Awakening - The Tigris Series Book 2

Prologue

Journal Entry: Kara Phillips 2014

Just as every story has it's end, it also has it's beginning. I had spent quite a long time contemplating just when my beginning took place, and all that had happened that started it all. What groups of people shaped me into the person I used to be, who was there from the very beginning. Were they kind people? Criminals? Were they family? Friends? Colleagues, perhaps? I had always thought that the journey ahead is what was most important when telling one's story. The hardships they face, the new people they meet, the places they see. It is what would determine their end, right? The path one chooses will ultimately lead to the end of the line in their story. So it must be important, right? Surely it was all that really mattered.

Oh, how wrong it is.

You see, the journey would never have been possible if not for the beginning. Events would never take place without the start of one's existence. Those people would never have met, events would alter and change in the absence of one's presence, some may even find their ending sooner than they would have if not for one specific person's existence. Though, at the same time, it is because of that person's existence that some reach their ending so soon. It all has to start somewhere, for it to go anywhere. Whether it's good or bad, is all up to fate. Isn't it? Because, quite frankly, who on earth would choose a fate such as mine?

Control, I've learned, is ultimately all in one's head. Do we all really have a choice in our actions, or how events before us unfold? Can we really control our own fate, or the fate of others? Perhaps there really was a god pulling all of the strings in the patterns that it desires. If something gets in the way, it is erased. If someone doesn't move in time, or in the right posture, they disappear. If someone says the wrong words at the wrong time, they are silenced forever. Whether it be by gods hands, or someone else's. Is that control? Or is it fear?

So, perhaps our fates rely on one another to do everything the way it is written to be. Perhaps our very beginnings rely on someone else's end. Our stories must be told at a cost. How high the cost, depends on the value of one's life. How great of an impact are they supposed to make on the world? How many other people's lives will change because of that person's existence? How many will live? How many will die? Will that person be what changes the world for the better, or for the worst? Or, are they just a stepping stone, paving the way for someone else? How much importance does that person truly have? Does their existence truly matter, or are they just here for the ride? Perhaps none of it truly matters, in the face of the universe. As I've recently learned, the universe is much larger than we all had once thought.

So does any of it truly matter? Does my pain, or someone else's glory truly matter for the fate of the entire universe? Or are we all here to simply live, suffer, and die? Does the existence of humanity affect anything for the good or evil of the universe? Are we all struggling, fighting, and dying for nothing? Do our beginnings truly determine the fate of the universe? Or do we all live to die, while the rest of the universe idly watches and continues on without movement?

My beginning, I used to think, amounted next to nothing. I thought that no matter what had happened back then, it wouldn't have changed anything of what had happened to me throughout the course of my life. That no matter where I was, or who I was with, I would still end up with Hydra. I would still ultimately be responsible for the death and destruction of so many lives around the world. I would still suffer, living the rest of my days plagued by my nightmares and the fear of myself and what created me. Though, could I really draw such a conclusion? How am I to truly know what could have changed my situation? If I was born in England, rather than DC, would that have truly made a difference? If I was born a man, would that have changed anything? Or perhaps, if I wasn't raised by the very people that created Captain America, would I have walked a different path? Maybe, maybe not.

Everyone's story amounts to something, surely. Whether it be to change the world, or to influence someone else's journey. My story has had it's fair share of both. Though, I'm still here. I still awake every morning to a new sunrise. I still walk the streets of DC, and live on while so many others do not. It seems as though my story should have ended long ago, but I'm still here. 87 years of being alive, without any trace of a grey hair or a wrinkle in my skin, I still live on. Why, I fear I will never know. Perhaps I was meant to bring more pain and suffering. Or perhaps, the world is offering me a chance of redemption. A chance to do something good, for once. Or, maybe fate had something sinister planned for me as punishment for the life I've lived. If so, I'm ready for it. I am already facing the demons that I had created; I visit them every night. They remind me of what I am, and who I have become. They show me all of the terrible things I've done, the people I've killed or wronged, and fates that I've changed. Perhaps my journey is just a story of suffering for both myself and others. A story of death and destruction for everything and everyone around me. Though I hope that is not the case, it seems unrealistic for it to be anything else. What else was there for me in the world?

Where am I to go from here?