Ever Lost

24

Thursday night, Victoria dumped a bag on the floor and plopped herself onto my bed, pulling out a corset and frowned, "no way are you wearing that."

"I'm just packing," I said, snatching the corset from her, I examined it. She was right, it wasn't my size anymore. I tossed it, I'd worn it was I was younger but I wasn't a child anymore. I pulled out a similar corset, one my size and a bit more comfortable and set it aside with the rest of my undergarments. "What are you doing here anyway?"

"I'm camping out." She shrugged. "I wanna help you with this."

"Vic, I promise I'm fine."

"I don't doubt that you can handle yourself I just don't want you doing it alone. Let me help out, I've got nothing better to do anyway." I sighed, "Fine." Victoria leaned over the bed, pulling out layered skirt. It's under layer was a shadowy-grew and the top, hiked up a bit was a deep brown. She held it up, "what about this one?"

"Definitely," I agreed, putting the skirt aside. I found a black undershirt and a chestnut brown corset to go over it. I put the remaining outfit pieces with the skirt, and continued onto my next three. A finger tapped my shoulder and I looked to Victoria who stared behind me with wide eyed fear. I turned around, a small shadow was holding out a dress. I took the dress from its hands and thanked it. It quickly disappeared once the dress was gone from its hands. "You weren't kidding." She gasped. "You bandaged my bloody arm and still thought I was lying?"

"I don't know what I thought!" She argued. She took in a deep breath and released it. "I'm sorry, that took me by surprise." Imagine how I feel. I brushed it off, examining the sage green dress. It was more of an overall styled skirt, it'd need an undershirt but I could make it work. I found an undershirt, and sat it aside to be packed away later. Once I had found all my outfits, I packed them away, leaving out the lovely red outfit Victoria had put together for me to wear tomorrow. "Okay, I guess we can have a sleep over now. Go change." She beamed, pulling out a night gown from her bag. I went into my dresser, pulling out my own nightgown and shut the draw closed, lifting my head to look into the mirror. I brought my hand to the mirror to wipe away a black speck, but I found my hand being pulled to the other side by my reflection. I screamed, pulling it back. The reflection yelped as the tumbled into the room, pulling a knife out her pocket. Cut my hand through the air and pulled it back. She froze, releasing her grip of me and scrambled away from her as her head slid off her body. The mirror shattered seconds later, spirits flying out of it, they ran around the room, screaming for moments too long, then, they exploded into fog before my eyes. Victoria appeared in front of me, wielding a rune. She placed it on the floor and helped me up, "I'm convinced now." She said. I felt uncomfortable looking at my own limp body, sprawled across the floor, separated from its own head. It felt... wrong. Worse than the usual. I remembered my goddesses blessing and prayed over the body for eternal peace. It was gone when my eyes open, nothing remained of her, not even the mirror she was born from.

Victoria helped me into the bathroom, leaving me alone so I could clean myself of the lingering blood from her corpse. I gently wiped every piece of her off of me, feeling a bit more appreciative and loving towards my body than I had before. I took my time in the bathroom, spent an hour in there until I felt clean and then another until I felt relaxed, then I dressed myself and forced myself back into my room to sleep, pulling the blanket over myself and Victoria who was already long asleep. I liked having someone outside of Apollo knowing. She reminded me that there was a world outside what I was dealing with now, that this wouldn't be my situation forever and I still had a life to live. It was a life I so wanted to live now, one that I had taken for granted. So many years I wasted mad at the world and the gods who made it go round, I wanted to be more optimistic and happy. I wanted to be happy without Apollo, I simply wanted to be. That seemed like enough to for me. But first, I needed to know the truth. There was a peace looming ahead, every piece I found brought me closer to it. I wanted to be it. Feel it, experience it.

I drifted off to sleep, my dreams were strange. She was there but she was not a threat. She took my hand, lead me into the forest near the palace, a grove. She sat me down in it, placed a kiss on my head, and then she smiled. She smiled and faded into glittering start lights, a peace I had longed to find, she had found and I reached out to it, smiled and laughed.