Memory Of Us

Jane POV.

I wondered what was wrong with me. Why I thought that my servants, my victims, lived on in me. Why I felt that reaching out and ripping someone's life, someone's hopes, dreams and ambitions away from them.

Why all I felt for Seraphina was cold hatred, instead of pity for having to shoulder the ambitions of others. I knew I wouldn't take her, I needed her alive, for now. Not for her, but for the loyalty of someone I knew only by the ticking of a clock.

I know I shouldn't do it, too much attention, too much risk, but it was still tempting. I still wanted to reach out and make her mine, to take all that she was and ever will be away, to a dark place, to be called upon when I face someone especially troublesome, but I couldn't, not until I knew what I wanted. Who I was.

And I had to work with her for the last part of that damned project, and now she was actually interested in working togheter, for some awful reason. I hated her with everything I had. With all the hate I could muster, no, not quite all, not compared to the anger I felt as someone turned on me, betrayed me, in a memory that isn't mine. Not anymore.

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Seraphine POV.

I felt ashamed.

I didn't yesterday, when all I felt was happines that the cripple, no, that Jane finally knew place. Finally stopped dragging me down, down to her level. Atleast until I heard the chatter, that I tried so hard to ignore but it never worked of, between Ilena and Wenqi, of Jane leaving an alleyway with torn clothes. They said she was a hooker, a slut, and although it was dismissed by the school, their little friend group even, I knew they were wrong.

I was meant to be a symbol of success, but it fet horrible. Horrible that I would let this happen, and, somee treacherous part of me whispered, how many times have you let this happen?

How much more did you fail, how many more hopes were broken because of your petty reasons, it whispered, hissed, and it sounded far to much like Leilah.

I would fix this.

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Jane POV.

We stood at the edge of a building, looking out over a gutted city, they places building had been standing in now deserted, with nothing but the last flames left.

We had won. I did not know who we were, but I knew we were us. Posters of us could be found all over the city, they talked about us on the news. Run they said, in more words, yes, but still, they knew they had no power here. Good.

The monster was here too. He stood in our midst, looking at home, and now looking at him, I saw not one bit of the monster in my mind. No, he was our leader, our symbol. One of terror, evil and destruction, but also of change. People flocked to us, and as we grew we spread terror and destruction in our passing, but also change and equality.

All of them but two were clad in shadows, obstructing them from my sight, and the second made my blood boil. I recognized him, not from fragmented memories seen through a smudged lens and then forgotten, but from mine. From Jane's.

Red was all I saw in him, a light I wanted to reach out and grab but couldn't, so far away, yet so close. My body didn't move, but I was somewhere else, a different dream, a different time.

The monster was more like I remebered him now, instead of that young child, sitting in a chair and looking at me, talking in a voice that I couldn't hear, refused to hear.

The world dissolved as his hand neared my face, and I changed.

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I sat up on a bed that felt like it was worth far more than William could afford, as someone without an ability these days. Seems like writing books was a profitable business after all.

As my concentration slipped, so did I, cutting my hand open on an edge. I pushed aside my hesitation this time and it was gone, with my servant now. I pushed like I had done so often, for so, so many things.

When my army, one I knew I had, one I didn't remember, was still large. When we tore the world down brick after brick, and lit it all on fire, after the betrayal. After our failure to ensure we had control.

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The pushes and insults were annoying, but something burnt somewhere inside of me with a familiar cold.

The child with emerald hair, Rouker, was the most annoying, and even more as he activated his ability.

Missiles. It made me shake in rage, something he probably mistook for fear, when he activated it, as his eyes assumed a glow close to mine and the monster's, my leader, but almost identical to the traitor.

It made me want to gouge them out, and I almost did it. Right then and there, and who would stop me?

I pushed my anger down again, repressing it, and ran. He would be among the first to die once my power grew close to what I once had.

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Seraphina POV.

I chased down the idiot that attacked Jane. Well, maybe chased was abit of an exaggeration, but I found him and only I left that room with unbroken bones.

Ah! Here she is even, looks like I dont have to look for her after all.

"Hello Jane! I was wondering if you wanted to cooperate on the last part of this test?"

She looks at me like I have grown several heads before she answers.

"Why? Last I remember you attacked me when I suggested that and refused to have anything to do with me."

A twinge in my stomach reminded me of that. Of my failure. I didn't even have a good reason for doing it, other jealousy for the freedom she had, and now I am sure she was just as jealous, if not more, of my power, my ability to defend myself.

"Because I changed my mind."

It was a bad reason and I knew it, she knew it and everyone else knew it. But it was all I had, without admitting my shame at my jealousy. She didn't seem to want to follow me, which was understandable.

"Because I was just jealous of your freedom."

Another bad reason, just as true as the last, but it didn't excuse my failure. I walked away, and she followed me. She seemed far more like the girl before yesterday.

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Jane POV.

The book was boring. It was awful and I hated it, but I read it despite that. I hated it, was the last thought as it dragged my face down into it.

The monster's hand left my face, and I could hear him as he started talking this time.

"Sometimes, the disguises, the mask we wear, we become them. I think you and I know this best, as we were nothing before we started lying to ourselves, lying to the world. And eventually that lie became the truth, the mask became our face. I became erlking, a symbol, a mask, but now just my own face. We can only do this when we are no one, when we have nothing, and you, my dear, are something."

A book to the back of my head pulled me away from the monster, as it woke me up. The fear I had stopped feeling before had been there this time, had been just around the corner.

Who am I?