ProjectHYPOCRISY

Chapter Four: Think About the Good Times (and Never Look Back) "I said, "Tell me about what is real." ― Esmé Weijun Wang, The Collected Schizophrenias: Essays ----------------- I remember I was never too far from my mother's hand. Attached at the hip, dad would tease. Kathelyn would scoff. When I lost that handholding, I conceded to the wills of others. I became vulnerable and soft, like a newly hatched bird. I lost a part of myself, bigger than I realised. I desperately tried to find something that would fill that hole but nothing was enough. Even him. Especially him. They told me he died in Nibelheim -a terrorist attack -Avalanche, in fact. That's what they said officially to the public that ate up the story of the great hero Sephiroth and how he died in the line of duty, just like he should. People will accept what confirms their biases, it just so happened that in this case they believed a hero needed to die at the hand of an enemy; an enemy that never really existed. I

Chapter Zero: And so, it was for Naught The moon rose to its peak position in the sky. A young woman perched on the ledge of her window, the curtain pulled back to allow the cool, pleasant evening air to waft in. Trickles of moonlight struck the hardwood floor, illuminating the meager belongings allowed in the residential rooms of the university, playing tricks on the young woman’s mind. The trees seemed to dance in the strong autumn gusts and the water from the fountain occasionally overflowed, in the courtyard below. The lack of light allowed shadow folk to snake out of the rose bushes. The young woman did not enjoy the darkness that invaded her room at night and opted for a different scenery, burning every candle she had and even stealing the candles of her classmates. But tonight, she hadn’t found a candle to light her room and the woodsman hadn’t returned with the lumber to light her hearth. She feared the night; it seemed that even the courtyard, the place where she would read