Insanity

A young woman stood on the beach. The strong breeze whipped back black hair. Her brown eyes were delicate, and yet were filled with some untouchable emotion… Pain? Or maybe fear…? Both were emotions that were impossible for the onlooker to detect… But then again there was no onlooker, so she was alone, and thankful. The young woman knelt down in the sand, the bright afternoon sun was slowly fading now, and she looked down upon the ocean before her, tiredly. Her face betrayed the state of her mind. She was exhausted, or so it seemed. But not in the sense of physicality, but emotionally, mentally. She fingered the sheath of her dagger carefully, and her eyes attained a faraway look as she drifted back in time, through her memory. 

Japan… The smell… The aura wafted through her mind as if she were still there. She wanted to be there, in a way. But not wholeheartedly. Every time she looked to Japan, she saw emptiness. Never love, or hope, just acceptance. But acceptance for doing such evil. And yet, evil consumed her heart, like a black rose, it's thorns embedded forever in her soul. A tear dripped slowly down her cheek. Her cheek had gotten paler in the past few weeks, not due to lack of sun, but something else. Loa was sick inside. Very, very sick. Everything was coming down on her at once. She was torn between two worlds, in which both worlds didn't want her and the deep feeling of despair and loneliness crawled through her empty skull and drove her to scream every time she closed her eyes. She hadn't gotten much sleep, to say the least. She was constantly embroiled in a battle for her own sanity, or so it felt. She wished that someone; anyone could save her… But she knew no one cared enough to.

And what made her blood curdle even more was a little voice in her head… Rae, that bitch. "Stop feeling sorry for yourself." She would whisper in times like these. And then Loa would feel like slitting her own wrists just to escape that idiotic ideal. She was not feeling sorry for herself. That's what no one understood. She had been wronged, a thousand times over. But these self-righteous Amazons thought they knew everything. They didn't know the truth; they could never deal with it. Life wasn't about being happy, and being a part of something, thinking you were fulfilled when you were only diluted. Loa cradled her head in her hands, and tried to strengthen her mind, but yet, she was falling again. Back into her insanity. Something that she could not escape.

When she had been younger, when Ni Shang had come and made her a ninja disciple, he had taken her to the oracle. The oracle had predicted that she would be a destroyer of worlds. That Loa would, if she could master her power, become a warrior written in history. But, now, as she cowered on this beach, Loa knew the prophecy would never come true. She wished she could have the strength to master the rage that had built to extremes inside her, to feel raw power flow through her like Armageddon calling. But she was too weak. She needed strength… The kind she knew nothing about. The strength of what was true. She could never know peace and serenity like that. So she decided on another goal… Finally.

Clarity in a foggy sea.

Hate. Pure unadulterated hate. She would destroy everything and everybody on this cursed island, and no one would stop her. She sat on that beach; a killer's fantasy played through her head. This was strange, this feeling, she had settled upon this goal in an instant of insanity, and yet as she clung to the fading light of the day… in short, the thin shred of sanity left in her existence, she knew it was right. She would kill them all. She felt a cold smile creep across her lips, and her brown eyes were dead with the evil that lay within her.

"No one can save me…" she whispered. "But why should I be saved…? I'm perfectly fine."

She cackled for a moment, and then settled back on the still warm sand, her heart was pounding in her chest, for some inexplicable reason. She drew one of her ornate daggers. She looked at it carefully. Knowing with that one item she could do anything. She would finish off those on the island, and then begin her quest anew. She closed her eyes now, at peace. Tomorrow, she thought. Tomorrow I will show them the power of darkness.

She fell asleep on the beach.

The next morning, Loa began her preparations. She knew that to finish this task was no mean thing to do. She had to prepare. She had to think and to concentrate on the goal carefully. But first, before all of that, she had to prepare mentally. She giggled senselessly as she climbed up to the cliff where it all began a month ago. She found herself staring at the sea.

She began to chant. Loa was immersing herself in meditation. It was the only way. She had to clear her mind, tap into the power that lay dormant beneath her layer of confusion and newfound insanity. Through the visions that would be painted during this time, she would learn her fate and her steps of action… She took breaths, and then focused, and then found herself in the dark.

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Part 2