A black veil lifts over blurred, greyed vision, and for a moment, I am utterly lost to myself. It seems an eternity has passed, and I have long since fallen to oblivion, does something come into focus, and I see before me my old Master.
How angry I recall I was, how desperate I was to unleash my fury upon him. He took me off the street, and gave me direction, focus, turned my anger in a sharp, efficient weapon to accomplish my goals, and I was grateful and devoted. That is why when he put me aside, for a new student, I was crushed. He tossed me off, to a brutal man, and was instructed to complete my training for him.
I stand there, in my dream before him now, facing down the man I felt had betrayed me. Then I heard soft words rise in my dream, "the pupil surpassed the master". It was true, I was stronger than Yuen ever was. He had not thrown me aside, he had given me to someone who could further forge me. I understand. As those words come to me in my mind, the images, the faces attached to those memories, fade from thought.
I stir in my sleep, out cold on my own bed, dressed and pale, dreams probing at my pain, "bleed for me" the words echo, the grey mist swirls, and new faces rise out of the ashes of my past and push themselves uncomfortably into my mind. A beautiful face, hers was. The dark hair comes to light, and I know the face before I can even see her eyes. "Rachel". The word spoken desperately into the empty room, a beaded sweat upon my untended brow. Her voice, her laughter comes to my dream and lilt in my ears and I ache for her. How I miss her, my only real friend. She had accepted me in all my flaws and still supported my choices, even when they went against her own. Oh the regret I felt, I never should have left! I feel the ache of betrayal again, but this time, it is I who have betrayed, and I am unable to stare at the heart of it. Words again come to me, soft, deep, masculine, "you will see her again in time"
Without fail, my body does not move, it barely recalls how to breath in and out, but luckily for me, it does manage to muddle through the process. A million miles away in my room, a soft groan parts from dry lips, as dark swirling clouds of memories tangle with new information, new revelations. Another face, is dragged against my will, to the forefront of my mind, and agony seems to rise up and consume me, somehow guilt becomes everything, and far, far away, in a bed, I stop breathing.
Now the words that have guided me, rise again, though now their tone is chastising, harsh, the tone is disgusted, "he is a mangy dog, weaker than you, there is no fault in leaving the weak. The failure is his, for losing his strength". I reject these words, I do not want to accept them, but the truth of them is something I can not find objection to, I can not deny them. Somehow this strikes me as physical blow that causes my far away body to jolt suddenly.
"He was weak", these words are murmured into a dark, cool room, the fireplace having long since turned to ash. It is at this point, my body recalls to breath again, and I suddenly gulp for air unseen in the dark, and when both my dreams and my body begin to settle, my breathing calms. My own words lift in my mind, spoken aloud into the empty room, "I did not fail". The deep, soothing, masculine voice lifts again in my dreams, and begins to fade as the words are spoken, "we will meet again". These words, seem to draw closed a dark curtain across my mind, and I drift into unknowing, still far away from my room and the world beyond it, as I ever was.
