The characters from the game belong to Capcom. The OC's and story background belong to me.
Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
A/N: I'm not English native speaker, so you might find some typos or grammar mistakes, I do apologize for that.
One autumn day and here I am in my last breath. The Mrs. Death finally came to welcome me.
This lake have been more beautiful once upon a time. This lake was once the promised land of dreams and vows of love. This lake carried to the eternal river souls who loved each other.
The river that unites. The river that separates.
Its waters break in that lake where the souls of young lovers lie in eternal sleep.
Lie beyond life. Lie beyond death. Lie beyond time.
It is a beauty that tricks like the famous Pandora's box.
I opened the Pandora's box. And I was warned not to do it several times.
Then I look at the lake from within this barn as I cherish the icy breeze of fate that awaits me.
There is beauty in death.
Fifty years ago there was a young man floating in the waters of that beautiful lake and a beautiful redhead girl rescued him from the water.
The waters of the beginning.
I no longer recognize that young man in his 21. A brave young man full of dreams, full of hope, full of promises... which he never fulfilled.
I can clearly see the reunion of two related souls, but I can also see something beyond.
The man in black.
If I could go back in time knowing what I know today, I would not have jumped in the icy waters of the river, for that act of courage and despair has become my greatest act of cowardice.
Not for trying to save my life that had already been buried along with little Christian, but for destroying so many lives later.
The 21-year-old boy did not know what to expect and did not know how many sacrifices he had yet to make.
One day a wise old woman appeared and said to him: "The more important than the future, is the present. People should be more concerned in seeing the present than the future and in the right time, you will also need to see the present. You will need to see the truth in each person around you and your biggest disbelief will be on yourself"
So wise!
That boy did not understand anything that "crazy woman" had told him.
And she even said more: "A woman... a woman in your life... She will swear love to you, but will bring the hate. She will talk about peace, but she will bring the discord. She will celebrate the life, but will bring the death."
That seer never said she was just a woman who would possess all these characteristics and she also said that only I would be able to know which woman would possess such characteristics.
50 years later, already an old man, that boy finally understood those words.
It's always been two women.
A woman!
A woman...
Today the boy of 71 years understood that pause and change of intonation.
Hard to believe that that sweet redhead girl rescuing the boy in black would be the woman who would bring death, even though she celebrated life.
But it was never exactly about physical death, but the death of that boy.
The death of a beautiful dream of family and love. The death of a hope for a future that never came.
Hard to believe that sweet redhead girl would bring the discord despite all efforts for peace!
And while the other woman: the woman in black…
She made that kindly dreamy boy feel hate despite all the swears of love.
And the discord generated by the beautiful redheaded girl has always been the main reason for the flaws in all the attempts of peace of that couple in black.
And the old wise woman came back again and told him that he loved the woman who would bring the evil.
God and bad have relative sides. Good and bad depend on the vision of the seeker.
So that meant that those women switched those characteristics over the times. Over the experiences. Those weren't stony characteristics for each.
She also said more: "You'll have the longest mission and shall face the loneliness and sacrifices of your path"
And I know it was in this life that this mission of mine just started...
But before I continue this mission, I have another that I know I cannot keep, for I can only lie in this bed, in this barn, looking at the distant lake outside and remembering through this old emerald necklace these 50 years of trajectory in the river of my emotions.
Memories of a time so distant, but so spiked in my chest.
In my heart...
The house reminds me of Angelique.
The barn reminds me of her...my wife…
It took me a long time to dare to read the old journals of both women. Of course, I first read Angelique's diaries, after all, I believed that she had not given me as much trouble as Katarina.
Angelique was docile and simple. We suffered when we accepted our divorce. We cried that we had not kept the promises made by the lake. That day never left my memory, until the day I finally got the courage to read the old diaries of Katarina that were kept in the O'Gregon Palace.
After burying some of our children, the weight of the memories of the past began to torment me more and more, and that was how my curiosity began to unravel Katarina's secrets.
Was I so dumb and blind that I did not see who she really was? Was I so dumb and blind that I had not realized what she could become? Was I so dumb and blind for being what I was?
