The One I Left Behind

It was black and cold. Nothing to see in any direction. The black endless abyss. I knew, almost by instinct that I was not in the land of the living nor was I beyond the threshold of death. My body was real. I was certainly corporeal. This form was not a construct of my mind crafting a familiar shape for me to help me rationalize this place. I had flesh and a pulse. And yet here I was in this place clearly beyond the scope of the waking world of the living.

I skipped my first question. How didn't really matter. No, when you woke up in a situation like this... it was always the why of it that truly mattered. Not that I got to ask that question either before I was interrupted.

I felt something of small frame lean against my legs and let out a heavy sigh. "You know... I really wanted to meet you" said the apparently young girl. I could sense she was looking up at nothing when she said that. Felt her little head tilt back against the back of my kneel.

I didn't waste time standing there. After what I had done to this poor thing, I was hesitant to let it behind me, least it decide to suddenly lash out at me. So I spun around to face her... my poor departed daughter.

I don't know what it was. I should have been nicer. As her killer, you'd think I'd be the least I could do. But it seemed I was the one who was lashing out here. I guess I had been the only one given the opportunity in the land of the living. So in that way, it was fitting. "You didn't want to meet me. You just wanted to live."

She spun around when I spun around. She was short in all black with pale white skin. Short messy blond hair. Eyes with a blue so soft and light they mirrored the color of the sky. She had short little wings to her back but those wings looked like someone had taken a hammer to them and it clear by the desperate  crooked way they flapped that they could not carry her far. She would not be able to make the trip beyond this realm. She would have to return to the world I had ejected her from pre-maturely and suffer another life cycle if she ever hoped to get anywhere.

Its odd that I can remember he so vividly given that she gave me no real time to look at her before she snapped back at me. Perhaps its because I never got to meet her as a baby? In that respect, seeing her as the child she intended to become certainly was stunning. I can't say how I knew it was her without every looking. Given the strange nature of the place, maybe I just sort of felt it in the air. While I was corporeal, she wasn't. And spirits tend to bleed into those around them with no solid form to contain them... I guess.

When she spun around to face me, she crossed her arms and tucked those broken wings behind her giving me a cold glare. "Is that so wrong?" she asked with a transparent huff.

I stopped a moment. He words stung. I hadn't really given a second thought to justify getting rid of her in life. She was an obstacle. An issue on the horizon. An obligation that, if not snuffed in brief period, would have haunted me for 18 years or longer. I hadn't needed a reason to deny her life. It just made good sense.

I gave the only defense I could. The only thing I could think of in that moment. "It's certainly selfish," I finally retorted to her self-righteously with the vigor of a man who knew his bible.

But I feel she saw it coming because she was ready with a retort. "Must have gotten that from you."

I fell onto my back leg and looked around. I didn't want to be here anymore. This wasn't proving fun.

"You'll never escape me you know. I will find you back in that horrible place... if I have to wait a thousand cycles to do it, I will find you," she growled, yelling now and flying into my face faster than I realized those crooked wings could carry her. I knew she would have that time and given enough of it she would find me. I had no love for the peace that supposedly laid in wait for me beyond this place. As many cycles as I intended to ride out, if she was patient she would eventually find me.

Maybe I should have said something comforting or consoling. Maybe I should have apologized. But then again. She wasn't my daughter. Not really. I had seen that.

So I left her with this tidbit of wisdom... or... not really wisdom. Simple truth at best I guess.

And when I was done, I let myself fall back into the blackness of that inky abyss to return to the waking world I so loved. I had told her, 'Certainly not as my daughter you won't' with a jeer and snicker. A simple truth I'm sure she already knew deep down.

As I sunk deep into consciousness, I heard her get the last word on me. So petulant. She just had to have it... she was like her daddy in that sense I suppose.

It was so angry. It came in a booming growl. Certainly wasn't original. But then it still got the point across in that way, I suppose.

"So be it."