[h1][center][color=palevioletred]Zoe Fletcher[/color][/center][/h1]
[center][img]http://i.imgur.com/ytozL8X.png[/img][/center]
[hider=Evisceration][hr][center][color=silver]𝕄𝕠𝕟: 𝕊𝕖𝕡𝕥. 𝟚𝟙, 𝟚𝟘𝟚𝟘   / /   𝔹𝕒𝕝𝕕 ℍ𝕖𝕒𝕕 𝕀𝕤𝕝𝕒𝕟𝕕   / /   ℤ𝕙𝕒𝕟𝕘'𝕤 𝔼𝕤𝕥𝕒𝕥𝕖   / /  ~𝟙𝟞𝟘𝟘[/color][/center][hr]

The journey had been uneventful for Zoe, at least compared to what had come before. Seeing the others, the ones who'd left behind such devastation, she'd expected to feel angry. Furious, even. And she did, but she couldn't find the energy to confront them. The energy for anything except silence. Everything had been overridden by a feeling of pure resignation. It hadn't lasted long, but for a moment, just a moment, she'd accepted her failure. Accepted that this had been poisoned like everything else.

That scared her more than any monster. Because there [i]wasn't[/i] a way out this time, not like before. Maybe if she'd realised what she was with the others, she could have left before anything was ruined. But she couldn't choose to die, and that was her only option. By the nature of what, of [i]who[/i] she was, she did nothing but hurt. Nothing but bring pain.

So here she was, the day after things went to hell, alone in a forest on the estate of the woman who ruled their lives. Surrounded by monsters just like herself, knowing that things were beginning to twist. Knowing that no matter how she tried, how she apologised for her nature, she'd always end up at the middle. A sea of blood. Tainted, a diseased, dying limb whose infection would only spread.

There would be no treatment. There was no saving something that was already so tainted and broken. The others, far behind her in the mansion, couldn't be dragged down to her fate. She glanced at her hand, feeling the weight of the weapon she held. A knife, simple and sturdy, borrowed from the kitchens. Not the kind meant for a warrior, but it would suit her purpose. She'd made the motion many times, and barely flinched as the blade sliced along her knuckles, reopening scars that had long since healed.

[color=f7976a][i]"You don't want us to get hurt too, do you? This is for your own good."[/i][/color]

A routine of years past, a scared little girl learning to make pain as natural as breathing. People who were supposed to look after her, to love her, stood by as unfeeling as the blade. Strength all she was worth, pain the only truth of life, failures clear in her mind - perhaps to another person, it would have been something they longed to forget.

But what before had been forced upon her could just as easily be used to forge her into something new.

[color=palevioletred][i]Cut out the rot, bleed away the poison. [b]Tear it all out.[/b][/i][/color]

Because she couldn't let herself give up so easily. If what she was would bring that kind of pain, if the rot was spreading, then there was only one option. Her knuckles collided with the bark of the nearest tree, blood spattering across the surface as her hands exploded with pain. Tears sprung to her eyes, but she gritted her teeth and kept going. It hurt, it really hurt, but that agony was what she needed to remake herself.

Her composure, her fear, the pain of what she'd done. She'd let it rule her. She'd let it control her, lost her edge in her panic. She'd been afraid of herself, of losing people, and it had made her weak. She'd panicked. It would be the last time. She would [i]make sure[/i] it was the last time.

And as if in response to her renewed strength, she found herself somewhere familiar.

[hr]
[i]She wondered what this place was. The experience was so surreal, but it didn't feel like something she'd dreamed up on her own. Her dreams were more visceral, more real. Nowhere near as peaceful as this place seemed to be. Peaceful, but with a promise behind it that was anything but. A promise that would let her bring more death, more destruction at a moment's notice.

She wondered how far it'd go. How many more times she'd end up here, how much stronger she would become. She supposed it didn't matter how much thought she gave the idea. It would happen regardless, and all she could do was try to make the power hers.

Things didn't seem to have changed much compared to the last time - the waves still crashed, sparks colliding to and fro with no seeming direction or purpose. A scene that she didn't understand, distances she couldn't quite measure. But it was there, and it was real, and that was enough. To know they were there. Around her. Somewhere. Even if it was uncertain, well... everything always was.

She never knew what any of this meant, and maybe she never would. But one thing was clear, and one thing was understood, as the silk thread reached down to touch her protected existence at the centre of it all. Another sparkling, tainted drop of power to give her the strength she needed. It would make her stronger. So she took it gladly. It didn't scare her.

[color=palevioletred][i]I know what I have to do.[/i][/color][/i]

[hr]

Whatever she may have been, whatever lay in store for her, Zoe was certain of one thing. Until she finally lay down, until the darkness took her like she'd been longing for it to do, she wouldn't let herself do this again. If she were destined to be a monster, a murderer named for a harbinger of death and darkness, then she'd be one of her own making.

As pain lanced down her arm, she could do nothing but smile. At the faces of all the people she'd hurt, at the murderous power that only grew, the inevitable death and destruction that loomed on the horizon. The fact that she always seemed to make it out alive, no matter how she tried to get herself killed. So many wrongs she'd done, so many people hurt that she'd promised to protect. So many failures, so many betrayals. So many times hurting the ones she cared for.

[color=palevioletred][i]Never again.[/i][/color]

Defiant. Determined. Zoe wouldn't lie down and watch herself repeat the same mistakes, not like before. The pain she felt was familiar, the blood that spattered across the surface of the bark a reminder of days long past. She'd been remade once, broken once, but she was broken already. There were things that couldn't be fixed, lines that couldn't be uncrossed. But until the day she could finally end it, finally be cut out and save them all the  trouble... she'd remake herself as best she could.

So Zoe would smile as she faced the future, the master of her own fate.[/hider]