Future
...Just a few days ago, the world ended.
And then, in Deus ex Machina fashion, everything went back to normal.
This whole incident left me with far less respect for prophecies. But it also makes me think. My whole life lead up to this, and...everything's back to normal. We've all settle back into our usual routines, like me triggering the Apocalypse never happened. I'm grateful for this miracle, of course, but...
What now?
I see nothing but uncertainty in my future. What happens to me now? I...
I'm...
It's a clear, sunny day outside. It feels downright contrived right now. I think the world is trying a little too hard to bounce back.
I've opened the curtains in my room. Every pervert, stalker, and passerby can see inside my room, now. At a couple hundred feet in the air, I don't think many people will even notice, but this usually makes me feel so vulnerable. Right now, however...it's actually a little comforting to see the sky.
There's some small measure of comfort in knowing exactly when your life is going to end. And all our lives will end, eventually. Everything you see today will someday return to nothingness. I'm just being a realist when I say that. There is no point in fear and tears, because it is inevitable.
It's inevitable...
But when?
...
...Something in me is scratching at the window, longing to get outside. Outside on a sunny day.
Is that you, the innocent little thing from before? The little girl in white? Even after I was all used up, you remained. I remember you. You're a part of me, and I never knew you were there.
And you're still there, aren't you?
Sorry, little girl. I can't let you out to play. I'm too set in my ways. On this fine day, we'll just stare out the window, because we really don't know what else to do.
So I sit on my bed, and stare out the window, and quietly envy the clouds that pass by.
If only it were that simple. Simply drifting along.
...From up here...it's almost like I'm drifting...
...I stand back up. There are things to do. There are always things to do, and time waits for no one. So...
...So...
...Everything in my room is in it's proper place. I've already made my bed. I've already alphabetized my books and doubled checked to make sure I did it right. I've already made certain that very artifact and oddity I own is where it should be.
...Well...I guess there's the wardrobe...
I open up my wardrobe, which in it's current state is really little more than a glorified storage closet. Several identical uniforms and a couple of sets of casual wear are pushed aside to make way for relics of projects past. Paintings of the team I did when Terra was still with us, a sweater I knitted when...
A sweater? I knitted a sweater? And I don't remember doing that small pile of crossword and sudoku puzzles. And...those aren't fan letters, are they?
That's right. I almost forgot I occasionally get fan mail. Honestly, there are better things to write than fan mail addressed to dark little me...
But clearly, I would be lying if I said I didn't keep a few of these letters. A precious few are worth keeping, such as the ones that don't ask me if I'm secretly dating Jinx.
...A lot of people seem to ask me that, for some reason...huh...
Azur above, when did I become such a packrat? The more I dig, the more relics from bygone eras I seem to unearth. Old bookmarks, oversized sunglasses (as if I would ever be out in the sun), a scarf I guess I made during my "knitting phase", a copy of "Black-Eyed Suzie"...
...That doll...
...My doll...
I dangle it by its little cloak, hanging it by an adorable noose as I stare into its lifeless eyes...
Or does it stare into my lifeless eyes?
...Yeah. Weren't these made for...I don't know, orphans or something? It was done without my prior consent, I remember that much.
...Well...I inter you back into the darkness, my little doppelganger.
And deeper still I dig through my surprisingly large wardrobe. Old works of philosophy and mysticism, sketch books scrawled with arcane symbols and bored doodles. What really catches my eye is a worn old notebook with my name on it.
So that's where it went.
I feel a little excited having found this, my long-lost notebook. It's filled with all my old poems and short stories, half of which are painfully corny in hindsight, and...
...I blush...
...Oh, right...
At some point, something possessed me to try my hand at..."mature" literature...
And there are the notes for future chapters...
Wow. I don't remember ever being that..."adventurous".
Somehow, I find the courage to flip through. The next hundred pages...
...Something wells up deep inside me...and I smile a little...
The things I see.
Ah, yes. I remember.
As I read through each page, it all comes back to me. The silly, the sad, the terrible, the beautiful. All these memories I hold dear to my heart are still there, tucked away safely. I feel better knowing they haven't disappeared.
...Hmm?
After the last entry, a single sentence. Post scriptum.
"Never forget who you are."
And after that...
The things I feel.
Written by a little girl in white who was always there.
...
...Hmm...
What happens to me now?