When mother and father died, I found it was the perfect time to retreat into my safe space. The cave - one that mother had inhabited until her death - once had seemed comforting and familiar. When chaos broke out across the land, I did what my mother did - hide. She was an agoraphobic, that woman, barely stepping out into the sunlight, save for the occasional meal. Perhaps that's why I decided to tuck myself away for so long - it was in my blood.
Though, I always knew that wasn't the only thing that coursed through my veins. I was a child of the Wraith - the one who raped my mother, the one who terrorized these lands for years before I came to be. The one I never met, but whose red eyes haunted me - because I shared them with him. I heard his name in mother's nightmares before she died. I watched my father - the one who truly raised me - gently awaken her and then hold her. Well, perhaps, that's why I decided to go into hiding - if I bore the blood of a devil, it was only a matter of time before I became one myself.
There was another whose blood I shared, however. My sister - who in reality wasn't my sister at all - Deiti. I thought of her in my seclusion, I dreamed of her during the day, I talked to her at night. I had always wished to be more like her...brave, adventurous, cunning. All things I hoped to be, but failed miserably at. I looked back at our childhood fondly; our made up games, our midnight gossip, our longing to be anywhere but...there. Mother and father loved us, perhaps too much - they hovered. Only Deiti found the courage to leave though, while I stayed to care for mother, and then stayed even as she rotted because I knew nothing else.
Maybe that's why I found myself here, in the ruins and rubble of what once was. I had always struggled with change, where Deiti sought it out. The unnatural silence is all too familiar to me...I was used to the quiet, used to only my thoughts to keep me company. I can feel the pain that lingers here, the echoes of hurt that refuse to subside. I understand their agony, as I lived it for decades. How can you claim to be anyone when you've lost everyone?
"Deiti!" I scream suddenly, listening as her name reverberates off the rock formations. I'm not sure why I call for her; all I know is my heart aches and it has since we departed. My sister...she was the only one who truly understood me. "DEITI!" I scream again, this time through sobs.
I beg the wind to carry my call to her as I listen to my own torment - the only sound for miles.
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Deiti