Rewritten Memories

Disclaimer: This is a backstory that leaves room for open interpretation. It may be edited later on based on changes made in RPs.

Screaming. Someone was screaming.

The sound pierced through the empty darkness like a newly sharpened dagger scraping the thin, fragile skin of a balloon. It rang out in the silence with a shrill echo that held just enough of an eerie feel to raise the hair on your arms. Unlike most echoes, however, this one did not fade out over time. It lingered in the air, bringing back all the endless fear and guilt.

She moaned ever so quietly, covering her ears with her palms in an attempt to shut out the noise. It was too loud; it was too painful. Something warm, thick, and sticky leaked between her fingers and ran down her hands. Her ears had begun bleeding again as a result of the high-pitched shriek. Silently, she pleaded for it to stop. There was only loneliness and depression in the silence yet she longed for its quiet embrace. She couldn’t stand the screams. They hurt too much.

Powerful feelings of guilt, fear, anger, hatred, and mourning washed over her. Such intense emotions simultaneously overwhelming her heart could have destructive side effects, but she couldn’t stop them from coming. They had already wrapped her in a cocoon of their negative energy.

Memories began to re-surface in her mind, playing continuously like a broken record and displaying a cinematic visual in the emptiness before her. She saw them flash before her eyes with a heart torn apart by emotion. She shut out the visions by closing her eyes yet the feelings remained locked in place. Each one was its own wave, which kept pushing her head beneath the surface. Very slowly, they were drowning her.

Tears welled up in her eyes while she lived through her worst memories, desperate for an escape. The tears that fell were not the tears of salty water but of cold blood that left a crimson trail in their wake. Each droplet landed on her thighs as she tucked her legs up to her chest and buried her face between her knees. Her heart felt like it was about to burst inside her chest. As quietly as she could manage, she wept.

Despite having suffered through this ordeal several times more than she cared to admit, she still felt all the emotions as strongly as she had before. She hated it; it was always the same. All would be utterly silent until the screams began. She would try to block them out to no avail until the bloody tears came, and she would cry until it felt like her entire being was lifeless and hollow. It was an endless cycle she was imprisoned in.

How many years had it been? She often pondered that question. When she had first opened her eyes to this dark world illuminated only by a soft ember glow somewhere high above her, she had immediately realized where she was. That day, in what seemed like so long ago, she had been killed. Her mind must have been reeling in that moment for her to become trapped within its confines. She had lost her focus, and had sentenced herself to this eternal pain.

At first, she had thought that she was merely dreaming and would wake up very soon. That had been when she realized that she was dead. Part of her still doubted it though. Was it even possible for the dead to dream? With all things considered, she supposed it was a possibility. No one truly knew what happened when someone died, so why couldn’t they dream? It was just like falling asleep.

What was life like for the outside world now? Things had been falling apart at the seams when she had left. Lives had been destroyed; homes had been ransacked and burnt to the ground along with anyone in them. So much had happened, and she hadn’t lived long enough to see how it all ended. Who had claimed victory in that war?

So silly it was to think that perhaps the side she had taken had been victorious. It wasn’t that she didn’t have faith in them, but things had escalated so quickly that they didn’t have the time to prepare a proper arsenal. They had never needed one before, so they had assumed this conflict would work itself out just as the others had. Not all things were as simple as that; it was a hard lesson to learn. They had fought valiantly, true enough, yet she wondered if the contributions her and her family had made had been enough to turn the tables in their favor. She prayed all those deaths hadn’t been in vain.

She, at least, wanted to die a hero.

Guilt still haunted her from her actions that day. Overall, they had all fought bravely, but she had been a coward. She had fought yet she also ran. She had tried to make peace with them all. She knew how the past conflicts had ended, and she had made the foolish mistake of thinking this one would be no different. It was a grave mistake that had cost her everything. Her family, her friends, and her home were now gone. Everything was gone, and it was all her fault.

Perhaps that was the reason she had unintentionally trapped herself this way. The idea of what the future held for everyone else had haunted her so much that she had been unable to let it go and move on. She had robbed herself of the chance for a blissful afterlife. It couldn’t have been helped, could it? Anyone would desire happiness for others in such a hard time.

Her memories were fading now with every day that stayed trapped within this eternal darkness. She wasn’t even sure if she had certainly died, but she had always imagined death to feel as she felt in this moment. She was cold, weak, and hollow. It was as if every part of her was slowly being erased and there wasn’t anything she could do to stop it. Everything that had made up who she had become was being wiped away into the atoms of darkness that enveloped her like wide, silk ribbons.

Tears rolled down her cheeks as she struggled to keep a tight grip on the memories she recognized. Each one seemed so distant now, so faded with time that their colors were weak or completely gone. They were slipping from her mental grasp no matter how hard she struggled to reel them back in. As soon as one disappeared, another replaced it like a swap that was rewriting every aspect of her history. Was that actually happening? Was her entire past being re-written? How?

She thought back to the basics of who she was; that much she was still certain of. A secret princess, an heir to the throne though none were aware of her existence. Princess Ryarya was who she was, a child capable of manipulating the very matter that made up the universe. She was a unique teenage girl who had gotten dragged into the conflicts of politics and power. She had gone from a secret royal to a prisoner of war, a slave.

A happy life, a carefree world, that's where it had all begun. Ten years of happiness, love, true friends, and wonderful family. She could only just see it, remember it, but she could feel that it was there. It hadn't been an easy childhood, but it had been fabulous and full of such hope and possibility for the future. That is...until the dark days of the war came. Her mind went fuzzy after that yet her heart was still clinging to the emotions left behind of those tragic days. There was only one thing she knew for certain: everyone she had ever loved was now dead.

Even as she held the pictures of her childhood clearly in her mind, they, too, began to lose their color and fade into the void. Every story she had ever heard, every symbol she had known, all the faces she'd met, all the smiles and laughs she had shared, every last bit of her was being swept away like seashells drifting into the ocean after a wave washed up on the shoreline. She was losing herself.

"No...," she cried weakly, covering her ears with her palms although there wasn't a sound around her, "please, no..."

Tears slipped down her cheeks as she began to feel her mind shut down completely. She felt completely blank now as if she wasn't even in control of herself anymore, almost as if she were merely a puppet. It all seemed lost; she was lost.

----

"Ryarya?" inquired a soft voice in her ear as a gentle hand stroked the silky sleeve of her night gown. "Arya, honey, wake up."

She gasped, bolting upright into her mother's arms, sobbing softly into her shoulder. Her body was covered in cold sweat and hot tears continued to stream down her cheeks as she clung tightly to her mother. "I was so scared, Mother," she wept quietly.

"You had that dream again." It wasn't a question.

"I was lost," Ryarya said, pulling back to look her mother in the eye. "I knew I had a past, a different past. I was...a princess somewhere, but no one knew me. I had been in a terrible war. Everyone had lost their lives, everything was dead. I-I was trapped within my own mind. I-"

Her mother pulled her back into her embrace, gently stroking her twelve year old daughter's hair as a gesture of reassurance. "Shh, it's alright," she whispered. "You're alright now, dear. It was only a dream."

Ryarya shook her head vigorously, pulling back again. Her eyes held an intense expression that was focused on nothing at all. "It didn't feel like a dream. It felt like..."

"Like what, Ary?"

"It felt like a memory."

"A memory?" Her mother laughed, squeezing her daughter's shoulder. "Well, they say that dreams are windows into the past. Perhaps you were a princess in another life. The main concern is who you are now."

Her daughter smiled, only slightly reassured, but unwilling to show her true emotions. "That's simple enough. I'm Ryarya, daughter to the noble house of Black."