Confessions

By Lady Arianna of Annwn

I suppose that, given a moment in time to reflect, we all realize what we've done wrong in the past, those things which will never be forgiven, those wounds which will never be healed.

We all realize that there are things we have done, that, if given to do over again, we would do differently, or in some cases, would never do at all. Twenty-twenty hindsight, I guess. There are things that shouldn't have happened the way they did. That's that. That's all.

But it isn't.

Oh, no. Things come back. Events you thought were over come back to haunt you some fifty years after they're done with. Those are the nightmares. Those are the visions which, when seen again, are enough to drive you mad.

And they do.

But who isn't mad? Who isn't just a touch insane? No one. We all have our peculiarities, our little personality quirks which make us unique and different. Or maybe they make us insane and vengeful. Who knows.

I do.

I've lived it all before. Hundreds, no, thousands of times before. Before you were born. And I'll continue to dream, long after all the world's gone, about my nightmares.

The ghosts.

The demons of yesterday. Haunting today.

But to me, they aren't nightmares.

No, the world is as it should be. Everything is normal. There was nothing I could do.

Was there?

Of course not. Fate is fate. That is all. There was nothing I could do to change fate...to change her fate...

I watched her die, you know.

I watched her die.

It was a horrible death, as she suffocated slowly, in a vacuum of darkness that was unpenetrated by the tiniest photon of light...She died. I watched her die.

'My love,' she cried out to me...

I simply shook my head. I couldn't save her. She was beyond my reach.

A single tear formed in her eye, prepared to run its course down her face. But it never made it. It was swept away in the 0 G of the vacuum, a single glowing sphere...

A sun. A single ray of light in the darkness...The light in my darkness...the Darkness of purity. The Darkness of evil. The single tear, held suspended in motion, a drop of life in one un-ending sea.

And then she was gone.

Her eyes, frozen open in shock, asking me the same hideous question, over and over again. Why don't you do something? Help me....Please, I need your help...

A thousand times I have seen her there, her soul-less eyes reflecting the darkness of the Void which had so evilly consumed her. Her eyes...calling out to me. The sole person in the room, the only one who could help her to change her fate.

But no.

I cannot change fate. It is not my place. One who is to die will die, and one who is to live will live, and that is all.

No one shall ever die at my hands, I said once. And no one ever did.

No one ever lived again by the work of those same hands, a voice whispered.

But no.

It wasn't my place. I am not the one who must must make those decisions. My job is to live. For myself.

Given the time to reflect, we all see the things which, given the chance to change, we would indeed change.

But no.

Not all.

I regret nothing. There is nothing to regret. I look back on my life, now, as I prepare to go to the infinity of life beyond the stars...

There is nothing I would change.

You laugh at me.

You think I am insane. Look at him, you say. He killed her. He killed her, by his own fault, and he should pay. He will pay.

But no, sometimes, you look back on your life, and you realize that there was nothing else you could do. That it was out of your hands. That there was nothing left for you to do. Except to turn the other way, and not watch as the scene plays out before you.

I have seen her eyes, once in life, and one billion times in my sleep. In the nightmares. The nightmares that do not disappear. The nightmares that do not end when sleep does. Then nightmares contained in halls of pure white, where there is no end to my pain, where they watch me through the glass...they call it a mirror, but I know they watch me through it...They watch me, here in my agony, the agony of not knowing if there was anything else I could do, but turn the other way. Look away, and hope that the nightmare will end.

I look away now. I try not to see the anger and hatred of my cowardice that you hold in your eyes. He should pay, you say again angrily. He should pay.

What makes you think that?

What makes you think that I haven't ?

What makes you think that I do not pay, even now, as I speak to you?

What makes you think that I do not pay for my crime?

I pay.

I always will.

So I look the other way.

And wait for the nightmare to end.

Knowing full well....

That it won't.

This is entirely and completely my own idea. Scary, isn't it? Anyway, I don't think it resembles anybody from any particular series...it's actually an unfinished idea that one of these days I'll work out. So, until further notice, please don't steal this idea without asking first.

other sentient beings have read this Confession.