Déjà vu

It had been twenty-four years since she had last seen it, but the place looked the same. Well, not exactly the way it had looked before. It had been a hard twenty-four years for her and the place she once called home as well. It hadn’t been very pleasant either. Death had decided to visit the mortals and play his torturing games, games no one wanted or liked. She had found the olden building while exploring the forest from the nearby safety bunker but didn’t expect it to be familiar. The glossy yet unfinished floorboards creaked their familiar whining song, that disturbed the peace every time someone journeyed across them, as she made her wary way along their forever littered pathway, careful not to step on a mutated beast or anything that could cut her bare soles. Scurries of a sudden movement from disease-carrying rodents sounded in any direction you could think of, who knew where they truly came from and were now, escaping the random intruder that had entered their newfound home without an invitation and didn’t seem to be leaving anytime soon in their likes. It seemed just as warming as it once did twenty-four years ago…  before… before the terrifying incident that had ruined those heartwarming memories for the dragging years that had grown in the ancient mansion and the dying world. It wasn’t her fault this had all happened to the once carefree household or did it all happen because of her? She was lost in these thoughts that she hadn’t noticed the rising stairs till her foot hit the first step.

She came to an almost sudden stop in front of the flight of curved stairs that led up to the many precious floors that had been built into the once lively mansion, but now it is nothing but one out of the millions of rubble that once was the buildings that held loners, lovers and families, until the love-stricken war that had entered from nowhere but the mind of the creature in control. It had raged ever so long and burdensome across the lifeless world like the storms that used to reign the skies, blocking the powerful Sun from showing. Nowhere was considered safe anymore from its powerful regnant of pure terror and everlasting fear. No one survived its deadly game. There were only suffering soldiers left to strike down in the crumbling world where we had made the deadliest thing possible to its glory and the devil’s secret weapon. Human life. Terrible, terrible human life. Now there was nothing left because of it. Nothing. Left. The thought rang in her head like a bell in an ancient church tower as she made her way through the tumbling house of memories.

With an ashamed upon sigh that could only symbol her unbelievable strength and strong attitude towards the two-legged creatures that once walked the earth as her very self faded away from her body, her soul, till it was just another small breeze in the polluted wind; she began once again on her journey, making her way up the striped stairs, her bruised and burned from the roaring flames outside hands ran along the wrought-iron railing, bent perfectly and cut to precise shapes and curves in patterns as it ran along with the marbled steps, as she made her way along with them. She started at a slow pace, gaining sudden speed from her brightening memories in the luxurious home that once housed her welcoming family, even if they weren’t her real family members. The bad memories flashed like a light being flickered as well, ones she would rather throw away into the trash than have stored in the messed up files of her cluttered mind. That starry night. That life-changing incident. It kept her chained down by the strongest metal you could imagine for so long, for so many years, it was time to break free of their clutches. Time to be free for once. Time to escape the everlasting war forever. Time to escape the toxic words extracted from others like a snake out of its hideout to hunt for its weak prey. It’s time to escape the hellish prison called life.

She came back to her wonderful senses as she broke free onto the highest, but the weakest floor of the mountainous manor, she ran straight ahead towards her freedom, into the spacious master’s bedroom. The antiquated room had been stripped clean of furniture and precious items by raiders that had stumbled upon the pile of rubble after being left at the beginning of a new age. An age that would last for so many years to come. This didn’t stop the feeling inside of her though, the drunken feeling, the controlled feeling. She was so close, too close, just a pair of moss-covered doors that you wouldn’t believe were glass stood in the way of her close goal. They drew closer and closer quickly as she drew closer and closer to them until they were smashed down into nothing but splinters of glass, deadly to those who fell on it or used it as a weapon to harm others. This didn’t stop her in her freedom tracks though as she propelled herself onto the fanciful railings. This was it. Down below was her gate; open ready for her to go through. All she had to do was jump into their warm clutches. Jump and all the problems will fade forever. Forever. That’s what he said. That’s what the one controlling the game wanted.  A crooked smile that would make even the darkest people shiver crept across her face as one foot was off it, then the next. She fell. Down. Down. Down. Most would say it was a foolish act, but for her, it was her breakthrough. The ground came quickly along with the stomach-churning crunch of the bones that held her structure in place. The chains were finally broken. Shattered. Gone. Gone forever. She was free. Free to live her life, a new life. One that brought pleasure to the demon watching. The demon that wore the dark cloak of souls and the scythe that held screams of pain. The demon that had won. He had won… and that’s all that mattered.