Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 89023 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89023 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
Which allows me to relax, exhale, and look around.
After a few more seconds I realize it’s not the pretty colors that comfort me, but some internal instinct that this is… home. Somewhere I belong.
My body starts to tingle and a sense of purpose and wellbeing comes over me. A surety, maybe, that I have… arrived.
The only question is, arrived… where?
It’s impossible to know because there’s no one to ask.
But I’ve been dreamwalking since I was a child. I might not know everything about it—certainly not the gold parts, since they are new—but I know enough to get places. To use it as means to an end.
To use it as a road.
My stomach flutters and my hand automatically drifts down to my stomach as I suddenly realize that there is something growing inside me.
A demon? A god? A vampire?
I don’t know. The only thing I do know is that it’s not mine. It’s not Ryet’s, either. It belongs to the Darkness. We belong to the Darkness as well, I think. But this baby is different. It’s something very, very wrong and it cannot be born. I feel this all the way down to my bones.
It cannot be born.
I don’t know what Paul thinks it is, or what Josep thinks it is, but I don’t care what they think. They made it for all the wrong reasons. I think it’s evil. And not in the same way that I am. Not even in the same way as Paul or Ryet.
It’s more than that. It’s like… Biblical. An Antichrist or something. At the very least, it’s a terrible idea to bring it into the human world and an even worse idea for me to raise it.
I’m shaking my head as I think these last words. No. I’m not gonna do it.
And then I remember something. My own thoughts from months ago. From that night in the lodge bedroom when Lucia died.
Maybe the Darkness wins. Maybe the Darkness takes over the world. Maybe some woman really does pop out a bunch of evil demon babies. Maybe that’s really how all this ends.
But I swear to that good-for-nothing God above, it’s not gonna happen that way because of me.
I was so convinced. In fact, I was here, in this same frame of mind as I am right now. I had a choice back in the lodge bedroom when Lucia came to me and told me to kill Ryet and then myself and I didn’t do it. I put myself on this path. I am this demon’s mother.
It’s my fault we’re here. But this guilt, or self-blame, or whatever emotion it is that I’m feeling, isn’t the important part.
The important part is that while it’s inside of me, I’m in control of it.
“The ouroboros,” I say, repeating the words Lucia spoke to me. The baby is power. And if Paul was telling the truth and my only purpose in this life is to make babies, then it’s a constant source of power. Not for him, but for me.
He was going to take it, of course. Just like the piece of me that was my grandma took it from the piece of me that was my mother.
But couldn’t I take it instead? Couldn’t I just eat my own tail and keep all that power for myself? And, if I were to find all my shattered pieces, couldn’t I scoop them all up and just… put them all back where they belong?
How dark am I? How close to being the actual evil of Darkness am I? Because these thoughts of mine make me feel more like a daughter than a distant cousin.
This final thought is the scary one. Not that any of the previous ideas were in any way calming. But the next thought is… if I did pull myself together and take all my power back, would I still be Syrsee? Would I still love Ryet?
Would I be able to control it?
Most likely not.
It’s probably a really stupid idea to claim my birthright power.
It’s probably gonna come back to bite me, just like that snake eating its tail.
But the only other option is to let everyone else dictate my future.
Paul, or Josep, or Ryet, or the Darkness.
If this is truly my life, isn’t it better to try and change my future rather than letting others do it for me?
Yes.
I know this is the way because I spent my whole life up to this point being ignorant, and afraid, and on the run.
I don’t want to run anymore.
I don’t want this baby.
I don’t want to die, either.
I want to live. I want my power. And I want Ryet to be my future.
From where I’m at presently, none of this seems possible. The deck, as they say, is decidedly stacked against me.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. I could, for once, stop running and take a stand. Which sounds good in books and movies. Stories. They speed everything up and make a montage of growth or… something. Time passes, skills are acquired, coping mechanisms are learned. Because this is how growth works. You have to struggle. You have to live through things. This is how you grow. You don’t simply wake up one day and say ‘I’m a hero.’ Because if one was able to simply become courageous, everyone would do it. It’s just not that easy. You have to earn it.