Tamah

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I knew Mirai tried all she could to come up with things for us to do that I would find fun and I wanted to have fun. I wanted to laugh and be happy, like I had started to be right before I remembered it all.

But it was hard.

It felt like a storming cloud surrounded me and I could not see past it. I didn't deserve happiness for I had done so many horrible things in my life. Destroyed so many lives.

I still found it hard to understand that Mirai knew. She treated me with such care and gentleness. It was not fit for someone like me. I doubted she understood what it all meant. She had talked about it as if it wasn't me who had done all of those things, but that was not how it was.

Though truthfully, I wasn't even sure how it all happened, how I had ended up killing my own children or any of the rest.

I remembered my whole life, all that I had ever done, except for those instances when the green smoke came and anger and hatred took over. But that was still a part of me, was it not? Though I didn't remember, I was still the one doing all of that. Right?

Mirai spent the day trying to make me smile again. She brought forward the canvases and paint again. I wanted to draw, but my mind was filled with gruesome pictures, memories I wanted to forget. Memories that certainly didn't deserve to be immortalized on a canvas.

So I just stood there, holding my brush, unable to draw a thing.

Mirai tried to draw a portrait of me again and although it was better than the previous one, it was still bad.

I tried to force a smile as I looked at it, but no smile came.

After lunch, we settled in the library again. I laid with my head in Mirai's lap and listened as she read. I tried to block out the memories by using her voice as my defense. It didn't work.

I could barely follow the story because my mind kept wandering.

Night came and we went to bed, but I did not want to fall asleep. I was afraid.

I had been so surprised when I had woken up that morning and realized that no nightmare had plagued my sleep. But that fact made me now certain that the nightmare to come would be all the worse. That it would compensate for missing one night.

I stayed awake long after Mirai had fallen asleep. I fought against my own tiredness. But eventually, I lost the battle and what I had feared came true.

I laid on my bed in the dream, the bed in the home I had grown up in. All was white around me and silent to the point that it hurt my ears. I looked to the sides, tried to see if there was anyone around when something fell on my cheek. I felt it with my fingers. It was wet and when I moved to look at my fingers, I saw the red of blood.

More blood dripped down. Landed on my face. My eyes fell on the ceiling and I saw the source of the blood.

Nesiah and Pele hung from the ceiling by their ankles and their throats were slashed open.

I tried to sit up, to move away from the blood that rained. To reach for my little miracles and find a way to make the damage undone.

But I couldn't move. To start with, my body just felt sluggish, but the more I tried to move, the harder it became, until my body felt like lead and all I could do to shut out the image of the babies was shutting my eyes.

It didn't take many seconds before my eyes opened again. Something moved over my legs. It was a rather gentle touch, but it made my stomach turn all the same. I wanted to throw up, but unable to move, I couldn't. My mouth filled with the taste of vomit though. A taste that grew stronger as the touch moved up my legs, moved in between them, moved to violate me.

And then the touch wasn't even gentle anymore but harsh and painful and I wanted to scream and cry. But I couldn't even do that.

"Seducing a married man?" a feminine voice said. "There's nothing innocent about you and I will make the whole world see you for what you truly are."

The pain continued, the dripping of blood increased, and the feminine voice laughed, taunted, while echoing the name Lamia over and over. And I was unable to move to get away, not even able to shut my eyes to rid myself of the image of Nesiah and Pele hanging from the ceiling.

I woke up. Sat up and drew the blanket close to me. I touched my face and felt wetness, but when I looked at my fingers, I saw the wetness was caused by tears and not blood. My eyes went up to the ceiling. It was empty, no hanging babies. But the pain echoed in my body and the taunting still whispered in my ears.

I shut my eyes and pressed the blanket over them. Focused on evening out my breathing and heartbeat while trying to forget the nightmare.

After a long time, I felt a soft hand on my shoulder.

"Tamah, it's alright. It was just a nightmare. No one is going to hurt you ever again. I won't let them."

It was the same words that Mirai greeted me with every time I woke up from a nightmare. I desperately wanted to believe those words. Desperately wanted it all gone.

Once again, I wished I had never remembered.

But I had remembered and no amount of wishing or distraction seemed to make the memories go away.

If only the nightmares could become the exception and not the rule.

"Do you want to tell me about the nightmare?" Mirai asked next.

It was possible to hear from the tone of her voice that she had given up on the question. There weren't any emotions in it like there had been the first time. She asked it because she felt obliged to, not because she expected an answer.

But maybe what I needed was to give an answer.

When Mirai had told me about Crimson, I had felt sad for her. She sounded strong and like she could handle herself. But nevertheless, always being strong had to be exhausting, and never asking for help had to make difficult things all the more difficult. Especially those things she couldn't manage on her own.

But wasn't I acting the same by not telling Mirai? Wasn't I trying to handle something that I wasn't able to on my own?

Mirai sighed. "Are you hungry? Let's go eat some break..."

"He's in all of them." I still had my eyes pressed against the blanket. I couldn't muster up the courage to look at Mirai. "I never actually see him. There's just pain. But I know he's the one causing that pain."

I felt Mirai's hand on my back, drawing circles.

"The rest changes," I continued. "In the first one I just felt the pain while Kiya was asleep next to me. No matter what, she didn't wake up."

Mirai put an arm around me, hugged me.

"I've had one where I'm surrounded by corpses. Millions of them. All people that I have killed."

Something wet fell on my cheek. Mirai's tears.

"Tonight, Nesiah and Pele..." I couldn't get the words out. The moment I had said their names, a lump had formed in my throat. I tried to choke back the tears, but they came all the same.

Mirai's hug tightened. I let go of the blanket and moved so I pressed my eyes against her shoulder while my body began to shake as I cried.

"How can you say that I'm not a monster?" I sobbed and clung to her. "All those people I've killed. Even..." I couldn't get the words out again, couldn't repeat the fact that I had killed Nesiah and Pele.

"Because it's not you that did any of that," she whispered. Her voice was weak and trembled a bit. "Do you... Do you know what happens when the green smoke enters you?"

I shook my head against her shoulder.

"You turn into something else. Into Lamia and she's a curse that Hera put on you. You are not yourself when you are in that form."

I shook my head again because it all sounded too unreal. It was still me who did the things. Even if I changed into something else, that was still a part of me.

"I wish you could see it for yourself. Maybe it'd be easier to understand then," Mirai sighed. But then she pulled away a bit so we could look at one another. Her eyes glittered. The ocean, the forest, the sky. The whole world had a spark in them that hadn't been there the past few days. "Maybe there is a way for me to show you."