《These Games of Ours (Old)》First Phase: Chapter Eight
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Kara felt a consuming desire to play the piano. The first of many screams began but all she could think of was to make sound. A vibrant, powerful, haunting sound. Her fingers were itching for it, her entire body fidgeting with the anticipation of touching the keys, to feel them sink under her touch, to create.
She resisted, hard and long. Kara loved the piano, but Kara was also stubborn. She would not be controlled. She was the controller. Nothing would compel her to do anything, even if that something was into everything she ever wanted, condensed into this singular moment of her existence.
Her Energy tensed and cramped under the pressure. She attempted to stand up, to turn away from the piano, but her Soul refused to push the Kinetic Energy forward. Neither her eyes nor her neck would turn away from the keys. She could hear it calling out to her. To embrace her. It would make her alive again. Was that not what she so sorely desired? Life? A body that could feel? A body that was not a corpse? To finally stop channeling skills she had maintained for years on end?
All she had to do was to play it like it was meant to be played. To release every bent up and twisted thing of hers into it, and to create.
But she would not be a slave to her aspirations. She would not lose herself, yet her fingers moved forward, against the horror of her face, and rested upon the smooth keynotes, gently stroking them. It sent a numbing jolt throughout Kara’s body, dimming her mind slightly.
Her left hand pranced towards her cane, only for it to completely freeze in its place, inches away from her weapon. She willed her hands to move, to clinch the wooden knob and then to use it to break bones and open flesh. That was her role. A soldier, a fighter, a mage. Not a singer. Her hands shook, nerves surfacing on her pale skin.
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“I refuse to be controlled," she said to no one in particular, and cut off the Life Force sustaining her arm.
Flesh and bone separated, turning into mush as her arm fell to her side--the natural state of her arm. The phantom pains fell onto her skull like a flood, but Kara did not make a sound. She was used to this broken body. The pain was just a memory, it was not real.
Kara stood up, grabbing her cane with her other hand. She walked around the piano, eying it. It's voice no longer burned inside her mind.
She sent a converted a hundred points of Energy into Life Force for her flailing arm, reforming it. First the bone, then the flesh and veins. It was a torturous process, but having done it over a hundred times helped the process. Her body certainly no longer felt any pain, but her Soul residing inside it did feel something similar.
"I refuse to be a part of someone's sick entertainment," she said, letting that hand slide against the wood. She walked around, glancing at how the little humans panicked, screaming and bleeding about the cafe. Kinetic Energy fueled objects darted around the room, smashing into either Ghouls or people. A fire began to grow in a corner, began by poor Thermal Energy channeling.
"I refuse to be controlled by my role," Kara said again, tapping on the wood. "I will not be desperate, and I will not be swayed."
She returned to her bench, stretching her fingers. "I am glad we have established the hierarchy," she said, and then truly began to play the piano her way.
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