Catch-up TM Challenge #95 - Forgiveness
Oh, I know very well who deserves my forgiveness right now. Only one person in my mind deserves that honor. Not that he's going to get it.
Franz Hopper, the creator of Carthage. Of Lyoko. And of XANA.
My father.
Yes, Franz Hopper is my father. Thanks to him I have back all of the memories that XANA took from me in order to form a link between the two of us. But it's also thanks to Franz that I was even on Lyoko in the first place. It's thanks to him that I spent ten years trapped there, alone, until I met Jeremie and the others. Ten years spent as an eternal child when I should have been growing up, completing my education and starting a family of my own. Do you have any idea what it's like to sit in a classroom, and know that technically you're no older than the teacher? To see old classmates or friends on the street, with their boyfriends or girlfriends, spouses and children, and be jealous because that should have been you?
Part of me knows that my father never meant to hurt me. He had become obsessed with Lyoko and XANA, paranoid. After discovering the "return to the past" mechanism he ended up reliving the same day over 2000 times to give himself more time to work on it; he could very well have been a bit unstable mentally. But in the end all he wanted was for the two of us to be safe, together. Mom died when I was still a little girl, and he didn't want to lose me as well. Lyoko was supposed to be a paradise for the two of us, a safe haven.
Instead, it became a hell.
So I'm sorry, Daddy. I know that you meant well, that you never meant for any of this to happen. And I know I probably never would have met Jeremie, Ulrich, Odd or Yumi if things had been different. But I can't forgive you for what you did.
Franz Hopper, the creator of Carthage. Of Lyoko. And of XANA.
My father.
Yes, Franz Hopper is my father. Thanks to him I have back all of the memories that XANA took from me in order to form a link between the two of us. But it's also thanks to Franz that I was even on Lyoko in the first place. It's thanks to him that I spent ten years trapped there, alone, until I met Jeremie and the others. Ten years spent as an eternal child when I should have been growing up, completing my education and starting a family of my own. Do you have any idea what it's like to sit in a classroom, and know that technically you're no older than the teacher? To see old classmates or friends on the street, with their boyfriends or girlfriends, spouses and children, and be jealous because that should have been you?
Part of me knows that my father never meant to hurt me. He had become obsessed with Lyoko and XANA, paranoid. After discovering the "return to the past" mechanism he ended up reliving the same day over 2000 times to give himself more time to work on it; he could very well have been a bit unstable mentally. But in the end all he wanted was for the two of us to be safe, together. Mom died when I was still a little girl, and he didn't want to lose me as well. Lyoko was supposed to be a paradise for the two of us, a safe haven.
Instead, it became a hell.
So I'm sorry, Daddy. I know that you meant well, that you never meant for any of this to happen. And I know I probably never would have met Jeremie, Ulrich, Odd or Yumi if things had been different. But I can't forgive you for what you did.