ricochet
She stared at her arm, blinking against the lights that glittered there. Silver and blue and purple ricochetted from the marred skin into her eyes, adding a luminescent sheen to them that had never been there save in the peace of dreams. The shadows of life fell away, revealing something glittering beneath them. She squinted, studying the shimmering with the eyes of someone who'd never seen light before. It was something new, untouched by the creeping fingers of decay that seemed to encompass the rest of her. It sparked and shone with the brilliance of a sunrise: full of promise and potential.
Slow as the dawn, a smile drifted across her face; splitting it oddly as if such an expression had never graced her countenance before, causing the muscles to contort. She touched a finger to the scars that criss-crossed her skin, trailing it gently down the length of one particularly deep mark. It incited history, causing the dark waters to tremble as clouded things began to stir. With a scream of time tangling in on itself, her memories emerged.
Vague and chaotic, they tumbled through her head, rolling into and over each other in a frenzied tangle of mingled time and timelessness. These were her memories of life, but the memories of death huddled in the far corners of her mind, wrapped tightly in cloudy shadow and darkling shades of insanity. At her beckoning they slithered forward, bringing visions of blood and despair like sicknesses with them.
She cupped the memories in her hands, staring into them with eyes that didn't quite see what was there. Jumbled shards of remembrance lanced through her mind, each discarded as soon as it struck. All ached of bone-deep hatred turned grey with regret, steeped in tears of madness that wept into despair.
As abruptly as they had been summoned, the memories of blood were gone. Disappeared into the murky depths of her mind to hide, waiting. It didn't matter anymore.
She looked down at her arm again, that slow smile still twisting her face. The glittering grew stronger, and her eyes widened to take it in. She knew what it was, now. The radiant, fiery wings of epiphany, of realization, of truths. The burning wings swept mightily against the walls of her mind, searing away shadows and cauterizing festering wounds. A blazing wind roared through, clearing the cobwebs and bones that littered her mind.
She knew.
Slowly, carefully, her voice crept from her throat and into the air. "Maybe.... the only one I have to forgive..... is me."