Eternal by Denise Dowdell-Stent | Young Adult Fantasy Author
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The Mirror Within

4/6/2013

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"Why does he torture me so?" Amy said staring mindlessly at her own reflection.  The reflection did not answer.  How could it; it was a mere image, a representation of what was real; yet like Amy's problem, it had no substance.

"I wonder if he gets some perverse pleasure from making me feel so bad?" Amy asked her reflection.  

"Why does he treat me like this after all I have done for him?"

An imaginary stream of tears poured down the face that was her own, but was not her.  The face that stared back at Amy was merely an outline; undoubtedly it was Amy's outline, but it wasn't real.  Amy was real and yet the cause of her problem didn't exist in the same way as she did.  Like Amy, he possessed human flesh and blood, but had no soul.  He did not feel things as she did, he merely reflected them like the image facing her.  Even his thoughts were no more than a quantised equation: what will benefit me? + what will I get from it? = self-satisfaction.  This to him, was a perfect equilibrium, the balance between self-indulgence and selfish greed, at the expense of all others if necessary.  Unfortunately at some point in time Amy had become part of his equation, and in finding she didn't fit, he cast her aside.

Amy realised this now and yet she could not free herself.

"It is as though I am bonded to him.  He has an unseen power over me.  He draws me to him so that I cannot break away, like an electron orbiting the nucleus of an atom."

"You are a part of me and yet you do not belong!" Amy shouted at the reflection in the mirror.

The night came and passed.  Even when asleep, she had no peace.  He invaded every part of her mind, her thoughts, her hopes and desires, her dreams and the deep recesses that even she was not consciously aware of.

She awoke haunted by transcendental images and memories from an almost forgotten sleep; it seemed as real to Amy as the fragmented world that encompassed her as her eyes had opened.  Both worlds - that of substance and reality, and the other of thoughts and emotions - home of the human psyche, had merged.  Neither, in Amy's mind, comprised any more than an abstract illusion.
"I am nowhere," Amy whispered, adopting a foetal position beneath the reassuring warmth of her blanket.

She arrived at college with a growing feeling of anticipation.  Amy knew he would be there, although not right away.  He would make her wait first.  He would make her bear the morning without him, and then, just as she began to re-adjust to a reality of substance and matter, of real people and real emotions, he appeared.  He looked at Amy, piercing his eyes into the depths of her soul and beyond as though she were nothing more than a holographic image; an echo from the past.  He pulled away the golden thread of reality to which she grasped, like a child teasing a cat with a ball of string, constantly toying.

"Do I mean nothing to you?" Amy asked him silently.

"I am myself - I am I - the living legend," he replied in kind. 

"You could have been part of me.  You would have been joined with me.  How privileged, my dear Amy, you could have been to indulge in the physical pleasures my body would have given you."

"No.  They would have been the shallow and immaterial pools of representational joy and sexual satisfaction - yours not mine.  They are a part of you, a part of your barren and empty psyche. I wanted you as I thought you were real but you are no longer.  You hold only glimpses of humanity - echoes of the soul."

He heard no more for she held no power over him.

"I do not need you Amy, but I will not free you.  You are of no importance but I do possess you."

She walked away from him.  An unfamiliar feeling stirred within her; her soul was breaking free, at least this is what Amy hoped was happening.

"I am disgusted.  You are not who you appear to be.  You are more than a fragmentation of that which does not exist.  The part that remains in the world of truth and emotion is cruel.  You hide a beast within that is preying on its kill - I am your victim. I lie in wait."

Amy waited.  He did not keep her waiting today, for he knew she was waiting, hoping like the day before that he would not be there.

"I have entered Amy; you cannot reject me, so I shall hurt you. I control every part of your being, your thoughts, your feelings and your every reaction. I shall now inflict my pain on you so you can bear it.  All negativity shall be lifted from me.  You will carry my burden."

Amy knew he had invaded her.  He had corrupted her very thoughts with his insensitivity and transparent arrogance.  The barrier of glass between them had been shattered.  She could no longer shield herself from the sharp splinters that sprayed into the air around her, stabbing into her skin and piercing her flesh causing her to bleed.

"We all have an instinct to survive.  You cannot destroy me" Amy cried out in pain.

He relished in her anguish and mentally raped her inner soul.  Pushing her away, he swore at her out loud, punishing her for fighting him off, for defending her wounded body from all that he had already inflicted upon her.  She was now invisible - she no longer existed to him.

"No" Amy cried to him.  "You are deafening me. I no longer hear you. I hate you."

She was overwhelmed by anger and fear.  It consumed her; her mind spiralled into a depth of confusion.  Fear and anger battled against each other like violent adversaries.  Like a pot of boiling oil, Amy simmered internally; an inferno of heat immersed her heart, swallowing all in its path.  All the good feelings she felt for him were engulfed in burning oil leaving a trail of smouldering ash.

"I am healed now. I have been cleansed" she said to him in silence.

"I need you now” he said.  "You have bruised my greatness.  Attend to me."

"I am no longer yours. I am my own person. I will not be drowned in your pool of emptiness.  I am no longer immersed in the icy cold waters of your mind.  You are weakened without me, as together we were bonded. I structured your being, your egotistical needs.  Like a building with the foundations removed, you will slowly collapse, propping yourself upon others weaknesses."

Amy continued, "I am eclipsed now.  You will find me no more."

He walked away from her, surrounding himself with his own rancid laughter.  Amy sat as she was.  She felt strings of attachment joining her to the beast that had savaged her soul; but they were weak strings, tattered, worn away and barely visible to the naked eye.  They were corrupted by his own violation of Amy's being; he no longer possessed her as he had done such a short time ago.  She had been freed from his destructive grasp and could look beyond.  Only this time Amy saw nothing.

“I am blinded by the explosion but I shall transcend to the providence of time."

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    Denise is a YA Fantasy Fiction author but also writes scripts, poetry (published in various anthologies such as 'A Passage in Time' and 'Speaking of Love' by Forward Poetry), song lyrics, and maintains a blog here at eternaluk.com.

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