I'm so tired.

I'm so tired I could collapse at this very moment, fall forward and make no effort to catch myself.

I want to go back to sleep, but I know it won't help me.

I want to go home, but I know it's impossible.

I want to go back to being Io, but I know I've already failed too badly.

I want to stop being tired, but I know that's not going to happen.

I want to feel better than this, but I know I'm never going to.

I want to be Emily, but I know I'm not enough for that.

I want to stop feeling like this.

I want it to stop now.

I want it to go away.

I just have to get away from this. I can't live like this.

I can't, I can't, it's always I can't, that's not going to change either, it's going to be I can't until the day I die, I'm not going to get any better, what's going to change I can't go back I can't wake up I can't drag myself out of bed half the days I can't eat I can't move.

I do nothing. Nothing's changed. This weakness, in my movements, my willpower, my purpose in any life. Look at me, what is this worth? What does this add to anything? What is the point?

I spend my days alone, in my apartment. I think back on my time in this world, all the steps and staircases that led me to where I am now. From the second I first arrived here until this moment, what have I done? What good came out of my presence?

I spent my time insisting the impossible existed, lying to everyone I met, getting through the days on mere hope of survival, and running through crowds, crashing into people and shoving them out of the way because I believed whatever I was feeling was more important than whatever they were doing.

I wasted peoples time. I wasted a room in the quarantine, I wasted hundreds of meals worth of food, I wasted the apartment, I wasted the artificial air on this planet, I wasted the stars in this world and in mine. I spent my time completely self-absorbed, completely obsessed with my own goals and desires, clinging to a forced mirage of hope that I imposed on all those around me.

I lived in denial. I lived in a state of obliviousness, to the point where I still believed I wasn't the same child I was all those years ago.

I've said I'll fix it. I've said I'll make it better. I've said I'll do what I have to, I've said it'll all be okay again.

I've said I'm sorry, I've said I won't do it again, I've said my reasons, I've said my excuses.

And I've said I can. And I've said I can't.

And I've watched as everything I was became a burden to everything I wasn't.

I'm so tired.

I even skip work now. No, I think they've fired me by now. They must have.

I can't be Emily anymore. I can't pretend that anything I could do would ever be close to the person she was. I will never be as selfless, as confident, as forgiving or as wise. I make a mockery of her name. My ruined memory had made her a villain in my mind, and no matter what I do, I can't move past it. I can't see her for who she was.

Vivienne would hate me if she saw me like this. After all these years? I should have gotten over it by now. There shouldn't be anything to get over in the first place, I never should have made such a big deal of it. Maybe that's why we were never friends. Maybe she knew who I was. Of course she did, she had such a knack for that type of thing. She probably even told me, and I just never remembered.

And Io. God, how I ruined that name. Did I ever think I could live up to it? I shouldn't have tried. I'm sorry.

I'm so tired.

Why am I still here? What am I even doing?

This world is nothing to me. No, not even that, I wish it were nothing. It's hell to me. It's a twisted, deformed monstrosity that's both entirely fake and heart-breakingly real.

There is no life here for me. Wasn't that something I'd always known? Wasn't that just the way things were from the very beginning?

At one point I had hope that one day I could return to the world where I was alive. But that's gone. It's impossible, it's not going to happen.

So why am I still here?

What's going to happen to me?

Am I just going to keep waking up day after day, going to the bakery if I still have a job there, being Emily, coming home, sleeping, and waking up again?

Is that going to be my future?

Is that going to be the rest of my life?

Just the thought of it is exhausting. Waking up in the morning and knowing that I'm going to be Emily for the rest of my life, with no escape, no way to break out of this place, no way to be anything else but Emily The Baker That Everyone Loves and is Happy and Smiling and Alive.

I'm going to live in this world, running for the rest of my life, living in fear of the day that it realizes what I am and tears me to pieces. I'm never going to get my world back, I'm never going to stop feeling this fear, I'm never going to do anything more than wait for it all to end. ​​​​

This world hurts. Just the thought of it terrifies me.

But it's reality. That is how it is. That is life, here, for me, for the rest of my life.

What am I going to do? There's no one else. I failed Io. I failed Emily. How many more people am I going to fail? How many times must I disappoint the people I've spent my life admiring?

I can't do it anymore.

I'm so tired.

I can't do it.

I want to go home. But this is my home. This is where I live. But this can't be home, because home doesn't feel like this.

Home doesn't hurt. Home doesn't make me want to crumble away into nothing. Home doesn't make me feel like I'm blind in a room surrounded by walls covered in spikes. This is my home, but it can't be, I can't believe it. Home is where I'm happy, home is where I rest, recover, home is where things get better. This can't be it. But it's the only home I'll ever have, for the rest of my life.

I wonder why I'm still here. In this apartment. In this place that is not home.

I'm tired. I'm so tired. I can't move most days. And why should I move? Why should I try? What am I moving towards? Tomorrow? I don't want tomorrow. I'm so sick of tomorrow. I want Yesterday. I want to feel okay again. But there is no 'okay' again. 'Okay' died a thousand years ago.

I'm just tired. I go to work some days, and I wonder why. What's the point. It's not going to get me home. It's not going to make things okay again. Nothing will. Nothing will help. Nothing matters.

Not even staying in bed matters. I stay 'home' all day, I sleep and I sleep, and I wake up, and still nothing matters. I get up to eat, but halfway through I'm too tired to continue, and I leave the plate there and go back to sleep.

