Chapter One: A Leech’s Fate

Biting winds and freezing cold snow swirled and brushed up against my skin. My hair whipped around, and I pushed it aside to see in front of me.

Snow for as far as the eye could see.

Cheeks burning madly from the sudden drop in temperature, I gaped in utter shock at the swift change in reality.

Slow to react, I called out without realizing who I was calling. "Penguin?"

Nothing and no one for miles around answered me.

"Eric?! Kissae?!"

Still no response. Hot tears clung to my eyelashes and formed icicles that fractured every time I blinked.

Dressed in only an oversized blue shirt that Kissae had lent me to wear…I was stranded in the middle of nowhere. Wearing little to nothing.

My body temperature plummeted, and my ears popped.

"Anyone?”

Nothing would answer my call. The blinding messages from before which had showered me in despair? That had done their work well.

Lip trembling. I refused to believe it was real as I looked upon the world.

Closed my eyes and opened them to the harsh light reflecting off ice forming. Seconds ticked by. Minutes.

I broke first.

“NOOOOOOOOO—Ahhaha….” The sob scream pulled every thread connecting to the other world away.

The screams reminded me I was alive–raw but alive.

Blubbering names, I had to guess to get right, I pulled on every unlikely straw. All the while snot and mucus mussed up my face until I was just covered in my own misery.

Fire licked at my pulled taut tongue but I couldn’t bring myself to hinge my jaw together.

Calling out for anyone with a pulse to find me until I was on the verge of losing that pink muscle.

Hoping and praying someone would come running.

“Please….” And that was so much worse than being the nothing they promised.

Gulping down the emptiness, I turned back to the ground expecting it to swallow me up.

I wanted it.

I wanted to disappear now. Shame. Cloying shame stuck to my vocal cords as I lost my lungs in the snow.

“..kill me…please…please, please, please, please, please, PLEASEE!!”

Let. Me. Die.

Don’t leave me here alone.

It wasn’t even me. Racing thoughts carried me back to the moment I lost everything. I didn’t-I wouldn’t have done this. “Why couldn’t you wait? Just let me explain…just let me explain.” My hands fell into my lap as I begged someone to listen.

How could I be so foolish?

Cold sweat rained down like never before, mixing with the tears until I couldn’t tell which was which anymore.

How could I be so brain dead as to trust in him? “I didn’t-I didn’t-I swear I didn’t mean to. It was my mouth but it was his.” I begged the empty air and stammered over every word of my plea.

He controlled me so well everything slipped. Strips of skin tore from my lip as I worried it. In my heart I knew who I was. Until he replaced it with what he wanted.

Violated. It felt like someone had used me and tossed me out onto the street from a moving van. It couldn’t have been more than a millisecond.

I blinked and sand became snow. It wasn’t my fault. He did this. They have to know that. If I could just explain…

“How?”

The entire world is gone. My home is gone. Everything I had was gone. And I took it all for granted.

Again.

I want death.

For me….and for him. Revulsion sings through me as the cruel wish strikes me.

Why? Why is it me? Why am I like this?

Why?

[Do you want a second chance?]

I stopped mid sob as the familiar croon of an unfeeling machine called to me in the blistering starkness.

Bile rumbled in my chest like an engine running in the dead of winter and for the first time I realized.

Truly realized.

All the fake threats, fun times, privileges, smack talk, and faces. Just an illusion to hide the hideous truth. None of this belongs to me. None of me belongs to me.

And I really had entered the Valley of Death.

But there were no shadows to hide in here.

“Mom…" I sobbed as I collapsed to my knees. I was alone. Completely alone. No one was here.

No one. What am I going to do?

A harsh snigger echoed. "What are you going to do~"

I held my breath and refused to turn around as her haunting mockery filled my ears.

Eyes bulging out of my skull, a pity party for one made room for the extra plate at the table.

"What will you do now that no one's here to tolerate your little tantrums~"

She cackled to herself and hissed in my ear. "God...it must have killed you.”

Jeering at the total defeat of the sad sap in front of her. “Just killed you...Not even knowing what you did wrong? Do you know now? Do you understand why we're so...illfated?”

She cupped her hands and pressed them to her flushed cheeks. “It's you." Her eyes could have been moons at this point but I refused to look at them.

"..."

