Chapter 2
"Battle of the Soul"
Song: Animal I Have Become, Three Days Grace "I can't escape myself… So many times I've tried…"
Days. It had been days since Kashi found the city in the desert. And despite her best attempts to persuade the guards to let her in, they wouldn't budge. Her now dark red arms and legs were radiating heat from being left under the sun for such a long period of time. Her fists were bloody from banging on the door for countless hours. Her eyes were sandy and her mouth was dry. It amazed her how there was such a lack of people going in and out of the city… in Magnolia there were hundreds of people coming and going from all over the place at all times. She had to remember that this wasn't Magnolia, however, so she shouldn't be expecting anything. For all she knew she was waiting for a ghost to come and let her in to an abandoned city. She sighed, trying to catch the breath she had lost by doing nothing. "Looks like I'm going to die out here."
All alone.
Kashi whipped her head around, searching for the mysterious voice. "Who's there?"
Nobody cares about you.
The whispering voice seemed to come at Kashi from all directions. I must be hallucinating, she thought to herself.
You aren't hallucinating – your friends never cared about you and you know it.
Harshly, she replied. "That's not what I said!" A chuckle could be heard within the depths of her mind.
You've been abandoned.
She shook her head in an attempt to ignore the voices. "That's not true."
You're all alone.
"I don't want to believe you!"
You don't even know if anyone's here, now you're truly alone...
She gritted her teeth. "Stop it right now!"
You'll soon be forgotten.
"You're lying…"
It will be as if you never existed.
"I SAID STOP IT!" Kashi gripped her head within her hands, desperately trying to block out the voices. "My friends would never forget about me!" A tone of uncertainty wavered in her voice.
They never liked you.
"Well, I guess, maybe with time, but not on purpose."
You're a sad excuse for a human being.
"I just don't want to be alone; what's wrong with that!" Her voice cracked, her throat grew a lump within it.
Don't flatter yourself - you have always been alone.
Kashi broke down in tears. "I was happy…"
Nobody else could be happy with your sorry face hanging around.
"Just go away; when I get home …"
Home doesn't want you to come back.
"Please…stop."
You couldn't go home if you wanted to, anyway.
"I can make a new home. Here, in memory of my old friends."
Friends this, friends that. Don't you realize? You only had "friends" because they felt sorry for you! Did they ever go out of their way to make you happy? No. Did they ever go out of their way to spend time with you? No. Did they ever go out on missions just to be with you? NO! You were a tag-along; only there as a last resort; the person they chose when nobody else was available and going alone wasn't an option!
Kashi was now angry. Everything the voice said appealed to her like sugar to an ant. She wanted to believe the words weren't true, but she couldn't come up with an excuse. The more it spoke the more she believed it, and the crazier she became. Her head was spinning. Red waves of evil replaced her surroundings and beckoned her closer to a pool of pitch blackness. She felt it radiating insanity. She didn't want to jump in, but found herself wading into the darkness.
Why don't you just give up and DIE already?
With the voice drowning out her own thoughts, Kashi fell into the black pool. Insanity rushed through her body as she tried to breathe. It was suffocating her, and drawing out her darkest desires for revenge. Her eyes turned bloody red as her soul was engulfed by the insanity.
She had fought against her true self and lost.