Reversal (Camren/Norminah)

Prolouge: I Want You Forever

Fear.

It was the umbrella word that tested the limits of all other emotions. As a video game, it was a vast open world where every rock could be scaled and every tree cut down. As a shape, it was the intricate and elusive rhombicosidodecahedron, an Archimedian solid with twenty regular faces, thirty square faces, sixty vertices and one-hundred twenty edges. As an animal, it was the ever puzzling Chimera, a creature that was depicted as a lion that had the head of a goat on it's back and a snake at it's tail.

Long story short, fear was more than an emotion. It was more than a concept that can be tossed around and exploited in cheap science fiction and literary masterpieces. I had come to learn that as a word, fear had no definition, nor opposition. There was no answer, no cure, no drug that could be inhaled or injected to nullify it's effects.

Guilt.

A word used on the lost and found alike, and abundantly in the courthouse to put some behind bars and bring justice to others. A degenerative emotion that was able to take on hundreds of different forms, hundreds of different scenarios some more daunting than the next. Guilt was like insects in the darkness, covering you, layering over your body and chewing until you caved in, breaking down to nothing.

When asked to choose between the two, the decision is a double edged sword. A choice where one can only hope to move on with the lesser of two evils.

"Perfect."

After finishing the very last sentence, I set the jacket and hardcover book into the box, making sure the second was on top of the first before replacing the lid. Making sure to remain as silent as possible, I crept back into the bedroom and set it down on the small space from which I had previously woken. On the other side of the bed, the girl was twisted up in the sheets, the slumbering lack of expression on her face still held pain, and I could tell that her dreams were anything but restful.

"I love you." I whispered, brushing the tears away from my cheeks and sliding the box a little closer to make sure she would roll right onto it when she woke up. "So much. I'm gonna wait for you to find me alright? You better. Don't forget."

Turning, I forced in a number of slow, shaky breathes before bidding the sleeping figure one last glance and dipping out of the room.

Everything was dark. I didn't dare turn on a light, and was guided only by the small yet powerful LED on the back of my phone. Maneuvering through the apartment, I snuck over to the small knob that was drilled into the wall, reaching up and digging underneath the hanging jackets to retrieve what I was looking for. Pulling the red and black hooded flannel over my shoulders, I flipped the hood up and tossed overtop my own black leather jacket on top.

The fabric was warm and painfully familiar, as well as at least three sizes too large for me. Grabbing the backpack that sat by the door, I slid the straps over my shoulders and looked around the empty living room. It was silent, just as it always was. From beyond the picture window, the moon was nearly full, and casting an eerily beautiful light through America's little riviera.

I opened the front door, slipping out into the hall and closing it as quietly as humanly possible. Once the latch had clicked, I knelt down and dug around the potted fern a few feet away to remove the dirt ridden key I had hidden there long ago. Locking the door, the stained metal was then tossed back where it belonged before I straightened up.

"I want you forever."

The voice behind me scared me silly, my body twisting around and bumping against the wall hard as I caught my breath in shock. "What the fuck?" I whisper-yelled out into the open, seeing nothing but dim yellow light and an empty hallway. "Who's there?"