❝ 𝘞𝘦 𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘵𝘰𝘰 𝘤𝘭𝘰𝘴𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘳𝘴,
𝘐 𝘯𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘬𝘯𝘦𝘸 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘣𝘰𝘥𝘺 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶 ❞
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What if, in some other tragic
reality, Flare was the
Commission...
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WHEN FLARE AWAKENS, IT IS to the feeling of blood in her eyes. She jolts up. More of it pours from her ears and nose at the sudden movement. There is so much that even her tongue is drowned in the metallic taste.
She stumbles out of the public bathroom's shower and toward the nearest sink. Cool water chills her bones as she splashes it on her face. The porcelain stains with red, as does the water. The light, as cheaply made as it is, flickers faintly overhead.
Flare scrubs belligerently at her face—so hard she just might rip off the skin with her nails. After a few minutes of brutal cleaning, her movements suddenly cease. She glares at the reflection in the mirror. Her eyes raked over the sickly portrait in its reflection.
She looks beaten. Her hair is an unkempt mess, and it coils in every direction. A trail of caked on blood runs from her eyes, ears, and nose down below the collar of her stained shirt. Her eyeliner is smudged horrifically, leaving inky rings that drip to her cheekbones. The black tie is equally a mess.
Off in the room, there is the drip of water droplets leaking onto the floor, the buzzing of the light struggling to stay on, the liquid rushing from the faucet, the rhythmic hum and pop of a fan running somewhere in the ceiling—everything sound resonates in Flare's mind, echoing through the deepest chambers of her skull.
She is a pathetic sight to behold. Broken, beaten, almost defeated.
Weak.
The dripping of water, the buzz of the light, the rush of the sink, the hum and pop of a fan.
No! She is not weak. She will not be defeated. She can't be. She's better than this—knows more than him.
But if that's the case, how has he evaded you twice?
The dripping, the buzz, the rush, the hum and pop.
"Because—because . . . because he is a coward!" she shrieks. "Because he is a filthy, rotten, coward, and all he does is run! That is the only thing he knows how to do! Run from fate!"
Is he running from fate? Or are you letting him go out of pity?
Drip . . . buzz . . . rush . . . hum . . . pop.
"I'm not!"
But by letting him live, you are showing mercy. And if you are showing mercy . . .
You are as weak as him.
Drip, buzz, rush, hum, pop.
Flare screams at the top of her lungs and swings her fist into the mirror. A sharp crack echoes through the empty bathroom at the sound of glass, skin, and knuckles breaking all at once. She bites back the pain and stands frozen in place, her bloodied fist pressed against the surface.
Heaving painful, ragged breaths, she dares to steal a glance at herself.
Flare's reflection in the broken glass glares back at her. It looks like the person she feels to be—the person she knows she is—but it is so different from the person she once was. Her glow, her joy, her humorous excitement and naïve wonder—all of it is gone, stripped from her like her sanity. There is nothing left in her eyes.
But she cannot bring herself to care.
Flare brings her fist back and pops the dislocated joints back into place with the other hand.
There is no end to this madness. They will run this game of cat and mouse until the end of the earth, and she will never have her vengeance.
Flare clenches a bloodied fist around the rim of the sink. She can't bear this any longer.
