Two wakeful nights.

Time passed in slow motion. Slower than any particle of dust in the air.

The time was slow, and once I understood that screaming wasn't a solution, I wasn't screaming anymore. It was the first time someone, a close one, was killed in front of me.

And maybe it was by her choice, but that didn't lessen the effect.

Riam lied to me, and I trusted a lie. But a part of me understood why she didn't tell me anything, because I wouldn't have accepted.

After two days of complete shock, my heart started to slowly relax, and my isolation was finally able to rise... and I came to understand that Riam had done something to me.

Something to my left leg, and right hand, they felt different, minutely different.

There were scribes on them, filling every inch of them, from the ends of my fingers to my shoulder. And the same was with my leg. Minute scribes of a light blue color.

I stayed wide-eyed on the chair. My silence was odd. My head wasn't in conflict but in wonders.

Two nights passed, and I was still there, sitting before the half-eaten table, splashed with dry blood...

There were no remains, just a purple hair that floated along the dust I followed through the reflection of the moonlight filtered through the window.

I followed the hair dancing in the air with two dark-clear eyes.

Non-existent yet there, I was in a trance, rarely blinking and rarely but surely listening to the voice within me trying to get in, for hours… and eventually, I chose to hear him out, this time voluntarily.

I closed my eyes and dropped to the ground, my focus slowly blurring as the darkness took over.

...... ......

"Maybe she hated you after all," the voice said. Then the figure popped from nothingness. Threads of white and black moved inside each other as the figure stood at my height. Two legs, hands, a body, a mouth, a pair of white holes for eyes, and wavy white hair exactly like mine but in a different color.

The voice within was different. It kept evolving inside of me. Every time we met, the voice within looked more human… and now, it talked to me when I was standing, awake, or walking.

"Ruth," the voice said, extending his arms to the sides. "Look around you! Roooth!" the figure shouted.

The world was blue from the sky to the ocean. And only we stood in this vast world. The breeze moved our hair, my clothes, and maybe, our words.

"Give me one person who did not leave your side," the voice chuckled. "Maybe your mom was right when she told you not to be close to anyone because no one wanted to befriend you. Even she, your mom, left you. Riam, after two years, after getting you to like her, left you. Heal, the girl you dream about. You meet her just in your dreams. And the girl next door, was she even a friend?"

The figure poked every thin line of doubt.

And my eyes were wide open and trembling.

Doubt...

I was in doubt...

I was trembling. The memory of Riam's death was still in my head, repeating. My calmness was still apparent but very shakeable. The tremble was primarily shown in my legs, and it was painful.

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I was silent and listening.

"Look around you, Ruth," the figure grabbed my shoulders, the threads he was made of shaking intensely in excitement. "No one loves you. You are alone. You wanted family, friends, and someone to venture the world with. But look, you are twelve and have already lost everyone. The world you wanted to venture into has become so small and limited to what the Jennie on your neck wants," I felt dryness in my eyes as the figure shouted. He was right. "you want to run away, I knoooo Ruth I knooooo!"

My tears dropped. He was right. Nobody was around. I had nothing, and I was so scared every night, terrified that maybe The Jennie would appear again, telling me to do things that I didn't want to do.

My eyes were dark like the night, lifelessly clear but childishly glossy with tears. And even though I couldn't see myself, I knew how miserable I looked.

The figure shook me back and forth…

"Ruth, I will free you!" the figure said.

I blinked.

"Free me?"

"Yes, I will. Because I'm a part of you. I'm the closest to you. I've been around since you were born, I've seen how you lived and what you lived, and… I have known the truth."

"W-what truth?"

My chest was slowly tightening as if the blood pumped into it in bulk. What truth was the voice within talking about? What freedom was he mentioning?

"The freedom to live the way you want, Ruth. A place where you won't tremble. I will give it to you… I promise. I will give to you what they couldn't, what your mother couldn't… I will achieve our desire!"

My desire?

What was my desire again?

I wanted to be happy. I had never been happy. All of my happiness was timid. Everyone I liked left me. And in a single night, the joy I thought I had was limited to my ignorant days with my mom...

Because…

"Yes, Ruth… You are getting it… it's because your happiness is dependent on others. You aren't happy by yourself. Even the magic you create. Even your creation, if it was criticized by your mom, will no longer be thrilling! Right, Ruth? Riiiight!"

The figure screamed excitedly. A genuine excitement, as if he wanted to show the truth he had just figured out…

It didn't lie. For the first time, I believed that what the voice within said… was true. If my mother or Heal criticized my magic, I would be depressed, and magic wouldn't be as exciting as before.

Then... how should I change that?

"How?" I asked, my hands clenched on my sides. "How can I be free? Of all of those chains? I want to live happily and lightly." I grabbed my chest, my eyes flowing with tears. "I have never felt so heavy in my life. Everything feels like a weight, like a painful weight..."

I wanted to be light and free...

And the figure smiled, taking a step to the back.

"Well, then sleep, Ruth… and leave everything to me."

The second the figure said that I felt a single throb. A single beat that waved me up to down. A scary beat…

Something deep inside me, something so deep, was coming out… it was trust… something so deep in me trusted his words.

The voice within's smile got wider...

And the last single sparkle of doubt inside me asked a question.

"Is-is it okay to trust you?"

It was the end. I wanted the voice to tell me it was okay… I wanted someone to tell me to ignore my mother's warnings and believe in that voice… it was salvation, a place where I wouldn't tremble… a happy place, a free place, a light place.

The figure's smile grew wider…

And his mouth moved about to say a word…

The figure extended his hand to me... his lips were about to say something. The figure was moving them, and in just a moment, before the figure was about to complete his word, I felt a feeling I hadn't felt before. An overpowering feeling. I looked at my hand. Chills, thousands of chills, in a single moment, a lightening and refreshing feeling...

An addictive feeling.

And a single thought overtook my head...

IF PEOPLE AND THE WORLD WERE TOO SCARY, WHY NOT JUST KILL THEM ALL?

For a single moment, I felt capable... so capable. And that feeling made me so light and happy…

Wait...

Happy?

I see...

So this is happiness.

I felt the best feeling in my life when a voice called from afar. A third voice, someone other than the voice within who was just smiling, and other than me.

"Don't worry," the voice was warm, like a relaxing ocean under a sunny sky. "Even in your worst form, you are so pretty."

Worst form?

What was happening?

I looked around...

This wasn't my world.

I was in the forest, in the middle of the night, standing before a hole lit by the moon and hundreds of illuminating pink leaves floating around the air. A concave hole as wide as my neighborhood, dry and cracked, and far down in the hole, there was a girl.

A blond girl was standing. One of her arms was blue and swollen. Blood flowed from one of her eyes, and her whole body was red and smudged with blood...

"Welcome back," the girl smiled as if she was never in pain. Her hair was wavier than before, lighter in color than before. She was a little different, but she was her... she was Heal.

I was about to kill Heal...

And in the middle of my amazement, memories sparkled in my head.

I was creating a gigantic bomb to kill everyone when Heal entered my house, pulled me far into the forest, and tried to stop me...

But it wasn't me who was fighting. It could never be me.

Nope, it was you.

It wasn't!

Then the voice chuckled in my head.

Let me remind you of something. I'm just a part of you. And weren't you the one who wished to kill everyone?

I...

I was...