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PROMPT: How do we forgive ourselves for all the things we did not become?
When a person is born, their life is not mapped out as some may think. Their path is not confirmed. They have choices. And those choices influence how their life turns out.
The way to envisage it is like a tree—a solid base that spurts from fertile Earth, twisting and turning upwards, seeking more. And then there are the branches. Each new twig is a manifestation of something new–of a chance, an opportunity to slightly change the path you are on. Nothing is set. Everything can be changed. A person may start down one path and then splinter off, changing their mind and forging something different.
This means that there are infinite possibilities. Each person is a blank slate, their tree a mere sapling, growing with them until they are big and beautiful, surrounded by a lifetime's worth of memories and paths–both taken and untaken.
We are all here to learn a lesson—every single one of us. It could be leadership, strength, humility, love, generosity–anything. And if we don't learn it the first time, we will be sent back to learn it again. Each person's lesson is unique, and everyone learns in a different way. There is no telling who we will be when we are born.
Only the Gods can know that.
And the people who speak with the Gods are the privileged few. There aren't that many around anymore, and their existence is a mere myth for some people.
But there was one. One who had once spoken on behalf of the Gods, who was revered and sought after. Cryptically, they were only known as The Seer, and what they had prophesied had shaken the Shadow World. They saw a young girl. Her beginnings were fairly ordinary–she grew up in a small suburban town with her mother, father, and brother. She had dark blonde hair and blue eyes that sometimes seemed purple. Her life path was pretty set until she turned 18. At that point, there were two paths for her. One was a life with a husband, two children and a picket fence. She would be a teacher, he a banker, and that was it.
However, the other path—well, that was something more extraordinary altogether. She would rise to become one of the most powerful Metanormals the world had ever seen. Her coven would grow and expand with her power. She would be a fearsome force to reckon with. This path was filled with blood, danger, and death, though. The girl would lose so much. Her loved ones would die in front of her eyes, and pain would ravage her.
Both paths were set in motion, open and ready for her. The choice was hers. Rosalie Hale had no idea.
She had no idea that on a rainy Tuesday morning, her choice to turn left at the end of the road and not right would set in motion a chain of events that couldn't be undone. They would be unstoppable. Her life as she knew it would be unrecognisable, and by the time the universe was finished, she would be fractured and torn, unable to tell up from down and left from right.
The Seer just hoped she would forgive herself. That when her time on this Earth was over, she would look at her tree and forgive herself for all the missed opportunities. She would forgive herself for not becoming a wife and mother. She would forgive herself for choosing the path that ultimately killed her family. She would forgive herself for everything. Because her next life, well that was set to be something beautiful. Something amazing. The branches of her tree would spread wider than before and flower with so much love.
She just had to endure hell first.