AN: Going on a weeklong trip to D.C. No laptop, but I'll update as soon as I can once I get back.
Flashes, in my mind. Faster and faster. Hunger. Famine. Disease. Faster and faster in my mind. I couldn't see the images anymore, though the words they represented still echoed in my head for me to hear. Poverty. Life. Death. Chaos. That was the word that filled the gaps in my brain until I thought my head would explode from the sheer sound of it all. Over and over it chanted. War. Chaos. Blood. Chaos. Order. Chaos. Order. Chaos. Back and forth in my head, they fought. Order. Chaos. Battle. War. Blood. Death. Chaos.
I couldn't win. Fighting. War. Chaos. Over and over. There was no way to win. Chaos. Chaos. Chaos. Overwhelming me. Engulfing me. Chaos, Chaos, Chaos.
The pictures slowed, the images forever burning themselves into my retinas. Slower and slower. War. Disease. Famine. Life. Death. Chaos. Chaos. And finally it rested on me. Me, as I was exactly then. It was watching me. It wanted me to know it was watching me. And it wasn't the first time. We knew that too.
More pictures. Yesterday, last week. Months, even years ago. With every picture, I looked a little less strained, my face a little rounder, and I got shorter and shorter. When I was potty trained. When I learned to walk. Panic overwhelmed me. How long had this thing been watching me? My first laugh, my first peaceful night. My birth.
"Come," it whispered. "Fight. It is your fate. It is your responsibility." No. No, I couldn't. I can't. "It is useless to fight me. You know this already. Fight with me. Fight or die."
I woke up shivering. Listening hard, I could hear some people still on the streets. But there wasn't any immediate threat, so I sat up. A glance at the clock told me it was an unreasonably early time to be up. My favorite time of day. I climbed out of bed and glanced out the window. The sun hadn't even risen yet.
I made my way to the back of the house and looked both ways out the door before stepping out and pulling it shut behind me. I sat down on the grass, just in front of the back porch. The lawn was still wet with dew, which quickly soaked through my thin pajama pants. Not that I cared.
I stayed sitting there until the light from the sun shown just enough that I could make out the street behind me, if I craned my neck around. I had deliberately put my back to the street. I didn't want to see what I knew took place there every day at this time. And I hated thinking about it. I sat there, barely hidden behind around the side of my house, until I heard the gunshots. I stared down at the ground as if it were the cause of all of it. Of everything.
I came out here every morning since the day three years ago. To remind myself to never let it happen again. But I wouldn't cry. I hadn't since that day. Like every day, I plucked the dandelion closest to me. But this time, as I blew the seeds off the plant, I wished. I wished with all my heart that someone would get me out of this place.