Internal Battle

The world was ending. Plants were withering, animals were starving and humans were losing their humanity. It was a total chaos.

Hopeless and desperate, I dragged my feet across the debris. Debris… There was just debris left. The building had been destroyed, flattened to the ground. Many of us didn’t survive and we, who survived, were waiting for our time. Nothing we could do to restore this world. It was the ugly truth. Actually, it was quite ironic. My name was Audrey Alexis Callen. Audrey meant noble strength and Alexis meant defending. In the reality, I didn’t have noble strength; I had been hiding and running. Certainly, I couldn’t defend the world, I couldn’t even defend myself!

My eyes caught a horrible sight in a distance. I saw two people women each other. The wind was tossing their long brown hair to all directions. Their tense figures made my heart clenched. One of them was gripping a shiny sword. Her body gesture suggested that she was trained to fight, trained to kill. She looked lethal. Looking ready, she cocked her head as a sign to challenge the other one.

The other woman looked fierce, filled with emotions. Her gesture told that those emotions were rage, fury, hurt and sorrow. Matched the red leather top and pants she was wearing. They were her weapons. She was going to fight with empty hands. However, she couldn’t be underestimated. Looking at her, you would understand that you couldn’t mess with her.

It was true I couldn’t make out their faces, but I could feel their eyes. A pair of cold eyes and a pair of piercing eyes staring into each other, throwing daggers to each other.

Something inside of me was evoked immediately. It was a strong feeling that didn’t want them to fight. I was bewildered. I didn’t even know any of them, but why?

The grey clouds covered the sky and the thunder dramatized the scene. Then, the clash began. They were both extremly good. I was quite surprised. It was as if they were dancing on the bloody stage. Their moves were graceful, yet highly dangerous in their own ways.

At first it was pretty even, but now amazingly the empty handed women was dominating, whereas the sword woman was a little bit overwhelmed by the speed of the empty handed woman. I was overwhelmed too, by the urge to end the fight. The problem was I had no idea how to do that. It happened so fast, just in a split second the sword was dropped, kicked by the empty handed fighter. Wasting no time, she grabbed the sword women by the neck and turned around. And then she hooked it with the crook of her right arm.

A smirk formed on her lips, revealing her sharp white teeth. Sure, watching your opponents so weak in your hand was thrilling. Seeing their eyes pleading for your mercy sent excitement rush through your blood and gave you a sense of triumph which soon you would taste. However, she longed for more. Not feeling satisfied enough, she threw a hard punch to the sword woman’s gut. A loud grunt came out from the sword woman. At that moment, I held my breath, I couldn’t stand this anymore. I yelled at them to stop, yet the words were stuck in my throat. Those kicks, punches and beatings continued. I got down on my knees, I felt so powerless.

This urge was weird, as if I was the one who was fighting. Huh, me? Fighting? Very funny. The dance of death was still being performed. The sword women feel on the ground helplessly. The empty handed fighter jumped on her in an instant an and poured all the rage she had. The horror hadn’t finished yet. The sword woman accepted them all. Her blue jacket was now purple, stained with blood, while her pants were stained by dirt. Unexpectedly, her hand managed to snatched her sword from the ground and thrusted it to the stomach of the empty handed women. I ran but it was too late. Too late… when I reached them, they were already dead.

Never had I been so shocked like this. My jaws hit the ground. Their faces... Their faces were identical. By identical I meant exactly the same. So was my face. I was puzzled, confused and speechless. How could this possibly happen? To ensure myself, I touched their faces. Odd, this was e

Then, everything became blurry and eventually disappeared. I was like sucked, pulled out of where I was standing into this bleak place. The situation was getting more and more bizarre. On the corner I saw a female body lying on the cold floor. My instinct pushed me to approach her. Taking a deep breath, I walked towards that body. My body was trembling as soon as I recognized the face in the dim light. I panicked. What the hell is going on?! I asked myself numerous times, but I could come up with no explanation. Of course I could recognize that face! Of course I could recognize MY OWN FACE! It gave chills down my spine. Had my eyes betrayed me? Had I lost my mind? Perhaps, yes.

After a while I heard footsteps. There was somebody else. Tap..tap..tap.

“Welcome, Audrey… It’s a real pleasure to finally meet you. I’ve waited for this for such a long time.” said a familiar female voice. I turned my head to the source of the voice. There she was, standing in darkness front of me in her black and red robe. The hood of her robe was put on, making it difficult for me to get a clear vision of her face.

