FIRST TIME - PART ONE
For nearly the whole afternoon I had been reacting in terrible ways toward those around me. When my father asked about the chores I was responsible for, I stood up to him in juvenile defiance, and stared into his eyes as one stares into the face of an enemy. There was fire in my veins, my blood boiled with an incomprehensible rage that seemed to only grow and have no possible release. Upon realizing what I had been doing, I instantly regretted it, which only seemed to build up the frustration inside me. I then ran to the safety of my room.
By the time my little sisters Falere and Rila came to me with an invitation to play, I was practically at my wits end. I felt caged, as if the walls of the house were encroaching on me, gigantic and terrible monsters determined to crush me. Cold sweat had accumulated in large patches all over my clothes, I was cornered, and the walls were relentless in their pursuit. When my mind regained a semblance of its rationality, my hand was already raised—poised to strike—and I could see fear in the eyes of my sisters. There were no monsters in the walls coming after me, I was the monster.
With tears flowing freely down my face I wailed an apology to my sisters and held them both crushingly against my chest. At that moment, I heard the front door being closed, followed by the unmistakable timbre of my mother's voice. Fear struck me like lightning and in an instant I was out of the house through the back door. Of my two parents, only my mother knew the awful secret I kept, and what would she think when she learned that I just had an outburst like that? I had lashed out against my own family, I had been literally out of my mind, so who was to say it would not escalate? We both knew this day would come, but neither had the slightest idea of how it would be like, and me turning on my family had certainly been the last thing that crossed my mind.
I ran until I was well inside the small patch of forest that grew behind our house, and then I ran some more. I had to be away from my mother, and I only knew of one place where I could hide. As confused and scared as I was, escaping to my favorite spot amidst the woods seemed to be the only sensible idea I had had in the entire day.
There at my favorite place, a small clearing of rocks and haphazardly scattered patches of flowers, I slowly began to feel at ease—if only slightly. The noise of the tiny stream that flowed from under the mossy rocks was a soothing music to my ears. It was almost dark, the sun already lost behind the horizon, so I would have to do without the sight of the beautiful flowers that grew all over the small clearing. Minutes passed like this, with me swallowing air in large gulps and trying to push the nauseating fear down to my stomach, all the while willing the pit at the bottom of it into nonexistence.
Once I had regained a measure of calm, an uninvited memory came into my mind, the young Asari maiden I had seen in the vid screen earlier that day. She was a creature of extreme beauty, so full of grace, I had been enthralled by her the whole time she appeared in the screen. When she disappeared and the spell was broken, I realized I wanted her beauty and grace for myself… quite literally. I had no desire to be with that maiden, nor was I hopelessly infatuated with her, I actually wanted to take her beauty and grace away—tear them out of her and somehow put them inside of me.
After only a few minutes of peace, I became once again caged inside my own mind. I quickly grew desperately frustrated, the forest soon felt like a clutch around my body and the very air I breathed was suffocating me. A scream ripped through my throat, or so it felt, but I heard nothing, not the tiniest cry. Why was my voice gone? What in the name of Athame was happening to me? Desperation took me and power surged from the fire in my veins. Mother had always been keen about my sisters and I being adept at the use of biotics, and yet, what came out of my hands at that moment did not terrify me any less. Tendrils of a biotic energy unlike any I had seen to date flowed from my hands and latched onto every plant surrounding me. They were dark, so dark in fact, that I was able to easily discern them from the darkened background, even though the light of day had almost completely died out.
I could barely see the flowers around me, and the tendrils of dark energy—seemingly draining light instead of radiating it—were no help at all. One thing was apparent, though. Every one of the plants touched by my biotics was obviously drying so much faster than was naturally possible. Panic flooded my already enfeebled mind, and all logic fled from its grasp. When it became apparent that trying to control this… thing coming out of my body was nothing short of futile, I tried to physically tear it away from my skin. Though I smashed my hands and scraped them endlessly against the surface of a large rock, this proved to be a fruitless endeavor as well.
At some point the energy finally dissipated, but by then I was not only exhausted and covered in sweat, but I had also turned my clothes into a bloody mess. There, atop the rock, a blissful darkness finally took me away from the horrors of the day.
It was very dark and cold when I next opened my eyes, and as I tried to lift my head, I was immediately overcome by a disorienting haze. My sight was a blurry mess, but I could feel that I was now lying on my back, and the rock was not hard and cold as one would expect from it. Had I not been utterly exhausted, perhaps I would have tried to remove myself from the strange warmth and softness that lay beneath me. However, I could not, so I just settled for exploring my surroundings with my hands.
I did not make too much progress before one of my hands was gently captured and held in place beside my body. No sooner had I felt a small pang of fear rise within me, a voice reached my ears and eased away all the things that had gone wrong today. My mother had come to me, and there was nothing but care and understanding in her voice.
"Be still, Mirala. I treated your hands, but the wounds are still tender." As she spoke, her hand began lovingly caressing the length of my crests, and almost instantaneously the most pleasant lethargy took hold of my mind.
Reveling in the dullness and calm that pervaded my senses, I let sleep claim me once more.
