Reborn

In My Head

Who am I? A question we each ask ourselves each day and the answer is never quite the same. Sometimes, it's "I'm me" or "I am who people want me to be". Heck, even I've said these things before. Truth is, we are all neither of those answers; we are so many things that the answer to that question is ever-changing just like time in a sense. So, that’s what our goals are for. They are our attempts to pinpoint who we shall be, and who we want to be.

All I’ve ever done and all I planned to do, was dripping through my fingers as I lay in the dark recesses of my enclosed mind. Vivid memories pass by my face slower than others as they flow downward, in an endless spiral.

I get to watch the last birthday with my dad. I was turning 6 years old at the time. My dad, 27 then, stood at 6”3’ with brown hair and forest green eyes. My mom always likes to compare him and me saying how we look so alike, except for our eyes. When she talks about him, I would just scowl and walk away because, she didn’t know the real him like I did.

On my 6th birthday, he said the words I would never forget, even to this day. At the time, he and I were waiting for my mother to get home from the hospital so that we could celebrate; she was a nurse then and worked the late shift. We were sitting in the foyer, him reading, and me playing with a worn out train set on the floor when suddenly, my dad stood up and dropped his book as he turned towards me.  

He told me, “Son, I want you to remember this day. The day you became a man and the day you had your first victory. “Then, my father, my loving non-violent father, pulled out a pistol from the seeming less darkness behind him and pointed it at me. I watched in slow motion as he cocked back the Glock-G42, and shot me in the chest.

He walked past me, with unseeing eyes as he left the house and got into his crème blue Ford pickup truck. I cried for help from him, to end the torturous pain, but there was no answer as he backed out of the driveway and drove down the road, tires screeching down the street. My father ignored his bleeding and crying 6 year old lying on the foyer floor. Shortly after I had heard my father drive away, I passed out from blood loss.

Luckily, the neighbor next door had heard the gunshot and my cries as they called 911 just in time. The paramedics came presumably, and I spent the next few hours in surgery to have the bullet removed, a blood transfusion from my mother, and stitches.  I spent the next several days in the hospital while the police questioned my mother. My father was never found, and my mother never found out what actually happened.

The scene fades away to the party where everything changed. I watch a younger, and stupider me and Olivia converse as I see Olivia’s eyes constantly taking in her surroundings. When objects begin to fly around, Olivia seems to relax. But I do not in my spirit state. I watch as she speaks to me, my shadow moving ways that I am not.

The portal opens, and then they or rather we are gone.

The scene fades away to the darkness that is my temporary home. I hear laughing nearby, and begin to question my sanity until I realize it was my laughing. I turn and watch as I once again see me and Olivia trudging through that same forest. They are conversing, but I have already heard this conversation so I begin to turn away, until I notice something weird. My shadow is ahead of me, even though the sun is also in front of me. It seems to be leading us to the looming, and now even darker, castle. The shadow is moving around again in a strange, yet mesmerizing way.

As I reach out to the shadow, the scene breaks in half throwing me into the darkness once more. An eerie laugh fills the air as I spin around trying to locate it.

“Diid you really thiink you could escape me? Your shadow?” a voice whispered as a form began to materialize in front of me. It was indeed the figure from my dreams, the one that was always trying to kill me.

It circled around me as if it was a hunter stalking its prey, its prey being me. I tried to speak, but found myself unable to move just like in the dreams.

“I am everything you aren’t. Everything you don’t want to be. I am your bane, your destroyer, and your counterpart. But no longer.” I struggled to move my un-responding muscles that seemed to weigh more than I could hope to bear.

He(or is it an it? I’ll just say an it.) threw its head bac and laughed a deep resounding laugh. “You are mine”

Feeling a sudden anger towards those words, I forced myself to regain control of my feeble body.

“I am no ones.”

A light appeared next to me and without thinking, I threw it at the figure causing it to drop to its knees in agony. I grinned and I fist pumped the air. Yessssssss. I thought to myself.

I snapped out of my (excuse my phrasing) idiotic and premature celebration to see the figure standing somehow. It growled.

“Guess I’ll just have to break you.” It snarled.

“Have fun with that” I replied. The darkness began to glow, and like the sunrays pushing through the fog, light fell upon us. The shadowy darkness of the figure began to dissipate as it started towards me. It seemed to be trying to pass me a parting remark, but I wasn’t sure. I could hear Olivia and Thi’s voices calling to me, telling me to come back to them.

The figure struggled to speak to me as it got brighter and brighter, causing it to dissipate even more. I could start to feel my weakening body and could even hear a 3rd voice now, softer and quieter, my sister no doubt.

The figure finally managed to move its mouth, but I had to lean much closer to hear its parting remark:

            “By the time you’re done with your little adventures, you’ll wish you had let me break you here.”

And then everything lit up like the sun had exploded in my head.