Unreality

13. Freak

The Seymour family name was a prestigious one, as they were the main owners of Cosmos Industries, one of the most important and distinguished corporations in the world.

Therefore, from the moment Alexander and Madeline Seymour's children were born, it became their responsibility to prepare themselves for the inevitable day they would have to take the reins of their parents' inheritance, which would be theirs to maintain throughout their generation and eventually pass on to the next.

But human inclinations cannot be planned or predicted so neatly as that, and it turned out that both Ariadne and her brother's aspirations lay somewhere else; they did not care for the prestige of their family business, and, as twins, they were both born with a natural talent and inclination towards more artistic endeavors.

However, they soon realized pursuing said inclination would affect the treatment and possibly even compromise the affection they would receive from their parents, who already held clear wishes for them and their futures.

Thus, the two children were forced to make a choice.

Ariadne chose to follow her own wishes.

Her brother chose to follow those of their parents.

Did he do it because he needed their love and acknowledgement that badly?

Or was it a sacrifice on his part, so that his sister could be free to follow her own path?

Ariadne could not tell, and her heart ached every time she pondered the thought.

But one thing she now knew for certain — her brother had come to regret his choice, and so, as the dark cloud of depression came to hang over him, he made Ariadne his light, his compensation. She was the one who had resisted their parents' conditioning and followed her heart instead. An example of the path not taken which he could take solace in watching from afar.

And he, in turn, became her only source of true love in their home.

Thus, her brother was her only family, she told herself. No one else mattered from that point on.

However, she soon came to realize that, deep down, she still yearned for her parents' attention and approval.

And she could not stand that fact.

Nor could she forgive herself for it.

How could she be so weak as to still care what those people thought of her?

Wanting to rid herself of that weakness, she strived to change, to become someone else. Someone above all that. Someone who would live her own life and follow her own path without restraint and without being held back by the judgment of others.

To do so, she pursued her passions and obsessions relentlessly, and her paintings and creations began to stray from the canvas and towards her own life. She transformed the walls of her bedroom without warning her parents and, not satisfied, transformed her own appearance, whimsically changing her hair color every other month, while her body was unabashedly pierced and tattooed and her clothing too became increasingly aberrant and even flaunting of her developing sexuality.

Naturally, to her puritanical, image-conscious and traditionally minded parents, her behavior was considered unacceptable and ended up straining their relationship with her even further. After all, she had discarded the family's natural class and pedigree, embracing instead what appeared to be no more than mere deviance to them.