Petals on The Moon || Reyna Ramirez-Arellano x Fem!OC

I

-ˋˏ ༻❁༺ ˎˊ-

Hello.

It sometimes feels as though I am dead.

That sounds miserable. And I know it does. But it's also the truth. Maybe dead is too strong, too harsh a way of saying it. Often, it feels like I'm swimming through thick, black tar. My limbs are heavy and my senses are clogged with sloshing liquid and the stink of tar. And that blackness obscures my vision, but not entirely; just enough that I can make out what is happening around me. But I don't always feel like I can act on it. It's like I'm perceiving and someone else makes the decisions for me. Someone else makes the world go round and convinces the others that there isn't something wrong in my head, while I am stuck in the tar, trying to understand why I can't just swim out.

But that's twice the confusion. Because the person making the decisions for me, the person convincing the others that my mind isn't unhealthy... is still me.

I feel very much separated from myself. It feels like the physical side of me is controlling my body and getting me through the day. But my mind and my soul are stuck in the tar with almost no way out. It is deeper and deeper every day, even though I try to convince myself that I am swimming closer to the shallow end. I don't know what makes it deeper, and what will make it shallow. All I care to focus on right now; swimming. I just have to swim and keep afloat until something else comes along.

When I write it all down, it sounds ridiculous, I know. But I have keep a diary to document my feelings and my days so I can remember them better, because I'm so focused on swimming, I can't remember each day in very proper detail. I think that's also what scares me. Forgetting. There are many beautiful things in life that I feel I should remember.

So, I will begin by detailing the major events that I do remember.

When I was born, I came as a slight surprise to my parents, but wanted nonetheless. They loved me, and I expect that I loved my mother, but a tumor in her lungs took her from us not long after I was born. This left me and my father, who decided to leave Japan, and move to Britain instead (I still do not understand this decision, but I digress).

That is where I was raised for a while, but my father moved for a job opportunity in America. Rather than enroll my in school or rent a house close to the university he works at, he elected to buy a houseboat and homeschool me on Lake Superior.

I also do not understand that decision, either.

But he soon became too enamored with his work and decided to pursue a career in psychology, but he couldn't juggle a child and a career at the same time. And he has never said this, but I snoop through the photos; I think he has trouble being around me because I look too much like my mother. So he decided an exchange family was the best option.

He didn't tell me I wouldn't be enrolled in an exchange school in the normal way.

That was when Lisa Martin decided she wanted another child and opted to house me. It came very suddenly. I didn't even know I was going to be handed to a new family. But my father sat me down one day, described the Roman way of life and the gods that were still around, and told me I was to go to the Wolf House and prove my worth. I didn't understand any of that. He gave me a stuffed bear and bought me a ticket to California.

I spent around several months at the Wolf House before the wolf goddess, Lupa, decided I was ready. I was brought to Camp Jupiter, shown around, and given to my new "mother". She's a strong woman, with thick arms and broad features, and dark skin that clashes against her imposingly light eyes. There's a tattoo on her inner forearm with two crossed spears and ten lines.