I don't blame you if you want to bury me in your memories

chapter four- everything that has ever left me has only set me free

- the monsters in my head
always knew
that i would lose you
in the end -
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Death wasn't kind. It took good people, it took bad people and didn't distinguish between the sinners and the saints. It snatched anyone it could at any time. The hooded cloak of death had always loomed near Catra. At a young age, Catra never expected to live a long life. Either she would die in the war or die from punishments she received. One day, Shadow Weaver wouldn't threaten her with death anymore and dispose of her. No one would notice and no one would care. She would be replaced with another cadet and that would be the end of her life, the end of her part in the story. Her mark on Etheria would disappear with her.

The fear of death went away when she got older. She had Adora by her side and with her, no one, not even Shadow Weaver or death, could take Catra away from her. They were meant to be, soulmates tied together since childhood and their future was bright. Then Adora left. Leaving her behind to live a better life with her new best friends. Choosing them because Catra was never enough to make Adora stay despite the fact that Adora was everything to her. She was the reason why Catra stayed with the Horde and didn't run away when she had the opportunity. Adora would beg her not to leave so she wouldn't. Catra begged her to stay years later and she didn't.

Shadow Weaver was right. All those times she told Catra that Adora didn't care for her and that one day, Adora would see that Catra was a distraction who was only holding her down. It appeared that it was the other way around. Catra rose to the top once Adora left and was able to prove herself worthy. She had spent her whole life trying to prove her life was worth keeping. Now, the tables had turned and Catra was going to make everyone suffer the same pain she did. Make Adora suffer. It was a nice little dream she had but it would never come true because while Adora never had the guts to kill Catra, neither did she. War wasn't a game but it needed many players for it to work. Some were willing, others were not. War and death went hand in hand.

That was probably why Catra soon found death more of a comfort in her lonely life. Even when everything went downhill, when the price of power caught up to her, she knew that death was lurking close to her. A friend that would relieve her of her suffering when the time was right and welcome her to another life where she wouldn't have to suffer anymore. No one would miss her, that hadn't changed from when she was younger. How could you lose everything if you had nothing to begin with? Catra liked to imagine that Adora would miss her when she was gone, maybe Scorpia and Lonnie too. Perhaps they would have a funeral for her. Or they wouldn't care and toss her stuff in the trash. These thoughts kept her up at night. It was too late though to worry over that.

Catra was dead.

It wasn't how she expected to go. Her head was on fire, thousands of needles pierced through her skull and she couldn't move at all. A blinding light was in front of her and for a second she thought she saw her old mask. It was gone in a second. Pain spread through her body like a virus, first her head, then her legs and arms, next her chest and finally her heart. Her heart was already broken. The shatters were held together by a thread of hope but that was gone. It had been broken for a long time. Catra sometimes wondered if it was always broken but she never realised until it cracked in half when Adora left.

When death came for her, it was unlike anything else. Death had warm, gentle arms that picked her off the floor and carried her to her destination. There was no yelling at her to get up, no reaper to take her soul. It almost felt like she was going home. The warm feeling left quickly after it arrived and the pain started she expected. Screams cut through the silence and Catra groaned in her head for them to shut up before she realised it was her. The pain was what she deserved after everything she had but this was unbearable. It reminded her of Shadow Weaver's magic wrapping around her and Hordak's atmosphere machine suffocating her. Of Adora looking at her with disappointment when Catra rejected her offer or after Catra lost another battle with her. All the pain she had caused everyone else and all the pain they gave back in return flooded through her body and mind. If this was heaven, she didn't want to know what hell was like.