Chris VI

“Will this be enough? Marina signs.

"We have to wait a little longer. Just a bit more."

Marina plans to take down Lyle and everything he’s built. She’s kept a record of every single thing they've been doing. She has every name, every transaction, and every location. She has the power to free everyone in his control. I've gone through it all. What Lyle and Marina have built is bigger than anyone knows. It's the revival of the past. It's the future that she can prevent.

She can finally be free.

Marina was born abandoned for how she came out; An albino freak. At least that’s what she believes. She lived in foster homes after foster homes in Colorado until she was found. She was five. She calls that man her father, Azul Amadeus.

The founder of an organization with delusional ideas for a better world and with even more delusional methods. He was someone like Marina, someone like me. Born as something that shouldn't exist. He created Winter. He built a following to change the world into his ideal. The world sees him as a terrorist, and Marina sees him as someone with the best intentions.

He told her she was key to his goal. He said that people who were like them were supposed to heal the world. Azul wanted to bring all of us together. The world was supposed to change.

But that was a product of the past, and this is the now. We are left with the remnants that we cannot control. We became victims of it. Marina believes her father is not evil. She can't say the same thing for Lyle.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

The man who was inspired to be just like Azul.

The only crime we've committed was existence. We simply suffer because we are under what he controls. We go through this pain only because we're in the wrong place. It's not fair. It's not right. But life's not fair. We deal with the cards we are dealt and the only path is forward. It's always forward. The past is yesterday and only the dead belong to the past. Yesterday is the shadow of today. Today is the shadow of tomorrow. Today is the present to the infinity of tomorrow. And eternity is decided by its shadows. It's these shadows that have shadows.

.

"Can I show you something?”

Before I can respond, Marina takes off her shirt. She doesn’t wear a bra but that’s not what interests me. It’s when she turns herself around that I see what she wants me to see. Her shoulder blades are covered in bloodied cotton patches. She rips them off and I see scars along her shoulder blades; some old, some new.

“I’m his angel."

“And that's his weakness. "

Marina smiles and nods.

She covers her breasts with her shirt but doesn’t put it on. She leans in and closes her eyes so she can kiss my lips. It’s my first kiss. It’s just flesh and no emotion. “Thank you.”

When I open my eyes, she’s gone; replaced by a fish behind glass. It’s grinning, telling me, “It’s too bad you’re such a thinker.”

“What do you mean?”

“For one who explores the impossible, your vision is awfully narrow.”

“Marina?”

“She’s not real. None of this is. It’s time to wake up.”

"You can't stop me."

"And who exactly is 'you'?" the fish laughs.

I blink and there is no fish behind the glass. It's a mirror. It's me. There's nothing else. It's all white. It's just me.

It starts out with a question,

how much of it is real?

Welcome to the subconscious of an actor who murdered his sanity to stop the audience's laughter. I am no longer hiding from my personality disorder. A stronger tide is coming.

I was born a different shade from all the rotten petals. I'm wrapped in the absence of Heaven's benevolence to have my soul be sold to the devil. I was born as a form of art that is isolated from humanity. I've been hidden in the darkness for too long. The light of the past is the light that's now. It's the light of the future and the light that's in me. It's the light that survived and the light that will shine. It is the light that casts the shadows of tomorrow, but that's okay. It's only the shadows of the present that we see. It is what's finished and perfect.

What happens when you stumble upon an answer when you never had the question?