Some things will always come back to haunt you....it's in your blood.

Disclaimer: see previous disclaimers

I awoke to a bright light somewhere above me. I went to move my hand to shield my face but I couldn't move. I was weak and tired. So tired.

"Hello my Legacy, my Heir. I've been waiting for you," said a voice from somewhere to my right. It was a beautiful voice, a woman's, and it had as slight British accent. She sounded intelligent, beautiful, witty, and powerful. Slowly moving my head to the right, I saw a figure. My eyesight was slightly blurry and the lights surrounding me from thousands of nearby lights made it hard to see. But I recognized the figure. It was me in a mirror. I was on a metal bed with white sheets. My deep brown eyes were shining with light, and my skin was pale. So pale. It was white. My long dark brown hair laid about my face and body, and several strands were hanging over the edge of my bed. My body was thinner than it had been before, years of disuse and little food leaving its mark.

Looking back up to the ceiling, I began to familiarize myself with my surroundings. I was slightly cold and goose bumps began to rise all over my arms and legs. I was on a bed, naked, but covered by white linen sheets. And then, I felt it. A sickening feeling began in my stomach and rose out of my throat. I sat up in bed as if chased by the Devil in all of his Evil Glory. And then I began to cough. It was so violent I knew that I must either stop or die.

I stopped.

Falling back, I landed roughly against the bed. My body was covered in cold sweat. Breathing heavily, I felt another round of coughing coming. "Oh, Lord, spare me," I thought over and over again. This is pure madness. Except, what I thought was coughing turned out to be something different, something....else. I do not know how to explain it. I could explain it for centuries and yet, my attempts would be in vain. But whisper its name in the dark to Terra, and rest assured you would find it more effective. It was power in a horrible form: Heaven in a crude vial, Liberty in a cage, and Love wrapped in hate. This power, the madness of bliss, engulfed me and stripped me of all my senses. My skin brightened as if a fire glowed beneath it. And fire, I'm afraid it was. It burned the sheets and the bed, and made my hair an inferno of its own. My body turned gray and vines-if that is what you would call them-rose out of my body into mounds upon my flesh. My nails sharpened and lengthened. I watched all of this in the mirror in horror. But then, something surprising happened: it stopped. Vanished. Disappeared. I was back to my thin, pale self; wrapped in my long brown hair, watching myself with my dark brown eyes.

Someone placed a robe on me from behind. I saw her in the mirror. She smirked at me, as if she knew all the secrets of the world, but would take them to her grave. I saw her kneel down and lean her head toward my ear. It was a bit funny. I began to laugh a laugh of insanity. Here she was, a beautiful woman in a beautiful dress kneeling down to me. Me. Haloed with golden hair, and set with blue eyes, she was beautiful; a princess in the legends. She was dressed in a black and red gown, covered with semiprecious stones. White gloves graced her hands, and heeled shoes carried her divine self. She whispered into my ear, then, "I will tell you all of them." I began to laugh even harder. She knew that I desired to have the smirk leave her face, and that, I, in turn, would know all the secrets of the world. It was Vanity, pure vanity that drove me to such thoughts. "She will tell me!" I thought over and over again.

Turning my head into her chest, my dark hair falling like a veil over my face, I began to cry.