#edenstask

❝  When you live in the dark for so long, you begin to love it. And it loves you back, and isn’t that the point? You think, the face turns to the shadows, and just as well. It accepts, it heals, it allows. But it also devours.❞

Task 002. Self-reflecting. Her apartment.

The first part of her life was not very happy. She remembers the first time she saw a ghost, looking wide eyed at something, staring almost blankly, before she nudged at her mother, showing her, asking her who it was. The puzzled look on her mother’s face should have been her first warning, first sign that something was not right. The looks on the villagers the following months, the way they whispered around her, was her second sign, but in her child’s naivete, she ignored it. It was a sad memory, when she remembers it. The way her younger sister, half-sister, glared at her with fear and anticipation, it stung. The second memory, the one she truly holds dear, was gazing upon baby Teressa’s eyes the first time. She felt overly protective of her the moment she opened her eyes, and as she grew it only confirmed itself, the very thing she felt around her niece - the whisper of magic, something dark and ‘unnatural’, but so natural. She remembers the way she talked to the child about who they were, what they were, and the way Teressa listened, downed every word with an excited smile. She, too, would soon be corrupted by reality, by the villagers, but Vanessa vowed to make sure her baby niece was safe.

The memory faded into a notion, the one that kept strengthening itself - the very idea of someone mistreating her niece made her blood boil ferociously.

She would protect her girl, if it was the last thing she’d do.

Lyra didn’t have many good memories -- how could she, when they were all overshadowed by the Hive and things that happened underground. Pain and fear. That was a thing she knew the best. Excruciating pain and mind-numbing fear. Good memories had started to appear when she was rescued, pulled out of the river with barely a beat to her heart. If she hadn’t been found by the rebels, she would have been left for dead, and for a while she felt like it would’ve been the better, saner and safer option. No more the damning threat of pain, or hurt and loss, no more fear and nightmares, no more. How she had wanted it, yearned for it -- for the consuming nothingness to overpower her, erase her -- not like the world would be at a loss...

But, he would. Because, without her, he wouldn’t have a bond, and if she were dead she never would have met him, cared for him. The memory of her ‘nearly dead’ experience isn’t what’s making her go through the days.

It is the memory when she first opened her eyes in a white room, surrounded by wide, clean walls that helps her sleep at night, helps her soothe her nightmares when she wakes up screaming. The white walls of an unknown room, and for a moment she thought she was back again ( have they realised she wasn’t dead? did they keep her for more torture? the very thought made her want to pull her stitches out and let herself bleed to death ) her heart drumming violently in her chest, when something to her right side caught her attention, someone beside her, someone unknown. The pull was instant, and it is that feeling that she keeps recalling, the memory of their eyes meeting for the first time, that helps her breathe a little lighter after a dreadful nightmare.

Task 001. Self-reflecting. Her apartment.

How can one be afraid of things, when one’s whole life was nothing but one large fear? Trivialities such as darkness, spiders or clowns didn’t get to her. She thought loneliness didn’t, too, but after waking up alone in her bed, she wished there was someone to hug her, tell her everything will be fine -- even if nothing would ever be fine. After Florence, after her wife’s death, Isla thought she could endure everything. After all, her worst nightmare came true -- the woman she loved more than anything in life was dead. Killed by the very thing the went up against, and on the last Rebel mission before they were squashed like ants under a magnifying glass. The bad guys had won, and they took, and took, and took until there was nothing left, no one left.

For a long while Isla thought she would never love again, never feel such pain of loss again. She thought she was protected. But, she was wrong. There was someone she grew to love, a dear, dear friend -- an only friend, and a man she was helping, keeping hidden and who, in return, offered her a job. Proteus Babikov. She loves him, dearly, and for a while she thought she’d be able to betray him if the need ever arises. But, now? Now she’s not so sure, even if she has her doubts about him betraying her too, if he had the chance.

Her fear arose again. It was the same, again. She doesn’t want to lose any more people, not anymore, not again.

And what will she do to protect her only friend?

She will fight.

If it was the last thing she’d do.

Being disconnected wasn’t the worst thing that could happen to her. Death wasn’t it, either. She didn’t fear pain, not anymore, not after she’s endured so much of it throughout her life, both cloned and Original. She doesn’t remember her old self, she doesn’t recall Marion Liu, but she was told it’s better that way. The clone didn’t really know was it better or was it worse, especially since she felt like knowing her old self, the one that begged to be turned into a clone, would help her knowing this crippling fear better.

She didn’t fear death or a cage, she didn’t fear being shut down, temporary or permanently, she didn’t fear suffering physical pain. The other type of pain she feared the most - the pain of loss, again. The pain of seeing everyone she loved; Alexis, Teressa, Ares and Agatha dead, with her being unable to stop any of it, or worse, her being forced to do it herself. Cara knew she could evade Cosima’s orders to a point, but when the pain becomes too much, would she give in? Would she kill all those she loves?

She is aware it’s only the matter of time before Cosima makes an order; whether it be about either or them, some of them or all of them, she knows the order will come - it was only the matter of time. And it was that, that terrified her the most.

Task 01 | Worst Nightmare

Malacai feels his whole body tense up when the cold water first met his skin. It was a privilege to even have running water around these parts. Cosima would’ve turned the service off had she known where the rebels were located. She would’ve done anything to have people come begging at her feet for forgiveness. All she cared about was things running her way and hers only. Her own humanity had been lost through the centuries and there was proof of that in every scar on his body the water ran over.

But if things were always her way, how could he know if anything was real? Everyone kept telling him, he wasn’t Malacai… then who? Whose memories did he really have? His mind reeled with questions, ones that had no answer and only confused him further when his heart knew what his mind didn’t. He was Malacai. He was Elta’s husband and they had a baby together. A beautiful baby girl he never got to meet. What if he never got to meet her? It had already been twenty-two long years without him, surely, she’d been doing alright by now. He wouldn’t even know who she was if she stood right before him, could’ve passed by her already and missed every chance to meet her.