YZARIAH ZAMIRA SALAZAR
I hate my eyes.
Every time I look in the mirror, the reflection reminds me of him. The green staring back at me is unnatural, like something twisted, altered—created. The blue I once knew is gone, replaced by a sickly hue I can't escape.
They say the eyes are the windows to the soul. If that's true, then what does it say about me? What kind of person has their essence stolen and replaced by something foreign?
I remember the blue. I remember looking at myself as a child, the way my eyes shone under the sunlight, how they reminded me of the sea—peaceful, unbothered.
But that was before.
Before he took everything from me.
Before the experiments, before the tests, before he turned me into nothing but a subject.
They were supposed to be for my protection—his words, not mine. The injections, the endless needles, each one sinking deeper into my skin, deeper into my memory. Every change, every alteration, felt like a violation of my very being. My body wasn't mine anymore. Neither was my mind. And neither were my eyes.
I want to rip them out, tear away the thing that reminds me of my father's cruelty. The same man who called me his "creation," his "work of art," while he watched the transformation unfold.
He said it was for my own good. But I knew better. I knew he was obsessed with perfection—obsessed with creating something better, something stronger. I was nothing more than an experiment, a canvas to paint on, and those green eyes were his final stroke.
Was I happy once? Was I someone who loved? Or was I just a tool in his hands, doomed from the start? All I see now are these eyes, staring back at me with the memory of him in every shade of green, every unnatural flicker. They mock me. They haunt me. And every day, I hate them more.
But maybe that's the point. Maybe I was never meant to be whole again. Maybe my past, my identity—was always something he could rewrite.
Sometimes, I wonder if I'll ever escape the mirror.
But the truth is, I didn't forget everything.
I didn't lose all of it.
Thanks to Zanaya.
I remember more than I should, more than I can bear. It's like pieces of a shattered puzzle, fragments of my past that refuse to stay buried, clawing their way to the surface no matter how hard I try to suppress them. And those eyes, my eyes, they're a constant reminder. They're a lie—his lie—but I can't forget what they were before. I can’t forget who I was.
The flashes come when I least expect them. A glimpse of my old self, standing in front of a mirror, blue eyes wide with innocence, hair pulled back into a neat braid. A child, untouched by the experiments, untouched by the horrors of the asylum. I can hear my younger voice laughing, soft and carefree, before the cold hands of science started to steal everything from me.
But then, the flashes fade, and I'm back in this twisted version of reality, staring at the green eyes that are his creation. I hear his voice in the back of my mind, always there, always whispering, "You're mine, Zamira. I made you. I created you."
