=10= [broadcast mind | memory-dream]
Under the bed. You’re just a little kid, you’re small enough and it won’t be able to find you there. It won’t be able to smell you with the corpses of your parents right on top of you. That was the smart thing, only you didn’t think of it. You were too afraid. Your sister was the one. She pushed you under there, deep, and pressed your hands to your mouth. Don’t make a sound.
And you don’t. You’re too scared. You keep your hands against your mouth, hard like iron and your skin tastes like blood, and you don’t even squeak while it kills her. It tears her apart with its teeth and it eats her and you watch, silent as your dead mother and father above you even though in your head you’re screaming.
But you aren’t screaming no, stop, don’t eat her. There is one red, bloody, burning word in there and that is run. You want to run for your life, you want to flee, but you can’t. You’re too afraid even for that. Paralyzed with fear. Mortality is suddenly your reality, you’re surrounded by it and it terrifies you. You don’t want to die.
You’re a coward.
You know it’s the truth. You don’t move, even after it goes away. Fear has made your legs stop working. You shiver and throw up and push yourself deeper under the bed and all you can see all the time is your sister’s body, torn apart and even though you are just a child you think it’s sick that you’re glad it wasn’t you.
You disgust yourself.
So you fight. You knew, even when you were still under that bed, that they would find you. You heard the grown-ups talking. Sell her, send her away, those people take little girls with no family. The Organization. And you’re glad you can fight, you want to want to kill them all, all the demons who tore your sister apart. But you’re afraid. You’re still afraid of death. You chose to funnel your strength into saving your body. Fear in every cell, you’re pathetic.
But death is your reality now. It’s in your hands and your face, in that sword you carry. You are death. And you throw yourself at it as if you don’t care. As if you want it. And you push yourself, almost too far. You do it all on purpose. Because as scared as you are, you do want it. Want death. It’s a dance, dangerous. One wrong move and it owns you and you. Don’t. Care.
There is someone, one person who cares about you. And maybe she is something to live for. But it is hard to love her more than you hate yourself. So you pick fights, make trouble. You learn things you shouldn’t. Push and wait to be pushed back. Pretend.
You think that’s the heart of a rebel? Don’t kid yourself. You never got out from under that bed. You’ve always been a coward.