LJ Idol Exhibit B, Week 4 (Shadow Children)
"Reflection"
My name is Omega Ultima Simpson. Meg for short.
My mother named me that because she presumed that I was the lastborn of those conceived before The Darkening. Most of the other mothers who were pregnant at that moment never made it to the birth. Many of those who did, she reasoned, couldn't bear to bring a child into a fallen world.
Not my mother, though. She firmly believed, even though it had been nine months since the world had fallen into chaos, that I had been born for a purpose. And she was determined to give me every opportunity to fulfill it.
If only I knew what that purpose was. I've been on this forsaken planet for twenty years now, five of them without Mother, and I still haven't figured it out.
The society Mom used to know had a rhythm, she used to say. A child would grow up, go to school, make friends, find work, and eventually find someone they loved and start a family of their own. All of these things--having both a mother and a father, being a mother, working a repetitive job--sounded to me like they came from another planet. I suppose that's true in a way, because that world doesn't exist anymore.
Mom did what she could on her own, teaching me the history of the people who had walked in light, and how to fight and survive in a world that now lacked it. She taught me of the gods those people worshipped, gods that now seemed to have abandoned those who devoted themselves to them. Or maybe the gods had taken their followers unto themselves, leaving the rest of us behind.
Maybe this was the Hell they spoke of.
I was thinking about all of this a few days ago, when I found a tattered, leather-bound book on the ground. The print on the cover had worn away, and the pages were creased, but this tome had clearly meant something to someone once; the text was marked in many places, and notes were written in the margins.
Taking a few minutes to rest by the side of the road, I flipped idly through the pages. Some of the sections were historical records, census figures for a people long since eradicated. Other parts, however, were more poetic in nature.
One line of text, in particular, caught my attention. Section 23, subsection 4. "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil..."
Mom said that when there was light in the heavens, people could walk freely and in peace. It was only when the sky darkened that evil came out into the open.
I have never known any world but darkness, and evil lurks around every shadowed corner. But I know there is a light inside of me, given to me by the one person in my life who knew what it was like to see and be seen.
This, then, is my purpose: to take the fight to the darkness, and in some small way, send my light back into the world. Mom would wish nothing less.
My name is Omega Ultima Simpson. Meg for short.
My mother named me that because she presumed that I was the lastborn of those conceived before The Darkening. Most of the other mothers who were pregnant at that moment never made it to the birth. Many of those who did, she reasoned, couldn't bear to bring a child into a fallen world.
Not my mother, though. She firmly believed, even though it had been nine months since the world had fallen into chaos, that I had been born for a purpose. And she was determined to give me every opportunity to fulfill it.
If only I knew what that purpose was. I've been on this forsaken planet for twenty years now, five of them without Mother, and I still haven't figured it out.
The society Mom used to know had a rhythm, she used to say. A child would grow up, go to school, make friends, find work, and eventually find someone they loved and start a family of their own. All of these things--having both a mother and a father, being a mother, working a repetitive job--sounded to me like they came from another planet. I suppose that's true in a way, because that world doesn't exist anymore.
Mom did what she could on her own, teaching me the history of the people who had walked in light, and how to fight and survive in a world that now lacked it. She taught me of the gods those people worshipped, gods that now seemed to have abandoned those who devoted themselves to them. Or maybe the gods had taken their followers unto themselves, leaving the rest of us behind.
Maybe this was the Hell they spoke of.
I was thinking about all of this a few days ago, when I found a tattered, leather-bound book on the ground. The print on the cover had worn away, and the pages were creased, but this tome had clearly meant something to someone once; the text was marked in many places, and notes were written in the margins.
Taking a few minutes to rest by the side of the road, I flipped idly through the pages. Some of the sections were historical records, census figures for a people long since eradicated. Other parts, however, were more poetic in nature.
One line of text, in particular, caught my attention. Section 23, subsection 4. "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil..."
Mom said that when there was light in the heavens, people could walk freely and in peace. It was only when the sky darkened that evil came out into the open.
I have never known any world but darkness, and evil lurks around every shadowed corner. But I know there is a light inside of me, given to me by the one person in my life who knew what it was like to see and be seen.
This, then, is my purpose: to take the fight to the darkness, and in some small way, send my light back into the world. Mom would wish nothing less.