[b]Chapter 3: The Art of Forgetting[/b]
"But the tigers come at night
With their voices soft as thunder
As they tear your hope apart
And they turn your dream to shame."
In two nights I lost everything. On the first night, I was forced to kill someone who was the mirror image of my best friend. Then, as I lay there unconscious, I was stolen from my home.
When I woke up, I knew certain things would never be the same. I had memories of Allison Doren, I could picture Will in my bathtub in the same posture as Danny. I didn't know that this second night was separated from the first by two years, and that during those two years everything else had been taken from me. I went to sleep hoping to rebuild my life with Vaughn and woke up to discover he'd gone on with someone else.
I need to know what happened to me in those missing two years. I can imagine some things, and none of them are pleasant. I know that somehow I was taken from my home and that I was apparently tortured and brainwashed. I've seen footage of myself killing a man in cold blood. From what little I've heard about The Covenant I can fill in a few blanks about their motivation, but none of it answers my biggest question: Why me?
What was it about my life that led them to rip me away from it? Did I kill someone's brother like Sark did? Did they simply need another operative and I was the closest one available? Did my abilities draw a job offer similar to the one Sark made when we were in Russia, only this one (to quote the Mafia) was "an offer I couldn't refuse?"
I'm not wholly unfamiliar with the recruiting tactics of terrorist organizations. After all, I went through the SD-6 recruitment process myself. However, never once in all that time did they brainwash me and steal away actual memories of my life. I wouldn't put such methods past Arvin Sloane, but apparently they were never necessary.
Tell me, how do you forget? I think I could deal with the pain of my life now if I had no memory of what I have lost. Instead, I find myself remembering everything I'm longing to forget and unable to recall the things I so desperately want to remember.
The one thing that is driving me more than this desire to regain my life is the defense mechanism that demands I forget what I had before. If I didn't remember my life, it wouldn't hurt every time I see something different. New apartment, new boss, dead best friend, Will in witness protection... nothing is the same.
If I couldn't remember Vaughn, I wouldn't feel a pang in my heart every time I see him with Lauren. his wife. I wouldn't know that I should have been Mrs. Vaughn. Every loving glance between them wouldn't remind me of what we had, what we would still have if I hadn't been ripped from his arms in the cruelest of ways.
The pain is almost enough to make me beg The Covenant to come back with their brainwashing techniques and erase my entire identity. Please, help me forget.
[b]Chapter 4: Innocence Gone[/b][i]
"He slept a summer by my side
He filled my days with endless wonder
He took my childhood in his stride
But he was gone when autumn came."[/i]
I have never been happier than I was during the months I was with Vaughn. From our ill-fated first date in Nice to our conversation in the flirting corner to that amazing kiss in the ruins of SD-6, I knew my life was finally going in the right direction. This was what I had wanted so long, this was the way life was supposed to be.
And I wasn't the only one who was happy. We were happy together. We were happy to be together. Vaughn. Vaughn was the most amazingly loving man I have ever known. In all the time I'd known him, he'd always made it his goal to take care of me, but after we were able to act on our feelings, he threw his entire being into this mission. For the first time in my life, I felt. cherished.
As the months went by, that feeling only intensified. I suppose that should have been my first warning that something would happen to mess it all up. After all, as the saying goes, "The higher you fly, the harder you fall." We were flying so high, wrapped up in our love for each other, that we were bound to fall. It was unavoidable.
But who could have guessed that this would happen? Despite what I told Vaughn, even in our twisted world this is unreal. People do not simply disappear, leaving identifiable remains, and then magically return two years later. And yet it happened, and I have to live with it.
My innocence has been stolen from me before, and each time Vaughn has been there to help me put back the pieces. When I learned what SD-6 really is, it was Vaughn who helped give me the strength to fight it. When I learned what my mother really is, Vaughn was the one who insisted that does not change who I am. But now, when the innocence of love has been torn from me, Vaughn isn't there. Vaughn will never be there just for me like he was before.
In the innocence of my youth I imagined I was saving the world; in the innocence given by revelation I saw myself atoning for my sins; in the innocence gained from wisdom I realized I could not be accountable for the actions of another. But now, in the cynicism produced by too much pain, I realize I am truly alone.
