008 - public, voice...word-vomit ahoy

[intofireforever]

I'm glad that's over. It was terrifying. I don't know why I thought it was the owls' doing. It felt nothing like that. That thing seriously messed with my head, and I've had more than enough of that for one lifetime...

...After-lifetime? I don't know. Whatever it should be called. I might have a pulse here, but I don't consider myself alive. No deal I could make here would bring me back in my world, and I think I prefer it that way. The White Lodge is peaceful, and there's no pain there. I've been tormented and abused since the time I was four or five years old. Death is better than that, even death at seventeen. So as terrible as this place can be, I'm grateful for it because it let me ascend to the White Lodge. I don't think I could ever completely hate it here, even after things like this.

Wanda? Are you feeling better now? I know I was screwed up at the time, too, but I still feel like I completely failed you. I miss Paddy, you know. He was a better father-figure to me than my real one. I feel so lost as a warden sometimes and I wish he could give me some advice. I think I'd do better by you if he was here to help, even though he made a big mistake with me that one time. He was mostly right on the mark and knew exactly what I needed.

I'm sorry I'm not as helpful to you as I feel I could be, but I really, really care about you. I'm doing my very best.

Comments

[intofireforever]

Thanks. I appreciate that. It wasn't your fault, though. You didn't burn that thing.

I'm sorry I was such a shitty student in that breach flood. I wasn't that way back in my world. I got straight A's in everything.

[bitteraftertaste]

That wasn't your fault, either. I wish I understood what the point of exposing people to things like that.

[intofireforever]

I don't think there necessarily is a point. Some people just love to cause chaos.

[bitteraftertaste]

I don't find that very comforting.

[intofireforever]

I've found that the truth seldom is. It's usually just disturbing.

[bitteraftertaste]

I'm sorry for asking, because I'm not sure if this is something sensitive or not, but I'm fairly certain it is, but what did you mean about owls?

[intofireforever]

The being that possessed my father and abused me took the form of an owl when he was out of his host body in order to follow and observe me. Sometimes he could watch my every move without turning into one, but usually he became an owl.

[bitteraftertaste]

That's horrifying.

TW: slightly more specific mentions of child abuse and sexual abuse

[intofireforever]

Not as horrifying as the last time BOB held me down in my bed and I realized he was inside my father. Or when he decided to take me as his next host. He wanted to use me, to do to a little girl named Danielle what he had done to me. Death was better than that. I forced him to kill me.

That's another reason I can't hate it here. Nothing here is as terrible for me as almost everything was back home.

[bitteraftertaste]

I'm sorry.

[intofireforever]

Thank you. So am I.