Chapter 59: Forgotten Legacy
"You...we did it to save you. You touched so many people, saved so many lives...you made a better future by simply being you and to save you and so much more, we had to destroy it all. Everything you built, everything you worked so hard to change, every person you saved...we erased your story.
We love you so much...each time, more of us died...our stories rewritten. We became the villains of your story to make you stronger. Time and again, we took everything from you and one time...we made a mistake. Trying so desperately to save you, to save creation itself...we destroyed them and without them...we're the ones that hollowed you out, killing the very people you needed to survive.
But they still exist...we were able to bring them back, but we couldn't find them...at first. We did find one and what was needed to ensure their existence, but we can't find the other and without the second, you won't just die...your soul will shatter into dust and all will be lost." The Queen of Hearts answered pain lancing through the blonde's heart.
Her mind was bombarded with images, feelings, events and people. She cried out as she bent forward, curling into herself. She wept, she wept so hard...screaming in agony. She couldn't breathe, her lungs refusing to function. The heat in her body amplified, making her blood feel like it was boiling and scalding her hand from where it was pouring from her side.
Her head felt like it was about to explode. There was too much...too much inside her head. The memories from that fucked up mind trip...that's what they were...failed attempts to save her, resulting in her death again and again.
She tried to breathe but it was no use. It was too much...so many people...her mind overloaded, her heart breaking over and over...too much, it was too much...her friends, her family, her love...her children...oh god, her timeline was unwritten again and again. She had to say goodbye so many times...and then came that horrible memory...a soul shattering scream as she was being torn apart.
Her vision darkened as she began to lose consciousness, falling back onto her side...her mouth open in a silent scream. Her eyes were wide open, but were clouded over like she had been rendered blind.
She had died so many times and in so many ways. Countless times everything was torn away from her and all to make her stronger but why? What was so important about her that required the people she had once loved to sacrifice themselves, to go so far for someone as worthless as her? Too much...it was too much...heart, mind, and soul...she was dying...dying from her own memories. She could feel it...she was cracking, splintering, breaking, shattering...she really was dying, only this time she felt it, all of it...experiencing the pain and anguish of every death all over again but at the very same time.
Help! Please! Make it stop! It's too much! I can't hold onto it! It's killing me! Please! Let me breathe, damn it! Fuck that! Tell me why! Why...why...why...WHY!
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I said too much. I told you too much. I'm sorry! You're gonna be okay, you're gonna be okay. I'll take away the pain. You won't remember what happened here.
You won't remember how we destroyed you, your friends and family...your legacy. You won't remember that I'm not your enemy, that I love you...like my own child. I am so, so sorry." Kora told her, her tone panicked and full of agony, grief, guilt, and despair.
Artz shook her head, a clear sign that she did not want to forget, but that just made the Queen of Hearts sob, tears streaming down her face as her hand reached towards the blonde's head.