"But the tigers come at night
With their voices soft as thunder
As they tear your hope apart
And they turn your dream to shame."
In two nights I lost everything. On the first night, I was forced to kill someone who was the mirror image of my best friend. Then, as I lay there unconscious, I was stolen from my home.
When I woke up, I knew certain things would never be the same. I had memories of Allison Doren, I could picture Will in my bathtub in the same posture as Danny. I didn't know that this second night was separated from the first by two years, and that during those two years everything else had been taken from me. I went to sleep hoping to rebuild my life with Vaughn and woke up to discover he'd gone on with someone else.
I need to know what happened to me in those missing two years. I can imagine some things, and none of them are pleasant. I know that somehow I was taken from my home and that I was apparently tortured and brainwashed. I've seen footage of myself killing a man in cold blood. From what little I've heard about The Covenant I can fill in a few blanks about their motivation, but none of it answers my biggest question: Why me?
What was it about my life that led them to rip me away from it? Did I kill someone's brother like Sark did? Did they simply need another operative and I was the closest one available? Did my abilities draw a job offer similar to the one Sark made when we were in Russia, only this one (to quote the Mafia) was "an offer I couldn't refuse?"
I'm not wholly unfamiliar with the recruiting tactics of terrorist organizations. After all, I went through the SD-6 recruitment process myself. However, never once in all that time did they brainwash me and steal away actual memories of my life. I wouldn't put such methods past Arvin Sloane, but apparently they were never necessary.
Tell me, how do you forget? I think I could deal with the pain of my life now if I had no memory of what I have lost. Instead, I find myself remembering everything I'm longing to forget and unable to recall the things I so desperately want to remember.
The one thing that is driving me more than this desire to regain my life is the defense mechanism that demands I forget what I had before. If I didn't remember my life, it wouldn't hurt every time I see something different. New apartment, new boss, dead best friend, Will in witness protection... nothing is the same.
If I couldn't remember Vaughn, I wouldn't feel a pang in my heart every time I see him with Lauren. his wife. I wouldn't know that I should have been Mrs. Vaughn. Every loving glance between them wouldn't remind me of what we had, what we would still have if I hadn't been ripped from his arms in the cruelest of ways.
The pain is almost enough to make me beg The Covenant to come back with their brainwashing techniques and erase my entire identity. Please, help me forget.
[b]Chapter 4: Innocence Gone[/b][i]
"He slept a summer by my side
He filled my days with endless wonder
He took my childhood in his stride
But he was gone when autumn came."[/i]
I have never been happier than I was during the months I was with Vaughn. From our ill-fated first date in Nice to our conversation in the flirting corner to that amazing kiss in the ruins of SD-6, I knew my life was finally going in the right direction. This was what I had wanted so long, this was the way life was supposed to be.
And I wasn't the only one who was happy. We were happy together. We were happy to be together. Vaughn. Vaughn was the most amazingly loving man I have ever known. In all the time I'd known him, he'd always made it his goal to take care of me, but after we were able to act on our feelings, he threw his entire being into this mission. For the first time in my life, I felt. cherished.
As the months went by, that feeling only intensified. I suppose that should have been my first warning that something would happen to mess it all up. After all, as the saying goes, "The higher you fly, the harder you fall." We were flying so high, wrapped up in our love for each other, that we were bound to fall. It was unavoidable.
But who could have guessed that this would happen? Despite what I told Vaughn, even in our twisted world this is unreal. People do not simply disappear, leaving identifiable remains, and then magically return two years later. And yet it happened, and I have to live with it.
My innocence has been stolen from me before, and each time Vaughn has been there to help me put back the pieces. When I learned what SD-6 really is, it was Vaughn who helped give me the strength to fight it. When I learned what my mother really is, Vaughn was the one who insisted that does not change who I am. But now, when the innocence of love has been torn from me, Vaughn isn't there. Vaughn will never be there just for me like he was before.
In the innocence of my youth I imagined I was saving the world; in the innocence given by revelation I saw myself atoning for my sins; in the innocence gained from wisdom I realized I could not be accountable for the actions of another. But now, in the cynicism produced by too much pain, I realize I am truly alone.