Tamah

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To say that I was afraid was an understatement. I was terrified and regretted agreeing. It was the idea of having the nightmares stop that had convinced me. But my heart raced at the mere thought of what I might end up seeing.

I pushed through that fear, though. Mirai always looked so sure when she said I wasn't to blame. That I wasn't a monster. I did not believe her, but I did trust her.

So when she asked if I was ready, I made sure to stay determined.

She closed her eyes, and I followed suit. I felt as the vision she wanted me to see started taking over. It was like a helmet that pressed on my head, tried to penetrate my skull. At first, I fought it. The feeling in itself was scary.

But then I brought forth an image of Mirai, of her smile and sparkling eyes. That image calmed me and I felt the pressing cease. Instead, it floated through my skin, through my skull. To my mind where images grew stronger and stronger.

Desert. There was sand everywhere. Though in the middle of it, I could see myself. It was strange. I had never seen myself in such a way. Seen myself move about.

I was in a wooden cage. Sat with my knees pulled up to my body, my arms around them and my head bent down. And I was dirty and naked. Men surrounded me and one carried a torch.

I almost pulled out. I didn't want to see more because I knew what would happen. But then I felt Mirai. She wasn't there with me. But I could feel her presence. As if she was the air around me and soothed my trembling body.

The man moved the torch to the wooden cage. Set it on fire. Then he and the others ran. They jumped onto horses and galloped away. Leaving me alone, trapped within the fire.

How could anyone be so cruel? I thought little of myself, thought that I deserved punishment for all that I had done. But this? Had all that I had done really warranted being trapped in fire?

I would have left the vision again if I hadn't felt Mirai's presence. As it was, I stared as the flames licked my skin, until the green smoke came, until I let out a scream that shook the sand and made my hair stand on end.

So much pain, but also so much hate.

I couldn't remember this exact instance. I didn't know where I was or what might have put me in that specific spot. But I knew that even if I had remembered, what came next would still have been lost.

I watched myself rise from the flames, break free from the cage. Only... I looked different.

My eyes were yellow, I had green scales that covered my body, and my legs... They were gone, replaced by a serpent tail.

I had heard people talk about me over the years. Heard them talk about me as a snake-woman, something abnormal, scary, not human. A monster. I had always had a hard time understanding what they meant. Made assumptions over the years that they simply referred to all the lives I had taken. It had never even crossed my mind that they had been talking about my physical appearance.

I was a monster. Not because of anything I had done, but simply because of how I looked, what I had turned into.

The monster-me didn't stay still for long but rushed forward, towards a city in the distance that I hadn't noticed before. I had been too focused on myself.

I didn't move, but I still moved forward to follow myself all the way to the city. There I saw myself attacking people. They all ran and screamed, but I hunted and killed. There seemed to be no end, no sign of tiredness or mercy. Instead, hate and anger looked to burn in my eyes as blood colored the streets and houses. Hate and anger that tried to find its release with every human that fell.

There was nothing else. When I caught glimpses of my eyes, they contained nothing but pure hatred. No other emotion, no care for anything or anyone, no nothing. Only hate. All of me was gone from them.

I was just about to pull out, not even Mirai's presence was enough to keep me calm, when something new happened.

A creature that was a lion, but with wings and a goat head on its back, a snake as tail, landed before me.

A chimaera.

He looked to be as much of a monster as me. Big and strong and vicious. But he attacked me, kept the humans in the city safe by attacking me.

I found myself hoping he would win, that he would end up killing me. I felt certain that was the only thing that could stop me.

But that didn't seem to be the case. If anything, his attacks seemed to only fuel me. He caused me to bleed, to scream in pain. Anyone normal would have given up, but it had the opposite effect on me. Instead of faulting, my movements became more and more vicious. I attacked back without abandonment as the green scales were dyed red.

Then finally, I was stopped. The chimaera flung me through the air, into a building. My head bashed into where the walls became a roof, and as I slid down to the ground, I didn't rise again.

The chimaera's eyes were on me, he moved to stand over me, and lifted a paw, without a doubt to slash me and end my life. But he never did.

I saw my snake tail disappear. Saw how I turned back from the monster to myself. And as I did, the chimaera stopped his actions to just look at me.

What was he waiting for? Why didn't he just kill me?

Then, to my astonishment, the snake head hissed, the goat head bleated, and his wings stretched out. He flew away, leaving me unconscious on the ground. He had the perfect opportunity to kill me, but instead, he left to let me live.

Why? I had caused so much destruction and death. He had come to stop me from causing more. So why had he not finished the job?

The images blurred and disappeared from my mind. I opened my eyes to look at Mirai and the question that burned within me fell from my lips.

"Why did he not kill me?"

My question hung in the air as I waited for Mirai's response. A response that never came.

"Why do you think he didn't?" she turned the question back at me.

I frowned and shook my head. "I don't know. I... I really am a monster."

How it had ended had temporarily driven out those thoughts, but they came pouring back.

Mirai had said over and over that I wasn't a monster, but didn't this prove otherwise? What I had turned into was definitely a monster. There was no arguing against that.

"Would you ever hurt people like that?" she asked and my eyes widened.

"No! But... I did."

"Did you? Was it you that hurt them?"

I opened my mouth to say yes, but the word got stuck in my throat. Had that been me? Those yellow eyes had not felt like they held anything that was me. Nothing that I could identify myself with. Only hate.

But that had to still come from somewhere. That monster had come out of me, so she had to belong to me. She was a part of me.

But... I would never act like her. I would never hurt and kill like her. And I could not imagine feeling all of that hatred that she bore.

Slowly, I also found the answer to the question of why the chimaera hadn't killed me. He had looked down on me and seen me, seen that the hate-filled monster was gone.

"What do you remember from the other day? When you ran into the forest?" Mirai asked, breaking through my train of thought. "Or more precisely, what is the first thing that you remember me saying to you?"

I lowered my eyebrows and thought back. Though it was only a couple of days ago, my memory of it was hazy. I remembered the green smoke taking over and I remembered finding myself hugging a tree. But in between, there was nothing.

Only that wasn't completely true.

It was vague and distant, rather like how memories of dreams might be. But I remembered Mirai talking to me.

"You told me to not hurt myself. And that you weren't hurt," I told her what I remembered, though I knew there had been more as well. "You asked me to come back."

She nodded. "Then I want to show you my memory of that next. That might help some more. But I think it's best if that waits until tomorrow. There's no point in rushing. We have time. So let's eat some breakfast now."

She stood up, smiled, and held her hand out to me. I took it and stood up again, but I wasn't certain I would be able to eat.

Time, she had said. We have time.

Why did that feel like a lie?