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All future temples would be built on my name — my sacrifice. My eyes shone each time they said so. I hoped that they were shining just the same today. Music stirred the halls. Paired with the morning breeze, it was like the melancholy melody could move the room by itself.
The softest linens and silks were gifted to me yesterday. The five cloaked figures, the same ones as always, cooing their praises, gathered around me as I opened them up one by one. I’d be as soft as a cloud, as delicate as a single snowflake, as well-cared for as a little white lamb – the very day it was born. These were mine to keep, mine to bring with me everywhere for all eternity if I wanted to. How kind of them, but I was not yet big enough to fit into some of the gifts, like this nightgown I wore now. The sleeves travelled well past my fingertips, and the fabric pooled on the ground around me when I stood up. But it captured the moon, they said, and so I smiled and changed in front of them. I wanted to look pretty; like they said I was.
I was born to believe. That’s also something they say to me and about me, especially when they think I can’t hear. Believe what? I’m not sure. I am only certain that whatever my destiny holds is intertwined with theirs. So, I waited. And waited and waited. Now, on the eve of the new moon, I find that I am paralyzed by my own belief. My belief is strong enough to freeze time, is that not wonderful? And they were amazing enough to see it in me before I even realized it.
With the new moon, there is a change in the air. Tonight, there is a misalignment between the moon and the stars up above me. And despite how it grinds the world to a stop, I cannot help but be caught in its fracture, as if I were a simple, little bug stuck in a big, scary spider’s web. My dreams, when they come, are caught between day and night, black and white. And in it, I see myself connecting to this fracture — no, this design. I will be a part of it all. It halts my breath with how breathtaking the plans are. There is nothing that could distract me, for I am already broken into the fractions that will make this whole. I will fit nicely, yes, for this is not like any other.
So, take it from me, all of it. In the morning, they sat me in a chair and made me drink something unpleasant. Snip, snip, snip the scissors went. My hair fell onto the ground around me, and the drops of red coming from my eyes splashed onto my clean dress, but they said that it did not matter. That it was part of the continuum. With their praise, they guided me into safety. Their safety.
Now I am trapped under the weight of it all. The chains, the metal plates, the expectation in their eyes as they glow crimson red. When they talk now, it’s like there are knives on their tongues. It burns; I flinch, but they seem to like it. I am choking on the vapour of their dreams and designs. Little lamb, little lamb, they call out to me. It is only temporary. I think to myself, are they unable to recall my name? No, I must avoid my own questions and just believe. They wonder about what I believe, but they do not wish to know.
Laughter rings around this small room now. 'Do you like that?’ I suddenly thought, but they cannot hear. Perhaps they never could.
Perhaps they never wanted to.
When the last bits of their little lamb hang in the air as ash, will I have been enough to keep them from setting sail again to find the next? I am still full of the belief they want though. So, will they find a way to slip away and find more of me? Are there more of me? Will I be the story they never tell? What stories did they keep from me?
And… Despite my cracked existence, won’t they stay with me?