There's nothing you're forced to trust more than your own mind. You're dependent on it, it stores the memories that make up your world.
But what if it could be stolen from you?
Aspen's world is growing, from the boundaries of her country farm to...
AN: long time, no post, I know, and I'm so sorry! this is the second-to-last chapter of Awake, and the first I have written in a really really long time, so I really hope you enjoy it. the final chapter won't be far away! - Ann
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I don't know what stopped me from jumping after her. In that moment, my heart dropping with the revelation of what I'd done, there was nothing I wanted more than to propel myself over the railing, my own bones crushing beneath the force. My blood mixing with hers on the tiles.
I still don't know why I didn't. In a lot of ways, I still wish I did.
But she was still clutching the knife. I could see the blade amongst the pieces of crushed flesh that had once been my best friend.
I stumbled down the staircase, forgetting to breathe until my body threatened to collapse. I didn't think I was worthy of inhaling, of consuming oxygen. Not when I wanted nothing more than to die.
Again, I don't know why I didn't. The only thing that had been keeping me going was hope, but now it was denial. The moment I finally reached the bottom floor--splatters of blood beside my mud-stained feet--I felt a rage fill my body, a red rage that made my heart pound and my lungs pant with hatred.
The only way my mind was coping with the scene before me was to turn to my animalistic side, the side that was good at not feeling. Everyone has it, buried deep within them, a side without reason or investment. A sociopathic side. The one without morals.
I didn't linger, and as emotion seeped from my flesh, so did my ability to stay. Walking out of the building came easily, my body an animated piece of meat moving with one foot in front of the other, limbs hanging lifelessly by my side and a vacant smile lacing my lips.
I couldn't live with it. And so I wouldn't.
Though the switch linking me to my humanity was flicked, allowing me to temporarily survive without breaking down at what had just happened, I was still filled with adrenaline. I'd never taken drugs, but I felt the closest I'd ever felt to being high, my body numb and a manic giggle bubbling in my throat, tearing at the stiches he'd sewn into my neck.
The morning air didn't feel so cold anymore. In fact, it felt lighter than ever, carrying me to a destination planted in my subconscious mind. I was reckless. Desperate, but now with nothing to lose. I couldn't consider Isobel or my family, not when there was already so much denial plastering my memories--the images of those I loved--with a layer of fog. I wasn't Aspen, now. I was a robot.
A robot who was going to end him.
The rage struck me so hard I had to stop, the sweltering anger punching blades through my lungs and striking my vision with spots of black. Insanity. This was insanity.
I heard whispers as I walked through the park, students looking horrified as they passed me on the way to and from class. Did they know I killed her? Were they the ones that would find her mutilated body in our hall?