And the more I read, the more I missed... And that intrigued me. How could I miss her?
And without me realizing it, more and more my thoughts were more focused on her...
And I began to read in order to understand how the change of Katarina happened. Where I had gone wrong. Where we had gone wrong.
Lionel was very important during this process of returning to the past, for until then he had been the only one to have heard the side of Katarina when all the others judged and cruelly condemned her.
I confess that I cried when I read the old diary of young Katarina...
It seems like yesterday that I met the beautiful girl with curly hair and pink satin dress. She held a white parasol to protect herself from the sun. It was spring season. The garden of the central castle was so beautiful and colorful. It would be a banquet night and all the guests of the royal family were arriving in the carriages, which was the privilege of the nobles.
My father was an influential knight and close friend to the king and was escorted to welcome the guests.
And there she got out of the carriage as beautiful and restrained as every etiquette would order, but I realized that there was something different about her.
She smiled full of grace.
Unlike the other children who had passed by us. Unlike all the nobles who had passed by us.
She liked being there.
Her parents were serious. She wasn't.
There was also the younger blonde sister who followed the same serious demeanor as the others.
That brunette girl liked to shine. That girl was different from everyone else. That girl broke traditions no matter how hard they tried to scold her.
She simply apologized and continued to smile.
I accompanied her walking towards the castle.
Her smile changed. Her expression changed right when our eyes met.
Her eyes were as green as emerald gems.
She stopped walking for a moment and my boyish heart felt like it would come out of my mouth.
I should not be looking at them. I should have revered them. And the fear of being punished for breaking the protocol for looking back at her so beautiful and so close to me.
I smiled. I did not revere them and of course we were both scolded.
But we looked at each other again and smiled disguisedly.
That's where everything started... 60 years ago...
Ah, how that memory hurts.
How it all changed in six decades.
It's hard to believe that one day we were innocent young people. Dreamers. In love.
We destroyed ourselves.
We succeeded in destroying our innocence. Our magic. Our love.
Yes, with great regret, and within moments of my end, I admit that for my destroyed spirit I did love Katarina O'Gregon from beginning to end.
I loved her in all forms, good and bad.
And maybe mostly bad when I swore to hate her.
Little did I know that hate is a form of love. The love that got sick. And we got sick.
Only sick people can destroy themselves like we did.
But despite all the passed time, even after the marriage have been annulled, our story could never be erased. Not our memory. And Katarina still knew me too well... She just knew me too well and I still remember our last meeting in the prison.
I was so damn nervous, but I had to do that. For the last two years all my thoughts were about us. I needed to see her one last time. I needed to let her know how wrong I had been with her. I wanted her to know I was able to forgive her.
But all I did was the opposite. We argued and I told her all the things I didn't mean to say. Again my pride took over me and made me waste my only opportunity in this lifetime.
I wasted a lifetime opportunity!
A lifetime…
For many years I believed that love should be a beautiful thing, pure and full of happiness.
This is not love, it's fantasy.
Love is a daily achievement with yourself and with the other.
Love is care, affection and friendship. It is complicity in life, in dreams, in joys and failures. In pain and antics.
Love is to crackle up at a dull joke, because nothing better than to make them feel special to get your smiles and laughs.
Love is joy in the midst of chaos. It is to be very sleepy, but to hold on because the other simply needs to talk. Love is not only hand in hand, but it is also lap.
Love is the perfect fit. It is direction and refuge. It's having a safe haven.
Love is to run one's fingers through one's hair for them to sleep and fill with kisses for them to wake up.
Love is to see that messy face and messy hair and to admire the most beautiful image in the world. Love is having someone to count on to. And may share your fears, secrets, crazes and idiocy.
Love is walking together, neither in front nor behind, but side by side. Love makes sleep pass, smile opens and eyes shine.
Love is knowing how to be calm when it is a storm. It is to know that sometimes they will be on a bad day and all they can do is listen to you.
Love is waiting. It is to exercise patience and to know that, in the end, everything is arranged.
Love is knowing the preferred color and the favorite dish. It's taking care of the cold, the bruise.
