Lose Those Chains

I'm Higher Than The Hopes Your Brought Down

Adam's memories had come to an end, and Charlie returned to the present. He had released her hand several minutes ago and was watching for her reaction, but she remained completely motionless. 

Fresh tears streamed down her cheeks, which were stained raw from the previous tears she had shed throughout the course of his memories. 

Adam narrowed his eyes as he continued to wait for her response. "Uh? Kid? You good?"

She suddenly let out a scream, one so loud and shrill it shook all of Hell. Her scream deepened into a roar, and it was filled with all the anguish and pain of Adam and the rest of the human race. 

"Whoa! What the fuck!" Adam tried to fly away as Charlie had been swept up into a firestorm, but the intensity of the flames knocked him backward. 

She kept screaming as her body was consumed in flames, but she did not burn. No, instead, there was an awful cracking sound as her bones crunched and her limbs stretched out. Already standing over six feet tall, Charlie doubled in size and towered over Adam and anything else in Hell.

But that wasn't the only thing that changed for her physically. Wings similar to Adam's sprouted out of her back, dark red in color instead of black like his. Her pupils had filled with blood instead of translucent tears, and it dribbled down her face. Horns like her father's and a tail to match grew out, and her already sharp teeth lengthened into fangs as long as a chef's knife.

All the while, Charlie could only repeat her parents' names over and over in her head. Everything they had told her as a child had been a lie. Not even just an exaggeration. But a straight-up lie! 

She kept asking why. But that was a pointless question. She knew why. 

No one wanted to admit they were the villain of someone else's story. It's easier to pretend and lie to yourself that you were the underdog. The hero who slayed the beast and saved the day. 

Clutching her face in her claws, Charlie continued crying tears of blood. It wasn't until she glanced to the side and saw Adam staring at her in complete terror that her tears came to a stop.

Her body started to shrink back in size, her horns and wings retreating back into her. By the time, she had returned to her usual appearance, she was a crumpled heap on the ground. She had stopped screaming, but there were still tears in her eyes. 

"This whole time." Charlie's gaze dimmed as she focused on the empty space in front of her. "I always believed you to be nothing more than the villain in the story my mom would tell me growing up. That you were this obstacle in the way of my parents' love."

Adam rolled his eyes. "No surprise there that your bitch of a mother would paint me as the villain."

Charlie ignored the insult. Because frankly, she wanted to call her mother something much worse. "And when I met you, that's all I could see you as. I only saw the worst parts of you. So I thought of course everything I had been told about you was true."

He kicked a rock from under his feet. "Well, I wasn't exactly aiming for a good first impression either."

Charlie remained slouched on the ground, feeling as if all the boundless energy she usually had had been vaporized. She had never been so exhausted. Not even after the battle just a few hours earlier. "I don't even know where to begin. Because I know it will never be enough to cover what's happened."

She sighed and silently prayed that whatever she ended up saying wouldn't make things worse than what they already were. "All I can say is that it starts with sorry."

"Sorry? I'm not sorry!" Adam doubled over in laughter. "Oh wait! I'm sorry your dad is such a fucking loser! Yeah! And I'm sorry your mom is an ice-cold bitch! I'm sorry I ever thought they were cool!"