Pent-up Anger

"Anyone can slide out of anywhere and end you."

And with that being said, they walked away. I stood alone in the hallway. I wasn't going to let her threaten me. I wasn't the girl I was all those years ago. I may have hated coming back here but it was inevitable. I knew I would have returned. I knew they would want me back.

I wasn't only hiding for the past seven years. I was honing my skills. Training till I stopped moving. But I will take my time. I will destroy everyone that has hurt me and thereafter I will destroy myself. I marched out of the hallway and past the courtyard.

And I felt my darkness swirl inside me, scratching to get out. I stopped in my tracks as I watched the shadows from under the moonlight. They wanted to escape again. The seal was weakening. But I would never let them have control.

"Stop right there!" The soldiers screamed as I stood before a wall of gates.

"What's the meaning of this?!" I demanded. The west wing of the castle had been surrounded by bars. For as long as I can remember, these bars had never disappeared and I grew tired of having them here.

"The King had confined this whole area. Princess Iracia cannot leave this court." One of the soldiers exclaimed.

"Imprisoning me here would only make me rebel further. So you go and tell your King, if I can escape once, I can do it again. I've disappeared for seven years. The next time I escape, I can guarantee you, this time, no one would find me. I will give you five minutes, if by then these gates are not removed then I will break down these gates and kill every one of you that stands in my way."

Malice once again filled my voice. I was getting impatient.

"If you keep treating me like a monster, I will become one," I said with a sing-song voice. There were times when I was angry, my darkness will drip out. Like for this instance... I was angry... I was tired... It wasn't my fault that I was brought into this world.

"Time's up!" I was kind of happy now that my powers had returned. I summoned my blades and slashed the bars. The power sent the gates flying back.

"So who wants to die first?" I pointed my blade at each soldier.

"That's enough!"

My father stormed through the soldiers and after seven long years, I finally got to see him.

I finally got to see my father. He had grown older. The hair's on his head have started graying. The soldiers had dispersed leaving me alone with my father. Growing up, we never had that father-daughter relationship. After all, he had his kingdom, his queen, and her children.

"Father..." I said but I never bow down to him.

"My dear, you've grown so much. I've missed you-"

"Why did you miss me?" The words came out of my mouth before I could even stop myself. Now that I was face to face with him. It didn't feel right. I wanted the guards to tell him to let me go. But I never expected for him to turn up here. I don't think I was ready.

"You are my daughter. How could I not miss my child?"

"Would a father keep his child locked up for ten years?"

"Serah, let me explain..."

"What is there to explain father? Do you want to tell me how much you cared for me every time I got beaten? What about the days when I cried myself to sleep? I needed someone there for me but what did I get? Nothing." I dropped my blades and they fell to the ground, breaking the silence between us.

"I am truly sorry my child but these gates are to protect you." He calmly explained ignoring what I had just said.

"No father, it's not protecting me. It's to keep me locked up and to protect everyone else from the monster. Do you wish to keep me locked up forever... if that's the case..." I slowly walked up to my father.

"Then please... kill me...you have the power to end it right here... right now..." I pleaded with him.

"I will not hurt you. These gates will be removed soon but for now, until you recover, you will be guarded closely."

"Just grant my request, please..."

"You are not yourself Serah! You and your darkness are merging. You caused this onto yourself. If you never have run away, your darkness wouldn't merge. You have no self-control and you rely on her too much. You were so much better when you were a child!" He finally yelled revealing how he felt.

"I was better back then because you could control me. When the council locked me up and abused me, you never stopped them. You allowed them to experiment on me. That wasn't what I wanted." I said, barely a whisper but he heard it. I could feel the tears stinging my eyes.

"I was a child. I had the right to be safe, the right to be loved. I had the right to be cared for... you are my father... it was your job to do all those things. You had no right to break me and then blame me for my scattered pieces."

I had no more words to say to the man I called father. I ran back to the hallway. And just like that, all it took was a confrontation with him to bring back an ocean of painful memories. Dragging my feet along, I stopped in front of a mirror.

And all I saw was a scared little girl. Her hair was the color of light and her eyes, the color of darkness. But when I examined my eyes. There were hints of gold swirling in the iris. The scenes in my head seemed to appear in the mirror-like flashbacks.

The whip lashes on my back

The stabbings on my stomach

The deadly poison mark that never killed me but scarred my chest

Locked up in a prison with no food or water for days

The torture, the rape, and the abuse

I needed to release this pent-up anger that was bubbling inside of me and what better way to do that than to smash and destroy everything here. And the first thing I decided to destroy was this mirror. I raised my fists and flung them to the mirror. The mirror shattered and the pieces splintered into my skin.