"Your father came into my life for money, did you only wanted me to be a part of someone else's life just for money?..." The woman stared at the girl in front of her with tears glistening in her eyes, her voice lacing with disappointment and melancholy as she uttered the words, "Allea... I raised you better."

The girl, whom the woman was staring at through tears, had her head held way high. She gave her mother a fleeting irritated look and, "If not this then what else, didn't you also married Odgen for money?" retorted, her voice ridiculing with arrogance shining in her light-brown eyes.

My brows grimaced, as I stared at the shadows of my past self and my mother in an argument that I vividly remember, but before I could reach them, or yell at my past-self to not say those words, or touch my mother's face to wipe away her tears, the scene in front of me diffused into dark smoke, and I felt myself sinking into another abyss, where everything was away from my reach, away from where I could touch or change it.

"B-be good to Kai, he has no one in this world, don't let the child s-tray, you have everything, don't let the kid lack anythin-g."

Jackson's frail body laid lifeless on the hospital bed, his voice was scarcely above a whisper, he looked in so much pain just to say those words. The girl who stood in front of him, to whom these words were spoken, nodded nonchalantly and didn't answer. Her face lacked any commiseration or interest as she saw the lifeless man in front of her closing his eyes.

These were Jackson's last words to me when he died, I tried to reach the shadows once again, but I knew all my efforts were vain, I can reach none. Once again, the scene in front of me melted into another murky voidless cloud, but this time I could hear the distant cries of a child whose shadow was far away from me, he was fallen on his knees as his small body stared at the girl in front of him.

"Please! Please don't send me to boarding school! I'll be very good, not make any voice, you won't even have to see me! But please don't send me away from my home, this is the only....please..." A thirteen-year-old Kai, his eyes filled with desperation, along with tears in his eyes and sorrow emanating from his whole existence.

"Shut up, I have already decided. You're going, and I don't care, cry as much as you want." Was the only answer the child got in return.

I ran toward them, but like every time, this too faded, all I was left with nothing but scattered blackness, and this time I found myself in front of a door, recognizing it, I paused. I know what was inside the room, my past self. I could hear the cries, I was familiar with, these were the sound of my last cries, and the moment I took my life with my own hands. My hand paused at the doorknob, this was something I never want to face, never.

In the end, I couldn't open the door and just stood there until I heard the gunshot.

My breath hitched, as I abruptly opened my eyes.

The voice of the gun-shot was still ringing in my ears, I struggled to even my breathing, and glanced around the room, to make sure that it was all a dream. This room...I was standing outside it in my dream. Taking a deep sigh, I removed my quilt and reached for the water bottle at my side table. Once again, taking a few deep breaths, I gulped down the water to ease my nerves. I never turn off the light when I sleep, so it kinda helps whenever I have such dreams, these dreams were not new, but they rarely happen. In the beginning, the past came as fragments when I slept, so as useless thoughts I started dismissing them but over the years they turned into these dreams. The last time I had such a dream was eight months ago, I don't know what triggers them but whenever I'm in such dreams, it feels like, those dreams are the reality and what I'm living now is just an illusion, and I hate this very dreading-thought.

Before I could even think, I was up and walking out of my room, my feet carried me toward Kai's room, I even forgot to wear slippers and walked soundlessly through the dimmed mansion in the middle of the night. Ascending the stairs quietly, reaching in front of Kai's room, I noiselessly opened his door and stepped inside, his room was subtly submerged in darkness. I could outline his silhouette because of the lamp on the side table, I walked toward his bed, another sigh escaped my lips as I saw him sleeping peacefully. His quilt was wrapped around his body and head engulfed by the softness of the pillow, his messy hair covering his closed eyes and arms wide open.

This is the reality, not a dream.

I suppressed the feeling of dread the started creeping on my body after the dream, affirming that Kai was well and sound asleep I didn't feel like going back to my room. My feet - once again- carried me somewhere else, and halted in front of the entrance door, opening it I walked out into the front yard, which was illuminated with garden lighting lamps. When we turned this front yard into our playground, most of the flowers were moved to the backyard of the mansion, it also gave a lot of space to just walking around openly. Taking a few relaxed sighs, I stepped on the dewy grass, its coldness tingled the sole of my feet, seeping their freshness in my veins it gushed through my whole body as I paced, helping me ease my nerves.

It has been six years since the life and a self I hate ended, this time was enough to forget it, forget what I did but some things have caged me inside them so hard that no matter what I neither can wholly face nor get over them. I know I can't change my past so I have tried to accept it, but, how I treated my mother, Kai, and killing myself with my own hands, are some of the things, I couldn't entirely come on terms with. I promised myself to take one step at a time, but here-I find myself stuck at it, long I have tried to get over them, but before dwelling into the dark passages the dreadness keeps pulling me back. I can't seem to find any way to get out of it.

I was given a second chance to forget everything and move on, live a good life, and don't repeat my mistakes, I know I may sound selfish, but I wanted another chance with my mother too. I miss her, I wish I could tell her how important she was to me, I wish I could thank her, I wish I could tell her that I love her, but I can't. I have to live with this, that I can't see my mother ever again, it pains me. But sometimes, I also tend to think, this possibility was a good thing, what will she say about the daughter, whom she raised putting her everything, seeing submerged her mind and soul in money & selfishness? A part of me is glad; she wasn't there to see that version of me, maybe this way she was freed of disappointment and sadness.

In this life, I let nothing of my past actions repeat, I'm doing fine but she isn't here to witness my second chance, what she is buried with how I accused her of marrying a man because of money and I have no mean to change that.

Taking another deep sigh, I closed my eyes and raised my eyes toward the sky full of sparkling stars, wrapping my hands around my chest, with slouched shoulders, I wished: Soon, I'll learn to live with this, I'm close. Shutting my eyes, I blew the air, not letting these emotions take over me, not letting these thoughts weaken me.

The more I think, the more they grow on me, but how long will I be able to suppress them? For years I have avoided them, the weakness I see in them makes me frightful and vulnerable yet also pushes me to move forward with more vigor.

Don't think further, this will once again pass.

Turning around, I walked back inside the mansion, toward my room. I chose to not think about it any farther, so -once again- I buried everything inside me and went to sleep. With the new morning, everything will go back to normal and I'll forget this dream ever happened, and how I let my thoughts wander toward vulnerability.

Soon, nothing of this will bother me again.

And I don't have to fear to let myself drown in this.