I wake up and I'm still tired. I sleep some more. I'm still tired. I sleep some more. I'm still tired. I sleep some more. I'm still tired.

I sleep some more.

I'm still tired.

Why should I expect anything else?

Nothing is going to change.

I can't go home.

There is no home out there for me.

My home died hundreds of years ago.

I should have died with it.

I wish, instead of traveling a thousand years into the future, instead of wasting all this time, causing all these problems for the one person who only wanted to help me, that I'd simply died right then and there. Just fell over and died on the spot.

That would have been better.

Then it wouldn't have been like this.

Maybe I can believe that's what really happened. That the person I was really did die that day, and none of this has ever been real.

Maybe I can believe Sadie died when my world did. Maybe I can believe she died with Yesterday.

I have no happy memories of this world. There is nothing I'd choose to remember, if given the choice.

I'd forget Ayer first. And make sure they forget me. I did nothing for them. They stood by me, they helped me, and I failed them.

I wish I'd never met them. I did nothing more than waste their time, searching for something that wasn't there. If I'd never met them, I'd never have been able to ruin anything for them.

I hope they forget me. I hope within a year, I'm nothing more than a vague feeling of familiarity. And soon after, I want to be not even that.

I just want to be forgotten. I don't want people to remember me. I just want to fade into the past, like the rest of the world I belong in.

I just want to get out of here.

I don't care about going home anymore.

I just can't be here.

I'm so tired.

I'm so tired I could collapse at this very moment, fall forward and make no effort to catch myself.

I put the wings on anyway. Just to feel their weight on my back. Maybe, this time, they won't be such a bad thing. Maybe they'll make it faster.

It was exhausting to get here, to walk down the streets again, to wait in the elevator, to walk through the empty hallways, but for the first time in months, things were going to be okay again, a real okay again, something possible, something that's always been possible.

It was going to stop hurting. Anything, for that.

The wings look almost exactly like the ones Ayer gave me back then. I was at a different place, but all the options were the same.

I was going to fly for them. For myself. For no one, for nothing. If only for the fact that I can't do anything else. I'm going to do it now. I'm going to fly.

Take these wings, and fly far away, out of this hell, out of this world, and while I may not go back in time, I will leave time itself, and anything is better than here.

I still don't trust them. I know I'm not really going to fly. They will drop me the moment I am airborne, and I will fall through the endless spiral of color as if I am Alice in Wonderland. But I'm not going to step back this time. I'm not afraid anymore. Took me long enough, didn't it?

It's everything I have ever wanted.

I am not afraid anymore.

Finally, finally, after all these years, I'm not afraid anymore. Are you proud of me, Emily? Io?

Io. I just wanted to make you proud, Io. Even then, even now. I didn't know why you hated our brother, our family, but I lived in fear of the day you'd learn to hate me too.

You admired bravery. You admired strength in the face of adversity, you admired those who stood up for themselves. And I admired you. I did everything I could to be brave, to be someone you would have been proud of.

And when that didn't work, I lied.

I hid my fears, from you, and anyone who would have revealed them to you. I denied them, buried them, hoped to forget them. I knew they were bad, I knew they were a weakness, even though I didn't know the true extent of it all until Emily told me of it. But I thought, at the very least, I'd be able to bury it, until the day it all faded away on it's own, with age, with maturity, with a strength I was supposed to find the will to gain.

I really did try, Io, at that more than anything else in our world. But I failed, didn't I? Isn't that why you left? Did you see the parts of me I denied, is that why you moved so far away? You said it wasn't my fault. You said you just didn't fit there, you just didn't feel at home, but what if that was just a lie of kindness? What if it was not just our brother and parents you couldn't bear to see, but me as well? I used to think I was the reason you visited, as rare as that was. Naive, again. As always.

I lived for the fact that you never hated me as you did them. I did everything I could to preserve that. I knew you hated fears, hated weakness, and I tried with everything in me to crush my own, to ignore them, to at the very least bury them in your presence. But I could never get rid of them. I could never get past them. Not for you, not for Emily, not for Ayer. I could never be the person you would have loved. I pretended to be, made you think I was. But I'm not. I couldn't be.

You would have hated me, Io. You should have hated me. Everything I was, was a disappointment to you.

I'm sorry. But I stopped disappointing you at some point, didn't I? The day I came here? The day I died?

I can't go back. I shouldn't have wanted to go back. You were better off with a future without me in it. Everyone was.

Will you be proud of me now, Io? If I face this one fear, if I recreate the fate that made your life so infinitely better? Will this only be an end to someone you should have hated, someone who burdened you and so many others, someone weak? Someone too tired to live any longer in denial?

I am going to fly, Io. I'm going to make it better now. For you. For Emily. For Ayer. For me, maybe, even if it's selfish.

Nothing is going to matter.

Nothing is going to hurt.

It's all gonna be over.

It's all gonna be okay.

It's going to stop now. I'm going to stop now.

I'm going to escape this hell, and stop being a hell to others.

I'm going fly away, and never do any wrong again. Never disappoint, never burden, never waste time or life.

There will be no more 'Emily'. No more 'Io'. No more Sadie.

Like it should be. Like it should have been, for a long, long time.

With these wings, I can be the person I've always wished to be.

With these wings, I can be the person you all deserved me to be.

With these wings, I can get out of here.

I can feel okay again.

I can Fly.

And at this point,

I don't even care if I can't.