My Collin

I'm looking into our living room, watching everyone sitting and living around me. Trouble is, the ghosts of my past are walking around them. Like a bad TV reception flickering on and off, I can see people walking and talking and passing through them, and no one is noticing.

I see myself smiling and laughing and talking with these beloved ones, my ghosts no one saw as I held them and even... kissing them? Shady is staring at me, watching me as I stand stock still and pause mid-sentence. Oh, I see my love, my Collin, and I crumble. Tears begin to fall as I sink to the floor, my knees bruising from the fall, me caring not even a little. Everything is just... so fucking hard to deal with now.

She's walking over to check on me, and I can't stop crying and the dead are flanking her on both sides. They're reaching for me, just as the insane did in that bizarre room of the Advocate's. There are no bars to stop these awful fucking specters. They're reaching and crying out for me at the same time, and I'm screaming and crawling backwards into a corner and hiding my face and holding my arms over my head, a selfish silly vain attempt to make them stop their begging, their pleading.

I'm curling into a ball, curling up into the smallest space I can possibly make. I can feel them touching me and pulling at my hair and caressing my face and I can hear myself begin to beg and plead with them in return... please help me please help me please help me make the pain stop please make them go away why are they hurting me why are they here, why can't I fucking forget these goddamn dead people and their stories and their lives?

They will not go away and I see this one, dark figure behind all the others, smiling down at me and... soaking in my pain. The last thing I see before I black out are my loved ones, my housemates staring at me and pulling me against their bodies. I don't know who, I don't know why, but I am grateful to know they are real and I am real and oh god the pain, the screaming has stopped. Then.. all I see is white.





He was so beautiful. My very best friend, the one I knew and cared for outside of the assignment. But, well, he was supposed to just be for information. One runner to another, you see, the kinds of things even constant spying couldn't provide. He was my friend, my lover, my confidant in all but my job. He never knew the truth. It was... Better that way.

 I was different then, you see. Before it all began to hurt and bleed. Before I quit. Or, well, tried to. I loved so many. They were my friends, souls connecting mine to almost another world. I wasn't so jaded then. I believed in what I was doing. I believed in myself, and it showed.

I literally glowed, to those that could see those kinds of things. I... dreamed of him again. That final, beautiful day that changed everything, that made me go to them and ask for that pocket watch. For the ability to forget. Shame it didn't last longer. Sometimes, it really is easier to begin again. What a price tag for so few months of absolution. I'll live the rest of my life in regret for that choice. They did this on purpose.

We walked that day, hand in hand, enjoying the sunlight on our faces as we took that path through the trees. We were so happy then. We were...foolish enough to go off the path. There was a lake off to the west, an adventure we had taken many times before. I ran ahead, taking my clothes off as i went. Laughing and smiling and asking to be chased. Those long, hot days we'd spend splashing in each other's arms, making love on the lakeside, they were so precious to me. In some ways... A part of me is still there on that path, waiting for him to find me, to love me again.

There was silence, and a pause too long. He had never waited so long to join me. I turned back to ask him if he was angry, what had happened to take so long. I saw.. A wolf. A woman slinking behind my Collin, a mask over her face, dark curly hair falling around it. I froze... And watched. I smiled to myself, and called out to him, telling him i loved him, to hurry up. I thought it a game, until..she pounced. Then i realized.

She slashed and tore and ripped, and he bled. Oh, the screaming he did. As i was powerless. As always, powerless. I could not interfere in this. She had her job... And i had mine. It took far too long for his whimpers to die down, for, well, him to die. Tears fell unnoticed as i watched my only love fall to what amounted to an ally. I knew not who she was or why she did it, but to move would mean death, more than simply mine.

She stood and walked to me, her hips swaying, his blood still wet on her lips. She was so fucking beautiful, so fucking horrible. "Which path will you take now?" She asked. "The path of needles, or the path of pins?" i stood my ground, unafraid of this belladonna. Finally...

I whispered, "What big eyes you have."

"They have seen fear, pain, death, and the beauty in all," responded the wolf.

Again I whispered to her, "What big ears you have." her mask was detailed wonderfully. "They have heard many an anguished cry and hate-filled curse." said the wolf.

Again, "What big teeth you have," silently pointing to the blood that was dripping down her chin. She smiled and licked it away. "They have found their homes in many to my satisfaction... And in this case, to yours." she couldn't resist that, no, she knew where i stood in this. I cleared my throat, and told her at last:

"You're lovely." She laughed, and lunged at me. She raised her blades near my face, but shook her head and ran past. She left me alone that day, with the blood and the tears and the pain.

She left me with her mess, his body, and a love destroyed. It was that day i lost my motivation.