Chapter 8.2: "Diary"

Her voice silenced all the cries that wanted to torment me and that crowded my mind: I looked up at her but said nothing. Alex lowered herself, sitting cross-legged and staring into my eyes for a few minutes, until she brought her fingers to my cheeks. Her fingertips followed the trail left by my tears and wiped my wet skin.

She held my face in her hands, pulling me against her and hugging me tightly. Her familiar warmth was the only one that would reassure me so quickly.

"Please don't say anything... read this, then join me at the top of the tower. Can you do it?"

Her request surprised me, but I agreed immediately, grabbing the already familiar diary she was handing me in my hands: it was the same booklet I had read to look for Fiamma and her on the day of the ritual. I didn't understand why she was giving it to me, but it had to be something important. I also interpreted it from the look she was giving me at that moment, with her sad eyes, almost empty, and her lips contracted in a grimace of suffering. Yet despite not seeing any major changes in her, her eyes seemed sincere for the first time in a long time.

Alex stood up shortly after and disappeared from my view, probably to reach the top of the tower that was in front of me. Clutching the diary between my fingers, I took all the strength I had left, the courage I could find in myself, to open it and read its contents, what Alex wanted to show me. I opened a page that was marked with the folded upper right corner, which she had probably wrinkled herself.

"It's been two days since I woke up and I don't even know why it occurred to me to listen to Keira's stupid proposals ... damn, I just don't see a point in writing what I feel or I think, now that it's the end for me. Would that be a diary in my memory? Because I want to die, I still can't find a reason to live after failing and disappointing my loved ones.

The fifth day of the Fall* "

*autumn, the fifth refers to the fifth day of the season.

"Sixth day of the treatment diary, as Keira defines it. That girl really must be obsessed with me because she doesn't even leave me room to breathe! At least Fiamma knew when to let go, besides it was as if she knew me perfectly: she said the right thing. to make me feel better or the hardest one to digest to make me think... I miss her. I would like to talk to her. I made an irremediable mistake and Zey was hurt by it ... I put her in danger even though I promised myself not to hurt no one ... when she stabbed herself, it's like she stabbed me too, but the guilt of hurting or killing someone else besides my family for my work, was the most painful thing to deal with, especially in the early hours of my awakening. I had some weird dreams ... Zey said she loved me, but I think that's what really happened. I don't have clear memories of the ritual, but I can say for sure that her I love you, made me rins avire, at least for a while. We survived the end, we won the destruction that would bring the Eye of Time.

I want to die, I don't deserve someone like Zet by my side and I don't even know if I would be able to love her as she deserves, if I would be able to support her when I can only think of the desire to reach my family...

I have disappointed you, I can not do anything else to be forgiven.

The tenth day of the Fall"

I noticed some red spots on the page and I realized without asking that Alex had tried to kill herself right after she finished writing that page. I wiped away yet another tear and continued reading with trembling hands and a heavy weight on my heart:

"Keira took me through the streets of the capital, saying that I needed to go out to get better... I'm so sorry that her attempts are in vain, because I just feel disgusted. Some days I don't even want to get up and I just want someone to come and kill me while I sleep... I'm tired, I don't have the strength... and after thinking about it, it wouldn't even be fair to Zey. She still sleeps soundly and I can only admire her silently: what if she never wakes up again? What will she think when she opens her eyes and sees me in front of her? Will she hate me?

I have so many doubts, above all I don't understand how it is possible that you love me... how can someone love me? I am a puppet who stopped moving when her theater collapsed. They cut the strings for me but still death hasn't come knocking on my door. Maybe it's the weight of my sins, the curse I have to bear for all my past mistakes. I no longer seek revenge, not even an alternative solution ... I spend hours planning my death at night. I have lost my powers ... even though I still feel nature communicating with me, whispering a chant that accompanies my slow and heavy footsteps.

I met Fiamma while I was walking through the largest square of the Riviera, she seemed serene: she cut her hair, she is really beautiful. When I look at it, I immediately feel calm. Fiamma got me right away, sometimes I even thought I was infatuated with her, but then when I was spending time with Zey, when we kissed, when she held me in her arms at night... I realized that I would not be able to give away my body to someone else, not after everything she had done for me. Even if in the past sex had been my escape from thoughts and suffering, it would no longer be a tool to escape from my problems, it could not be. Why was I talking about this now? Maybe because not even sex would be able to get the word death out of my head , not even Fiamma with her warm eyes and her attention would be able to. I'm done, I feel it. I'm sorry Keira ... I'm sorry Zey ... I'm sorry Flame.

I can only continue to feel sorry all my life and now I wonder for the first time if dying is the wisest choice. What would my mother want? I shouldn't have gone back to Clevwood, but had I broken that promise too ... my siblings? My poor siblings who would have grown with me if those monsters hadn't broken their necks. My grandmother who had placed all her hopes in me... I had disappointed everyone! I wouldn't have been able to bring them back... that's enough. "

The next sheet had probably been torn up and then placed between the pages of the diary, in fact I found one ruined by folds, a little crumpled, and I took it out, placing the booklet on the ground. The writing was different, it was as if her hand had told what Alex thought with spasmodic gestures, leaving behind it trembling letters, fuzzy, ruined words. The convulsive handwriting made me realize what she had felt while writing that page:

"I have something to tell you Zeyana, something I should have talked about a long time ago, but I couldn't find the courage to do it. I lied to you too much and I know it's too late now to ask for forgiveness, but I'd like to tell you what I felt, what I feel every day and why I have acted this way so far."

To be continued...