The Author | Backstories #1

The Author | Part 7

Whatever it was that she had become...it was consuming. Toxic. Almost parasitic in nature. All she had been thinking about over the past months was how she could finally get the love that, deep down, she so desperately wanted. Everyone would love her and adore her standpoints. And if they didn't? They died.

Luckily for our planet, and the whole human species, even when she snapped, the true Jessica never wanted to end the world. She just wanted to be put on a pedestal, for the world to love her for who she is. However, when she grew past the yearning for love and attention from everyone and everything, she started wanting to bend the world to her will. With each use of her power, her thoughts became more corrupt; more twisted and wicked in nature. As long as this period lasted, not a single soul living on Earth was safe. Nothing could stop her. She had unlocked her full power, the darkness almost completely owning control of her body, her soul, her mind...her heart. All that drove her for those months was her newfound unquenchable thirst for power. There were very few who were able to put two and two together, and figure out something was going on before Brock did. Nobody knew exactly what was happening, but they could feel the raw power so many others were oblivious to when around Jessica. Many lives were taken due to offensive attacks made in an attempt to stop her, all of which were sadly in vain.

To think that a single event, one that lasted for nothing more than a single minute, can activate the darkest part of a person, driving them to such extreme lengths almost seems absurdly fictitious. Surely nobody would ever go this far for something so miniscule, right? Wrong. As it turns out many individuals would go to even further lengths than this to achieve what they saw as a form of excusable revenge.

But it would seem that there was one thing that went unaccounted for when she walked upon this reckless path. The only hole in the plan that it would seem the darkness conceived?

Her greatest weakness in life was herself.

It always had been. She was happy for a while, sure. She felt so loved and beyond great enough (for her own standards), but eventually she realized how fake it all was.

It was never supposed to be this way...

"It was never supposed to be this way!" she cried out, falling onto her knees. She wanted to truly be loved, not out of fear or manipulation, but out of genuine love. She'd even gone as far as manipulating her best friend. And with all of these thoughts racing around in spirals; that's when she broke. In her mind there was only one rational way out of this situation. Grabbing a pen and her old notebook, she began reversing all of the effects in writing. As she began, the wind picked up, swirling around her at an unprecedented rate, as if a tornado were forming around her. The sky slowly lost it's color and faded to pitch black, and the world around her dissolved into nothingness. Jessica was completely cut off from the rest of the world, the only thing she was able to see, hear or feel being the reckless wind. It was blowing haphazardly now, thrashing against her. She repeatedly fell over again and again, but always pushed herself back onto her knees. Not once did she stop writing. She needed to fix everything.

Jessica reverted everything back; taking away her small-time fame, returning the people that she could remember back to their loved ones, healing the nature that she'd set ablaze so callously, returning the citizens' minds that she had taken away to them, and awakening Brock in his own bedroom and taking away any recollection he had of his confrontation with her. Each word caused her heart to pound harder in her chest, and more tears flowed like a river down her glowing cheeks. And finally, she finished. She had repaired the damage that she had caused. She knew she was too much of a danger to all of mankind. Everything she had pursued was for her own selfish agenda. There was only one final thing to do. Only one thing that she saw fitting enough to earn some form of retribution for her actions. So she paid the ultimate sacrifice -

And she wrote herself out of existence.

~~~~~

"Wow, Jessica...I'm speechless. That was such an amazing story," Brock said, staring at the ground as he soaked it all in. "But I've gotta say, it's pretty harsh what you did to me in it, you're so evil!" He laughed, gesturing towards himself as he looked up, grinning. But his smile faded when he saw that a single, glistening tear escaped Jessica's eye. "Jessica? What's wrong?"

She sniffled and wiped it away. "Nothing, nothing. I just...really got into my story, I suppose." She gave a forced smile. Brock eyed her up and down, knowing there was more to it than that, but he refrained from pushing. "Well, like I said, I really only asked what your name and power would be...but you've always been one to go above and beyond." He chuckled. "Honestly that was the greatest story I've ever heard."

"Thanks," she replied. Brock perked up, trying to raise the energy a bit. "But there's only one problem with it; you're still here, and if in your story you wrote yourself out of existence, how is that possible?" He laughed at his own comment yet again, still oblivious to the fact that she was only retelling what had truly happened just five weeks ago. And little did he know that she was wondering the same exact thing he'd just made a joke about. Jessica's eyes we're fixated on the oak coffee table in front of her. "I...I'm not entirely sure of that myself."

"Well, anyways, it was great. I know you've been stuck on that comedy career forever, wanting to take people's minds off of their boring everyday lives, make them laugh for a while and whatnot...but you should definitely consider being a writer. I guarantee you'd make it big!" She merely laughed for a second, not even bothering to make any sort of eye contact with him. He arched his eyebrows in confusion. "How on Earth did you come up with a story like that anyways?" he asked. She instantly looked up, locking eyes with him as she dug her nails into the crimson red arms of the lounge chair. Her emotions seemed get the best of her and, without thinking, she blurted out what she'd been dying to tell him the entire time. "I didn't."

THE END OF BACKSTORIES #1.

Names Have Been Changed.