake of feeling my chest, which was covered in a green and brown substance liquid, and tried to stand. Holding on to the hanging rod, I clumsily pulled myself up and felt the sharp pain of dehydration mixed with a healthy dose of malnutrition within my body. However, it did not matter... It was all for her. It would all be worth it in the end.
I grabbed for myself some water from the fridge and sipped the cool, icy poison slowly. To my surprise once again, it did in fact make me feel a little better. I then stuffed a slice of whole wheat bread into my mouth and ate it with ferocity before staring at the table again. I had a couple of options available, but which one would give me the best chance?
Slowly picking up a white drivers' license from the table, I thoughtfully scratched my chin with my other hand.
"Annabelle Chevalier. Sounds like a good enough name to me. And it'll have to be. If it's not, only the Gods know that you're dead anyway." I snatched up the driver's license, the birth certificate, and the social security card. I even took the passport, just in case.
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