Ashes, Ashes, We All Fall Down

Chapter 2: Pain

March 15th, 2476

I try to hold myself to higher standards than those of a human. I am not human. Perhaps I never was. I am a god. Or at least, I was. Now I am fallen. But I still know so many things.

They haunt me at night sometimes.

And I got so lonely. I was so afraid.

So I wished.

I wished for a baby.

A dangerous wish, but aren't all wishes dangerous?

Always a downside. Always something that sneaks up and stabs you in the back.

Isn't life the same way?

I was reckless, and then with child. I did not want it.

But I didn't want it to die either. It was mine after all. I do not know if it even can die.

Still, I did not -- do not -- have enough emotional attachment to it to care. I have become a sociopath. That does not mean I didn't want to care, simply that I didn't have the capacity to. Or perhaps I did and didn't try hard enough.

All possibilities.

I screamed as the child was born.

Now I only scream from the nightmares.

I left my child in the Junkyard with the hope that someone would find it. Hoped someone would take it. Deep down, I hoped Christopher and Nicholas would be those someones.

Of course, I knew better. I always do.

I see the future and I can't do anything about it.

I sit here now, watching my old self through the memories, writhing in pain in a soundproof room so no one will hear my screams. I am strong. I can do this on my own. I can practically see the thoughts racing through my head.

I watch myself slip out the door. Nobody knows my true identity and nobody stops me on the street. Nobody cares about the woman with a bundle that has yet to wail.

I pretend to myself that I do not know what will become of my baby, infinity signs wrapping her wrist. I pretend that it will know me, love me. Be mine.

And for a moment, I had peace.

I wish I still had that peace. Perhaps when I am done with this, and all of my words are gone...

Perhaps then I will finally have what my heart truly wants.

Love?

Peace?

Silence, perhaps.

It's been so long since the kaleidoscope of images hasn't flickered through my brain.

Yet I digress. I gave away my child -- asked the world to raise it. To care for it. And for once, my prayers were answered.

I pretended not to know how everything would turn out. How I would turn out, crying at its hands and how I had no choice.

Oh how the tables turn.

I watched it grow up, get older. I provided for it, wishing its diapers and body clean. Through GENIE I gave it books, food, clothes. It never knew where everything came from.

Not that it didn't try to find out. There was that particularly unfortunate time where it almost left the Junkyard. Only quick wishes and hope kept it safe from the world. Kept the world safe from it.

It never stopped reading, though. That's how I knew it was mine. Always watching and absorbing the world. Like me, only a better version.

I'm not afraid to admit that it's better than I am. Perhaps I should be. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree -- does it?