Killing Cardinals

Chapter 7

The room drenched in fog lit up before me, the heavy humidity sending my cool breaths to the floor. I looked around, and saw the dining table a few feet away. The density of the room was so familiar, I could swear I was actually there.

I'm here again, I thought to myself, taking deeper breaths as to not feel the sensation of being suffocated. It was almost unbearable how heavy the room's atmosphere felt, and it felt inescapable.

I turned to see a shadow in the old chair I recognized from my last dream. The presence felt so familiar, I was almost certain it was my dad. I rolled my eyes as I took a step towards them.

"Here to give me another lesson on the irrelevance of morality, dad?" My tone was almost condescending. I was pretty annoyed by all of these dreams. They never made me feel better. They were exhausting.

But as I approached the chair, the gleam in the green eyes caught my attention. They weren't dead and lifeless like how my dad's were in my dreams.

"Not quite, more like a lesson in the insignificance of brutality, good guess though." The voice practically echoed in my ears, I felt like I was hearing myself, and I was. As I took another step, the light finally met the face of the figure in the chair: me. But not just me, but how I saw myself. It was the me I saw in the mirror.

I crossed my arms, confused as to why I was once again seeing myself in my own dream. I furrowed my eyebrows and examined my own face. For someone who's speaking on brutality, her face looked twisted. Maybe I was imagining it. Then again, this is how I saw myself - twisted.

"That's literally the opposite of what I said, but alright," I responded, looking down at her eyes, my own eyes. They startled me. They were full of life. And the way she looked at me...

"You reap what you sow," she stated plainly, almost as if she read my mind. I played dumb.

"I don't follow-" She put up her hand, closing her eyes.

"You wanted to be the hero. You're no longer the hero of a happy story. You're a tragic hero, plain and simple." I sighed, looking down at the floor with a nod.

"I know," I murmured, my voice losing it's confidence. She seemed to tilt her head at that.

"Then why continue this insanity when you know damn well it doesn't benefit you? Hell, who even does it benefit?" I glared back at the Nicole sitting in the chair.

"You know the answer to that, don't be an idiot. I'm doing this to prevent more injustice from happening." She cackled at my words, which shocked me a bit, causing me to shoot her a confused look. Why was she laughing? I was telling the truth.

"You're being honest, sure," she said, once again reading my mind, "but you're missing the point. Your killing people who are at the most evading the horrors they caused, and at least blissfully ignorant." She stood up with a sort of grin that sent a chill down my spine. "You cannot deny that Harrison was ignorant. An ass, sure, but more ignorant than ruthless." I felt myself go silent and look down at the floor. How did I become so intimidated, and by myself of all people?

"You're trying to be some white knight, but what you really are..." she crept close and touched my shoulder, forcing me to look up. "... is a monster." The word echoed in my ears. It was something I never wanted to be. It was something I'd denied about myself for practically my entire life. I shook my head.

"No. No, I'm not that..." I responded weakly, making eye contact again. It was difficult. "I'm certainly not good..." I backed away with an inhale. "However, I'm not a monster." She shrugged, somehow still smiling. She must have taken great joy in making me feel like the worst person in the room... or at least, in my own head.