Within every realm imaginable, one constant remains the same: Power is the motivating factor in one’s worth and abilities. If someone wields power, they are in control of their own destiny and success. And if one is at the mercy of another’s power, they are tossed about like a puppet, suspended by the strings of fate.

I just so happen to be that puppet; and the stronghold on my life is possessed by none other than my three younger sisters. As anyone would be able to attest to, little sisters are absolute monsters. However, very few could say that their sisters are actual monsters that ruined their earthly life.

I wish I could say that I had a childhood full of adventures, trials, tribulations, and character arcs. But alas, I did not. My formative years consisted of myself, my mother, and my three seemingly average, aforementioned younger sisters. We led our average lives for many years, until on a bright, Saturday morning led the three normal girls to an ordinary thrift shop selling mediocre yarn.

“I want to learn how to knit!” exclaimed Melody.

And so they did, as they had always embarked on their fleeting passions as a trio.

The yarn was purchased, and simultaneously, so was my soul. We won the lottery the next day, which was peculiar not only for the odds being stacked against anyone who bought a ticket, but because my mother generally knew such odds and never gambled. Was my soul pawned off to insurmountable riches that drug me into a life of greed and lavish spending? I only wish my destiny had been molded by cliché life lessons on the corruption of wealth. Instead, my life simply ended in the mortal sense with a bittersweet kiss against the cold, unfeeling lips of a bus moving at sixty miles per hour. I had just finished an altercation with my bratty sisters when I refused to buy them more yarn (of course, this was the one hobby they WEREN’T going to put down an hour after starting). Instead, I wanted to get some fresh air and unwind. “Fate” had different plans for me.

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On impact, my vision went black. Then, a piercing light that burned more than the blunt trauma itself appeared. A crimson red string of yarn wrapped around my neck, pulling me beneath the pavement with little resistance from me in my state of disbelief. My breath became shallow, then ceased entirely as I plummeted. Suddenly, my wrist was constricted by a blue piece of thread, bound to a single, gleaming needle and significantly thinner than the blood red yarn that hastened my descent.  I screamed as the needle punctured my wrist, burrowing into my feeble flesh before emerging on the other side in a flurry of viscera and blood. I was suspended in mid-air for only a moment before the needle conceded to the overwhelming strength of the vermillion yarn. I reflect now, grateful for the blue thread’s efforts, as it had given time for reinforcements. A blazing silver line, similar in appearance to piano wire, and jet black rope, similar to the rigging of a resplendent galleon at sea, manifested around me. The wire seized around my other wrist, and the sable stay snaked around my back. I gasped, feeling the black line pierce through my chest as the silver became a formidable foe against the offending red yarn. With my body stretched between a celestial, silver angel and a red demon from the pits of Hell, and my heart being constricted further with every beat by darkness incarnate, time stood still. And in what was truly a millisecond, feeling like ages, I rose above the pavement as fast as I had fallen by the grace of the silver and black adversaries.

I lay in my mortal coil, with all strings still gripping my body. Blood began to pool beneath me, pouring from my exposed chest and staining the thick, black rope that now controlled my heart’s efforts to sustain me.

I was both alive and dead, both figuratively and literally gripped by the threads of fate.