“Did you enjoy the little show that I presented to you? It was entertaining, wasn’t it? I did that only to summon you.” She was mocking me.

“Who are you? What are you doing to me?” I dared myself to ask. After all that happened I thought I deserved to know.

“You mean you don’t know me? Oh, I’m hurt; I’ve been looking for you and you don’t even know who I am. I’m you…” Putting off the hood of her robe, she paused for a second and took a step closer until our faces were just an inch away. Her red blood eyes were looking into mine. “And you are me.” It was difficult to absorb, I couldn’t understand her. So, she was the one who was after me?

“Oh, it’s you! I don’t understand. Why did you bother to do this?” I admitted. It seemed to humor her, she grinned.

“Yes, it’ me, Layla. I think you know better than that. Or are you truly a dumb?” I had no idea where such power and boldness came from, I shoved her away. I wanted to get out of here. It obviously pissed her off. Oops, I’d pushed the wrong button. Her pale face hardened. We did look alike. The differences were, her face was paler than mine, more beautiful too. Beautiful, indeed yet it was pure evil. Layla, the dark beauty.

“My twin, my only remaining twin, to be precise, I’m gonna be frank to you. I detest the fact that there were four others of me and the two of them had something I needed. Whereas the two others would always get in my way if I didn’t get rid of them!” Her voice echoed in this place. I was beyond scared. My heart shrunk.

“What did you do to them?” I said softly, almost as soft as a whisper.

“If you say so, okay, I’ll tell you. First, I ‘took care’ of her.” She pointed at the one who was lying dead on the floor.

“It was tougher than I thought. She was persistent and wouldn’t give up easily. So I had no choice but to pull out my worst. Huh, what can I say? She was an obstacle for me. She and her values drove me crazy all the time. As for the two others, well you saw happened. All I did was just tricking them.” Her words made me shudder.

“Anyway, it doesn’t matter anymore. Shouldn’t you think about yourself, instead?” She said chuckling.

“Yes, I’ve been thinking about that since i got here. Actually, what do you want from me? Why are doing this to me?” I was about to die, at least I just wanted to know why.

“Because… You’re the WEAK Audrey. You are THE FLAWS! Unlike the others you don’t stand a chance against me. So why don’t I have fun before killing you. Hey, no need to tremble like that. Ouch, did I just hurt your fragile heart, sweetie?” I did! I really did! It hurt to hear that. I was useless, I screwed things up. I had many fears, I hesitated all the time, I doubted everything. I slowed myself down. No wonder she wanted to finish me off so badly.

I didn’t realize I was trembling. Who could blame me? Anyone would do that if they found themselves in this kind of circumstance. I hated that she noticed that, it caused her to see how weak I was. My own body had betrayed me. Then, she put her hand on my face and caressed it. I tried to protest, but it was impossible.

“Poor Audrey” she said, and then she slapped me with the back of her hand with great force, sending me fly backwards. The stung on my left cheek was very unlikely to ignore. I landed on the corner, next to the dead ‘me’. Tears threatened to escape from my eyes. Being right next to her, I could see the bruises, deep cuts and burns all over her skin. I wasn’t able to imagine how Layla had tortured her and a hell of a fight the dead ‘me’ put off but still ended up dead eventually. She was the cruelest person I had ever known. She was a monster, unfortunately she was me, or at least a part of me. Somehow that monster got away from the dungeon deep inside and released the terrifying terror. Looking closely at her, I could get a vision of what dead ‘me’ had gone through. It was playing on my mind, as if I was there, witnessing all of it. Daunting images… those were that I was watching. I learned that I mustn’t let her get into my head otherwise, I would be done.

“Wow, I didn’t mean to do that. Sorry!” She said laughing. “Do you feel cold? Let’s see how you’re going to handle this.“ She flicked her fingers and then I felt so hot. Right before my eyes, huge flame was licking wildly. A second later it already circled around me. I screamed from the top of my lungs. The torment lasted for about a minute then it stopped. A laughter bursted out of her lips. Jeez, this was so amusing to her. My eyes drifted to my body. Incredibly, I found not even a tiny wound on me. Only the pain was excruciating. Should I just give up? I felt like a toy in a hand of bad kid.