Love is what is renewed with every new song discovered. It is every moment, including those that need to leave the intensities to be light, together.
Love is the certainty that if there are fights, so be in the attempt to make then see that you want to see them happy, really. Love is not accepting everything, but seeking to understand.
Love is patient, love is kind. Do not envy, do not boast, do not be proud. It does not mistreat, it does not seek its interests, it does not anger easily, it does not hold a grudge. Love does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love resists in the distance, in the silence of separations and even in betrayals. Without forgiveness there is no love. Tell me who you most forgive in life, and then I will know who you loved the most.
Love is an equation where the multiplication of forgiveness prevails. You realize it the moment the other did everything wrong, and yet you look into their eyes and say, "Even if you do everything wrong I cannot live without you. I cannot be even half of what I am if you're not close by.
And who was the person that I most did it? Who was the woman I most forgave?
Yes, it was her. My Katarina... My gypsy soul mate.
The woman who knew me so well! She knew how to wait for me, she knew that my anger would one day slow down or pass, she knew that one day I would see her... that I'd be back... I'd say goodbye...
I proved that I loved her at that very moment. In that last argument. Even without uttering the words, I proved that there was love, and she knew it. She said that I loved her, however much I said I hated her.
For so many years I denied myself this feeling, ashamed to admit that I loved... a murderer.
But I really resented this act of hers. I was disgusted with it.
But I was more disgusted with myself.
Katarina only reflected the monster I became. I was the real murderer, the real monster of all history.
I killed Angelique and the baby in her belly...
I did not kill her with my hands, but I killed her through the indifference and torture I had subjected Katarina for so many years. I created that monster.
And I was warned of that. I remember very well the day her mother told me so.
The monster was not just Katarina, I was too.
I always knew what hurt Katarina and yet I kept hurting her with my selfish interests.
All she wanted was love, the love I refused to give her for so long...
And now I give her the distance... after seeing her so beautiful, but so lonely in that prison cell. I did everything I could to hurt her, to punish her without ever realizing why I did it.
Anger, jealousy, deception.
She was no longer only mine. She was no longer the sweet girl who exchanged glances and smiles that made my heart race as if I recognized my soul mate as in that beautiful tragic story of Christian and Katherine Greencamp
It was that love I sought, it was that purity I waited for, and failed to attain through my fears and wounded pride.
I 'hated' Katarina, but I never really hated her. I hated myself and my own disappointment. I hated the act, the breaking of the illusion.
Expectations and illusions that I created myself.
I never knew what it was to love until I lost love. Angelique's love. The love of Katarina. The love of my children. Self-love.
My children... How could I do this to them?
What kind of father puts his children against their mother and tells lies to them only to distance them from the mother who always loved them? Just to punish her?
I punished my children with my selfishness.
I have influenced my little children to despise the mother who begot them with so much love and dedication.
I did everything to stop them from seeing her in the various attempts she tried to see them from a distance, disguised.
I knew that for them she would take the risk.
She loved them too much and I knew it and I took advantage of that. I took the children from their mother and instructed them against her.
Especially our love twins... They were so small and I took advantage of that.
What a shame! Oh god, shame on me! What kind of father am I?
I was a tyrant!
Yes, I'm guilty!
I did not give them the freedom to choose what to feel for their mother's disgrace.
I paid the spouses of some to keep them at a distance because I knew that when they grew adults I could not influence them so easily. I paid to keep some distant...
But the older ones... Maybe they were the ones who had some more freedom to decide their own feelings about their mother.
I was no good at anything! And now I pay with the disease that consumes me every day, and it keeps me from going to her one more time... To finally say what she most wants to hear. What I most wanted to say.
To free her.
Not necessarily from the imprisonment, because she actually committed a crime.
But to free her. Free ourselves from the prison we are within ourselves...
And mostly to say that I love her and never stopped loving her...
Because…
It is very easy to love someone when this person is an exact and ideal representation of our longings, when that someone fills us with emptiness and always, is always there doing everything for us. Difficult is to love when things are not going well, when the other is indisposed that day and could not even wish you a good day because they did not sleep very well at night and the week is not being the best.