"It's always been you." Tapping my face expectantly, I turned my cheek and she pinched the skin for good measure before releasing.

Stalking around me, all I can hear is her muffled laughter no matter how much I try to block it out. "All you had to do was keep your mouth shut. That's it. He would've gotten over it eventually...but no.You needed the validation..."

She growls low and deep in my ear. "The attention."

"You need it all. You need someone less empty to fill up your plastic heart because you're nothing."

"Stop it." That’s not true.

"Weak." She seethes.

"No." My voice breaks and I cough to break up the phlegm trapped there.

"Pathetic."

She grabs me by my hair and forces me to look into soul scorching eyes dripping with contempt.

The amount of sheer hatred she bared for me as she looked headlong into her reflection left me wondering.

She was one eye twitch from breaking my neck, and she made sure I felt it. But I couldn’t recall anything I did to deserve it.

"You. Ruin. Everything." She spelled it out for me like she could tell where my mind was going. Tightening her grip, she lifted until my scalp was coming apart at the seans.

"Stop it, please." I didn’t do this. It was him. He made me. You have to know that.

"No. You're going to hear me, you spoiled little brat. You're a fucking idiot with an ego the size of the eiffel tower. Nothing you do will ever erase that you're a moron. You're an infant with a handgun, blindly shooting at the people around you and getting surprised when they turn around and give you their backs. You pushed everyone who could have helped us away."

Ow! I scratched at her hand and tried to pull away from her unforgiving grip.

"What?" No, I didn’t. They’re always there. Hovering like flies but there. I didn’t push anyone away!

"You killed us. You let us die."

"No! No, I didn't.” Thinking over everything, I eventually realized what she was talking about. “I-I just wanted to get picked up from school!" Let go of me freak!

"You waited for him for hours. Until it was too dark." She coos to me the details leading up until my death. "Waiting for your big brother to pick you up from school for the first time! You were over the moon~ You waited even when the doors were closed." She imitates the lock clicking and it rushes back to me like food poisoning.

My stomach does a somersault and I no longer care about the burning in my scalp.

"Stop it."

"You waited even when the buses and their drivers all went home~"

"No."

"You waited until it was dark. And cold. And you were all~alone. FOR YOU TO FINALLY PULL YOUR HEAD OUT OF THE SAND!” She laughs so hard spittle lands on my cheek and turns into icicles. “He was never coming! They never were.” She slaps her side like it’s obvious. “Why would they?"

Breathless wails consumed me as I curled up into a ball in the snow. My tears melted and turned into ice.

Mouth open in a silent scream as she rained it down on me. All of my failures. Insecurities. Wants. Needs. Mistakes.

She screamed at me until her voice was hoarse. I stayed there. Curled up in a ball, just waiting for it to be over.

"Why didn't you run away? Why didn't you fight back?! SAY IT!"

"I'm too weak!"

She grinned victoriously as I repeated all of it. Every horrible truth fell from my eyes and mouth like freshly fallen snow.

I don't know when she left.

I just know she did. The world went quiet again.

And what made me sick was...

I missed her. I missed not being alone. Even thought I hated her. Hated the way she made me feel. Why did she leave?

She's right.

I am a leech.

My fingers lost feeling as I lay in the snow. Hair thrown around by the wind, but surrounding me in a halo.

There was nothing left to do but lie there. Lay there and wait for someone to come and get me. Save me or destroy me.

"Are you done?"

My eyes widened, and I looked up. Sitting criss-cross apple sauce style before me was my very own number one hater. Her black hair was a stark contrast to the world of white around us.

Smooth tan skin pulled taut to the surface as she stared down at the parasite beneath.

"You're back?" I gulped down a glob of self loathing mucus. Pawing at the ground handful by handful until I was there. Right there.

Close to a blue fire.

Stone still. Black nails swirled within the ice. Creating impressions closer to symbols or drawings than a random poke. Thin lips curl in disgust. "Back?” A laugh as chilling as the wind that couldn’t touch her spilled out. “I can't leave."

Leaving is a smokescreen, Miseria. When will you learn? Crimson eyes gazed at her with all the derision one would behold an ant with. We never left.

Just one dark room to another. A sardonic smile played at her rapidly dissolving lips. Held together by tainted bits of reality held together by the anxiety that is her…other half. The stupider half.