“Why don’t you just kill me and get over with this?” I pleaded. I couldn’t hold back the tears. The feeling of helplessness and desperation rushed in my blood. I questioned and doubt myself to get away from this hell.

“Don’t worry. Sure, I’ll kill you, but later. Before you go, I suppose now is the time for a little flashback, don’t you think? Just like what people say.” I watched as her red eyes quickly changed into the blackest black that I had ever seen and my eyes went wide. After that, the room faded and I was pulled back to the past. I saw myself making mistakes, all kinds of mistakes, from the smallest one to the biggest one. In the entire time, I had been my own barrier and obstacle. I had cost myself significant loss. I let down the people I loved. Practically, I set myself to trip.

This was more excoriating than the other tortures I got. It made me wished for death even more. I could feel that I was being burnt in the big flame again, but seeing how I messed up was more painful. My tears now had become sobs. My legs weakened and I felt on the cold floor, hugging both of my legs into a tight ball. I didn’t care about the flame anymore.

“Happy to see the good old days? Oops, doesn’t look like it. So how would you like to die, Audrey? Don’t give me that look. It’s not like other person is going to kill you. You’re going to die because of yourself. Poetic, isn’t?” I lost my patience, she had such a big mouth, too big in fact. Come on! Get up for once, just do whatever you can. Try! Don’t just give in to what she wants! I mentally scolded myself.

“You can’t kill me…” I stated. God, I hoped it didn’t sound silly.

“Why?” she asked briefly, raising her eyebrow.

“Because you’re going to fail, I’m going to make you fail.” Right after I said that, she casted red light striking me. I moved as quick as possible and it missed. I thought it caught her off guard. I ran to wherever my gut was telling me to, although I couldn’t see well, since darkness covered the whole place. I dropped anything in the way to slow Layla down. Too late! She was already in front of me. Feeling exhausted to look afraid, I realize that it was my turn to get into her head. I didn’t know if it was called bravery or reckless.

“I told you. As you’re aware of, I mess things up, right?” She said nothing and took out a katana from behind her robe. She wielded it swiftly. Once again I wasn’t harmed. Instead of slicing me, it hit the wall and broke. I was able to avoid it. Layla growled in anger and yelled.

“You cannot get away from me!”

Her words hit me. That’s correct we couldn’t get away from each other. We were connected, that was why I could see flashback of my gruesome death, I meant the other me. It also explained how I could feel something when I saw the fight. I had to use that! Driven by her anger, she attempted to pull out one of her tricks. We stared at each other for a second. And then, I pushed my luck. I imagined whatever she was doing to me didn’t work. I was wrong, it worked too well. Now I had to deal with two of me. Apparently, she just created her accomplish, which happened to look like her. Grrr… I found myself surrounded by these two annoying creatures.

“I don’t remember you saying that you’d invite someone else. Great! We can throw a party. Hey, you, newcomer! Play nice. Take her down, not me.” I commented. I was unsure whether it was appropriate for this moment but I couldn’t find myself to care. The frustration of wanting to get out of this hell of a place had taken over my logic.

I didn’t anticipate the newcomer to kick me, or at least not until there was a sign. I didn’t want to count how many times I fell on the ground. The newcomer threw her fist to me, but thankfully I managed to dodge it. When our hands came in contact, I wished she didn’t work as Layla wanted. I wished there was some kind of mistake. Her eyes… there was something, but I couldn’t guess what it was.

The newcomer pulled her fist back and I tried to stand up on my shaky legs. Their body gestures suggested that they were about to launch the attacks. When they did, miraculously, I was still in one piece. I was alright. Instead of killing me, the newcomer killed her. As Layla’s lifeless body hit the floor, everything was over. The newcomer disappeared and this place was crumbling down. Running fast, I tried to avoid the falling stones from above. I kept running until there was blinding light came out of nowhere followed by a deafening sound.

Suddenly, I was on my bed, sweating bullet. I was gasping for air. I was clueless about how I could end up and my bed. My alarm clock was screaming at my ears to wake me up. I was awake, but not with a great feeling. I opened my curtain and the bright sunlight came into my room right away. On my desk, I spotted my diary. I recalled what I wrote on it. I had to solve this problem! The ring of my smartphone strengthened my determination. It was now the time to listen to my heart and go for it, because i didn’t want to lock myself in this room and say ‘if only’.

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By : Elga Theresia

School : SMA Marsudirini Bekasi

Twitter : @elga_ficaddict