Difficult is to love someone after a discussion, when the winds blow contrary and you can only pray, as if you have no more arguments. It is very difficult to love when the other has problems and we have to be walls and not barriers, when the winter arrives and you need to be warm, you need to be shelter.
It is difficult to love the other when the smile insists on hiding and the crying persists in appearing. How difficult it is to hold hands when pride makes itself present and to embrace the other as one who apologizes for some mistake. Difficult is to love each other when the storm comes and it seems not to want to cease when the coffee cools and you do not know how to heat it.
It is difficult to look into each other's eyes and have compassion, even after so many mistakes, even with so many tumbles. It's hard to breathe deeply and continue to love after a word that hurts, when, in fact, we were in need of a welcoming touch.
Love is a sea of imperfections. We know the depth of our words, our attitudes, but sometimes, most of the time, we cannot measure that and we end up drowning the other with our waves.
It is easy to love the other when they offers us everything, when the other is always shelter and the smile is always present. Difficult to love in the storm, when the rain does not want to cease, when the winds are strong and you need to hold the hand of the other like who is there to be a safe haven, even if it is not so strong.
If there is pride, excuse me, but it is not love. If you do not have patience, I repeat, it is not love. If the words are coarse and the tone of voice seems to increase by anything, I insist, it's not love. Love is patient, love is kind, love is not easily angered.
It is difficult, yes, to swallow our pride and recognize that we are wrong. How difficult it is to look into each other's eyes and apologize in a tone of shame. It is difficult to have patience and tranquility, when we are tired, fed up and overwhelmed, when any sigh can be the trigger to make it explode. It's hard to offer the other what we need, it's hard to understand that today, in fact, is not a good day, but yes, I'm going to stay here with you.
It is difficult, yes, to understand that the other is different and even harder is to love IN the differences. In theory, everything seems complicated and far from real, but when the practice works, you understand how beautiful it is to love, how much we grow, mature, and learn to give ourselves more and more, each day a little bit more. You learn that loving is always being more and never being less. And that the other occupies a space that cannot be filled by anyone else.
And then you understand that the other, in their imperfections, is your perfect fit.
Loving when everything goes well is easy! Difficult and keep this love when things go wrong and we fail.
And once more I look at the lake to say goodbye to those young people and ask them to forgive me for having failed and I pray to God or whoever receives my broken and ashamed soul.
I pray for my children who are gone and I ask for their forgiveness from the bottom of my soul for not being a good father, but if they cannot forgive me I understand them. I forgive them.
Dear Angelique... Angely... I loved you with the ease of non-complex love. It is easy to love one who does not oppose us. The one who does not take us out of the comfort zone. But I am sure that I did love you in the most innocent way that was still in my being. And I hope that wherever you are you are still keeping your heart good after all. Your kindness has conquered me, but I understand if your sweet soul has become bitter.
Dear Kat... you're still so beautiful even in a prison cell. I knew you waited for me while I mustered the courage to go see you after reading your secrets until the moment of your apprehension. It was not easy and to face it was even more difficult and a mixture of feelings overtook me. I could not do or say anything I really wanted to. And since then I've been trying to see you again, but the disease consumes me and I know that that was the last time I saw you... So beautiful, so transparent.
Henry, my beloved and special son... words escape me for what I have to tell you. It's hard enough for a parent to have to leave a child as special as you without my protection. My fear is that people will never understand you and probably will fear you if your specialty increases. My son, forgive me for having told you so many lies about your mother and I hope that after that last conversation, you who have always listened to me, you may be able to forgive your mother who made you so special... she did not it for being bad.
To the others who were part of my story, I hope that your spirits are being illuminated by the beautiful memories that we had. You have never been and will not be forgotten. And I'm sorry if I ever failed you.
Today, that 71 year old boy leaves that message after having lived so many things, after having felt so many emotions, after having lived so many feelings.
The boy of 71 understood that he cannot keep looking back and what he sees in the waters of that distant lake are only portraits of time.
