"Not every open wound is simply healed by time
But revenge is always sweet
And Chaos is the prize"
- Die (Casey Lee Williams)
Do you believe in paradise? A sanctuary where we can feel safe and ourselves?
People call it home. The beds you come to at night and rest your mind.
But what if I told you that your mind is never resting and you have always had this sanctuary within you all along?
Imagination is where you can drown yourselves in delusions of happiness.
But as a physical manifestation of your heart, it does exist.
It is beyond the average human's reach.
But I'm not your average human.
Every day, I can see the world within the people's eyes. The lens that hide the truth from the outside.
I can see everything with a simple glance into your eyes.
And should I will it, I can enter your paradise and see your true self.
But you don't want that. Because this sanctuary that contain our hearts don't really contain this safe paradise where we shelter ourselves.
It cages all the pain in our hearts that hide our true selves. The truth has always been an ugly thing.
If I poke into your heart, I wouldn't know what monsters I would face. I know I wouldn't want anyone to see into my broken heart.
Every day, I see through people's hearts and I ache to find how much people suffer.
From the heartache of breakups to those broken by their minds.
It's bad enough I have to face my own darkness every day. It's a miracle I haven't gone insane yet.
My heart is so empty now that I wouldn't really care if I lived or died. It's just a matter of when something's going to push me.
"Ivan, I'm heading home." I don't look up as Rene says goodbye. "I'll see you tomorrow."
"Bye." I say as I focus my eyes on my PC.
I hate to see Rene's heart. A kind hearted person who suffers from the memories of her rape. It haunted me for weeks to peer through her eyes and see the same woman who smiled every day and gave out donuts every now and then chained to the wall with ropes made of photos and blindfolded with a black mask.
I never see the perpetrator's face, but it's always this crawling man with a hat and pitch black tentacles protruding from his body.
There are hardly any people I can look at in the office. Anymore.
It makes it so hard to bond with a person when you see the depths of their heart.
The IT guy from three chairs down cuts himself. His eyes hid a man in a room of blades that continue to cut him and he just smiles.
Our boss suffers from depression and her true self is curled up in a ball held down by balls and chains while the door in front of her is open. She won't leave..
There were only 2 people I could look at in the office.
Eliza, a girl who doesn't suffer from anything major and is one of the few who's sanctuaries are pleasant and safe.
And Ren. Well, Ren's been long gone.
But he was the closest friend I had.
What I saw in his heart was what I saw in front of me. The exact same person. This man who seems to just display his true self no matter where he went and no symbolism ever appeared. Just a man drinking his coffee in a cafe.
I thought I knew the real him. Then he abandoned me. He abandoned me and begun to lessen contact.
He's busy he says. And he began to forget me. I don't know him anymore.
It left a singular pain in my chest that never leaves for more than a few hours before coming back.
I'm sick of it.
When I'm finally done with my work, I clock out and leave. I hate the night shift because the trains would be closed and I'd have to take the bus.
The night air was chilling and fog littered the streets.
It was so damn creepy.
At least there were open convenience stores around here so if I run into trouble, I can just run into a 7-11.
After about 10 minutes of waiting, the bus finally arrived.
I pay the conductor and take a seat next to woman with brunette hair.
"Hello." She says to me.
The friendly type. I'd hate to see what kind of pain she hides.
"Hi." I say back without looking at her.
About a mile later, the bus stopped and a man in a hoodie entered.
There was something strange about his presence. Any normal person, I would have looked away.
But there was something that drew me closer to his sight.
He wore shades so thankfully my eyes couldn't see into his pupils directly. But what kind of person wears shades in the middle of the night?
He sat at the seat across mine.
For a while, I keep my head down and wait until I hear the driver announce that we're in my stop.
But I couldn't stop looking up. I just couldn't.
Until finally, I looked at his face. His features.
He seemed young. About my age.
Pale skin and lean. He had bright, blue dyed hair that stuck out at the edges of his hood.
He doesn't move, as if to let me keep staring.
Then suddenly, he smiles a tight lipped smile.
He reaches for his shades and withdraws them from his face.
His pale blue eyes pierced right through my eyes.
My eyes widened, my powers forcibly making its way through his soul.
"You shouldn't be here." He says. Inside his paradise.
He reaches out to me. No, his true self reached out. And I feel... FEEL... his soul's hand on my face.
"Go back to your own room." And I feel a force push me back.
I feel myself thrown back into the ground. But that shouldn't be right..
I was already seated.
Instead, I find myself on a marble floor and no longer on the bus.
"It took you long enough."
In front of me... Was me.
Red strings trapped him like a fly on a spiderweb. He wasn't even struggling to escape.
"What are you?" I managed to utter.
He laughed. "Years of peering into other people's hearts and you're surprised you finally see your own true nature?"
His eyes... They were a hollow green. There was nothing to see.
"You can't use your powers here. You're already seeing the depths of your heart."
I stand up and approach him. "What is this supposed to mean? What is binding you... Me... to this?!"
He tilts his head slightly and stares back at me. "You of all people should know."
"What do you mean?"
"If you have to ask your heart what it wants, than you ought to figure it out on your own."
"Don't be an asshole."
"But I am an asshole. You're an asshole." He chuckles. "Listen to me very carefully. You're about to come back soon and everything is about to change."
His eyes began to shine. "Strengthen your resolve and I shall give you my power. Your will to live will determine your fate."
"But... I don't have any." He smirked.
A scream breaks my stupor and the whole room was engulfed in a flash. I'm suddenly back in the bus.
And just as I fully return to my senses, the bus crashes into a wall and we're thrown into the floor.
There were only 7 of us in the night bus and luckily, the bus didn't overturn.
"Is everyone okay?" The conductor surveyed the passengers. "Everyone remain calm."
"We just crashed into a fucking wall! How do you expect us to calm down?" Said one of the rowdier passengers. My eyes catch a glimpse of his true self. A man trapped inside a well with bunch of people throwing what I assume are expectations.
He stands but returns to his seat. He seems to have injured his foot.
"You're hurt. Please don't move too much." An older lady approaches him. "Can someone check on the driver?"
The conductor approaches the driver and checks on him. "He's alive but he's passed out."
The conductor takes him off his seat and places him on the floor. The lady wraps a scarf over the man's bleeding head.
"Anyone else hurt?"
I hear someone gasp. The woman beside me had turned around. With shaking fingers, she pointed to the window.
Like something out of silent hill, a flying, flesh like monster I couldn't quite describe was staring at us. It screeched and I could feel the bus vibrate.
It wasn't the monster that shocked me.
It was the fact that not a single soul in this bus had moved or screamed for their life as the monster lunged for the kill.
"If it's not your will to live... Then how far will your will to die take you?"
(To be continued...)
