Forgotten but never Forgiven

I left Hathian. I swept its filth into a dust pan and trashed it. Once I moved to Las Almas, Nevada, the city faded from memory. Though I couldn't recall what made the scars, I remember the hate it represented.

September 2015

“Regret looks good on you,” my brother said. I peered through the passenger window. Hues fabricated together without end or beginning as his Audi Q6 hugged the winding roads. I believed the scenery beyond the glass glared at me; the magnitude of the sunset could be stunning if I paid any mind.  My thoughts were occupied instead with a face that haunted me more than my brother’s now.  

That olive-undertoned skin light in comparison to her Asian heritage, with eyes razor-edged and almond-curved, staring with a nil emptiness so befitting of her dark irises. Voltiel…

I never could discern the definition of our relationship, especially now. Before, it was born from the sabotage that boiled over from jealousy and fury. For most of my life, all I understood was wrath. The loom spun into every frayed and broken thread of my life. My rage was my guardian and my executioner.

It forged me into a survivor. Whenever despair flitted its seduction, beckoning me towards surrender to my trauma, I promised myself never to be a broken doll to anyone, no matter the price. As much as my brother tried to make me his, he never succeeded.

All the lies, broken bones, bruises, funerals, sexual torture, and isolation, I managed to keep fragments of my spirit and independence and sewed them together whenever I escaped him.

How long did I know Voltiel, a vile mockery of a human being or a woman, before she took everything from me?

All it took was one fell stroke, and I knew that Voltiel mastered the strings stitching through my limbs, my mind, my soul. The slow, sweet strokes of her needle bound me with each blip in time we spent together.

No matter how hellish I backlashed, Voltiel replied in kind, her aura an apathetic void. It didn’t matter. I cracked easily and became subservient to her.

Eventually, my infernal hatred was snuffed out as the flames suffocated under her icy persona. I often pondered if Vol suffered anything from my fury.

How ironic, since I encountered many of Voltiel’s tormentors. Some of them attempted to snare me as well, but I twisted and pranced from them without much effort. Yet, I witnessed how each of them broke Vol into smaller morsels each year. I found it perplexing.  

I did not want to be a broken doll in Hathian, and Vol was already becoming my master, although I don’t want to say it. Not even when I lay tangled in the covers alone in the dark, I never want to say it out loud.

No, I would rather sit next to my hellion brother. That’s when I knew exactly why Voltiel succeeded in subduing me while Raith failed in all his attempts.

I love Voltiel in a way I never loved my brother. It was a jealous love, an envy to possess her strength. I have a spirit of fire that continues to change. It flourishes, it diminishes, it kindles, it snuffs, and is relit again. Vol has a spirit of ice, its statuesque presence untouched by anyone.

I knew underneath that frozen exterior that she so perfectly armored herself with was a beating heart. A heart that loved, lost, wept, and feared. After Meschiya’s death, I yearned to chisel away that ice so I could also desecrate Vol’s heart as she did to my lover.