The 71-year-old is not yet a perfect being, he still has a lot to learn, but you know, the 71-year-old one has that old thing and if he were asked for any advice he would say:
If our parents were not the best, if they failed or mistreated us, there is nothing we can do in the face of their limitation. But we can learn to be, for our children, exactly what our parents might not have been for us: safe haven, source of love and affection.
If we are betrayed in a relationship, what remains is to understand where we have been fooled so that new stumbling do not happen, rather than we are questioning the role of the other and their flaws.
If it has happened to us if somebody has betrayed us in some way, so the next time we will be more cautious and we will learn that not everything should be commented. Exposing your life to the wrong people can bring certain damages.
But if, then, we ourselves have made the wrong choices in the past, we can forgive ourselves.
Being aware that we have failed is a good start to understanding the best direction to follow from here on. Especially if your intention was the best.
Repentance does not change the past, but it can improve your destiny. So, leave that weight behind trying to hit the present so that the future is peace in the heart. And when asked about your past, answer: I do not live there anymore.
It's still hard to deal with it, and maybe I need to follow my own advice.
The wise old woman was right, I would live things that would harden me, I doubted what she told me, and even decades after those words, I'm still not sure what to think about it, but I already understood that those words were not uttered for this lifetime. Both the words of mission and the words of love.
If there is even life in beyond tomb... Why not love Beyond Time?
Now it is time for me to go to sleep and prepare for my long lonely road to purify myself according to the words of the wise old Lady of Destiny.
I think I have hardened enough to face the New and the Unknown that awaits me."
.
.
And so Christopher Reed's trajectory came to an end. Lionel and Henry found his body lying in bed with one arm hanging out from the bed.
He went to the other world saddened by the guilt of having failed gravely, and part of his energy was trapped inside that barn waiting for redemption. Waiting for the reunion that did not happen until Katarina stayed in the same place years later.
Katarina did not react well to read the last letter of her beloved husband and so she stopped taking the Black Pills to finally have the greatest freedom she could have, get rid of that body and join Christopher in the afterlife.
But it was not as fast as she had expected. She had to wait many years for the prolonged effects on her body to dissipate.
It was she who found the emerald necklace lying on the floor under the bed and since then she wore it during her stay in the barn.
She knew there was where Christopher had breathed for the last time... Thinking of her. And in the others...
It was a year of long spiritual trials so they could find the right tune to finally be able to see each other.
And she saw them in her last days. She was finally able to see the presence of everyone who had left this world.
And it was he... her soul mate who received her after her last breath in the same bed where he had gone to eternal sleep: Christian with Christopher's features...
But their bitter spirits still kept him apart in the aftermath. They still had a lot to purge.
They were born again in the next century, but they did not meet. That distance was necessary. It was an apprenticeship. They were not ready yet.
Until finally in the 20th century they felt ready to meet again and to draw a new plan of life together, and especially, to forgive and support each other as a couple.
They asked for another chance together in the School of Life.
Would this lifetime finally achieve the desired success?
And so their union and/or separation would give start to the Mirror of Time.
So we finally came to the end of Beyond Time. It showed us how some events and coincidences happen to us but not by chance. Whatever is "good". Whatever is "bad".
Even after the veil of forgetfulness is used for our own protection, it doesn't necessary veils feelings. They last beyond time. They change over time.
The message that lies beyond time has been given and so the story comes to an end with partial closure.
The message in Mirror of Time will be another. The past will continue existing, but it not necessarily will need to be revisited by them. They already know where they have been. They already know what they have to do.
Is there pendency? Of course there is!
But like the mirror, it reflects things. And it will reflect the past in the way they need to find resilience and forgiveness.
They can't escape their demons anymore.
They need to face their demons reflected.
If you want to know the true end of this sage, keep eye on Mirror of Time and be ready for Chris' amnesia! xD
Now I thank everyone who have read, reviewed, favorited, followed and have being a part of this long journey! We started back in 10/30/2017 and it finally comes to a resolution in 02/15/2019. It is certainly a long ride!
All the models, pictures used, cited texts and songs used were all to illustrate how they look like and I never intended to violate any right. The games characters belong to Capcom, the OCs and the background story is mine.
It has been a long and hard work, but I wouldn't be here without all your support! So a big Thank You all! :D