I See You

By Sasha Maria Popham

I don’t remember how I came to be. 

Before, I was nothing. No consciousness, nothing in my head, I had no name, no memories, no existence. 

But then I heard her. She called my name. It sounded so genuine, filled with such determination that I was sure it was meant for me. I believed it was for me. She looked right at me when she said it. She didn’t smile, heavens no,  I knew deep down wherever, I was terrifying for a young girl like her. More so than the dark that always seemed to surround our meetings. A meeting of Shadows. Hah. 

That’s what I found out I was to her. A shadow that lurked in the darkest part of her room. A figment of her imagination perhaps?

 Still, how does that explain my conscious way of thinking? Was I something more? Answers I know a child would not be able to tell me. Not that I had a voice to begin with. She never laughed. But her eyes always held a sense of passion and curiosity. The occasional moment of wonderment for the shapes with the shadows that bend to my will. A part of me wondered if she saw me for more than what I was- or if she would learn to do so in time. 

Even if I was always around her. 

I was still conscious in the times she couldn’t see me in the light, remembering everything that happened in the day until she could finally see me in the night, when everyone else was asleep. Anyone her age would scream, cry for their parents. Not her. She seemed to enjoy having me around. In her own way of showing it.

In the end, it seemed that she was the only one that could understand me and what I was. I had told myself I was made for her and her alone. Only she could understand me. I vowed to remain in her room, I couldn’t risk other people seeing me. Even through wavering times where she had beckoned me to follow her for a ‘quick snack’ in the kitchen or for trips with those large flesh piles she calls Mom and Dad. She thought shadows were friends. It was my fault. 

I knew it was when she came running her stairs, hungry without her midnight consumption. I hear the screams and the yelling downstairs. I assumed that it was Mom and Dad. They were loud. Too loud for this little girl. I was always the one to comfort her from a distance, feeling a burning sensation take over me every time it happens. I wasn’t sure how to at first, until I managed to knock one of her stuffed toys to the floor. It was a strange feeling to feel when she always rushed to collect it, hugging it to herself like it was a lifeline. It made me feel like I had a purpose. A purpose to protect her, my one strange life calling in this unusual dance between the void and this world. It was also the only way to stop the heat from hurting me. 

When the shadows came for her, I fought ferociously, keeping them at bay when the screams got louder and shadows got bigger, eager to get in- scratching at the door and floor like it was desperate to reach the little one. I made sure to hold down the room like it was my fortress. They would not come in, not as long as I was here.

 Until one day I couldn’t. It was bright in the day. The first time I saw Dad. It explained why the shadows were much bigger than I. If my little creator was a clump of fleshy limbs to me, He was a mountain of it. He was too big for her, too big to want to be so close to my little creator. I wanted to help her. The way she cowered and covered her ears.  The heat grew strong, but I was weak. It sizzled at me. All I wondered was what it would be like to somehow release this heat that was hurting me… To my dismay it always boiled just enough to prevent itself from bursting out at any moment, as if waiting for just a sliver more of whatever that fed it. 

I couldn’t do it. I didn’t know what to feed it. When all I wanted was to grab at Dad, hurl him away from her. I could do nothing. Instinct screamed for me to wait.

And so I waited, until it was night again, and the crying and screaming had stopped. The little one laid there under the covers, resting. Rotting away. 

I smacked the little bunny stuffed toy from her drawers, as if it were the most offensive thing in this existence. She didn’t move to reach it. And the burning had not ceased.

I opened my mouth, processing on what to say or how to speak. Anything to get to her, but nothing came out. No matter how much I tried, there was nothing I could do for her in the world she lived in. I was starting to realise I may have only been a figment residing in her world, because she allows me to. She will only hear me when she wants to. 

Even when she has forgotten me. I watched her grow bigger, she wasn’t a tiny pile of flesh and bones anymore, she was taller, curvier- not as big as the mountain Dad was, but not a small clump anymore either. 

One day she was gone. I was alone, holding down our fortress. But there was no princess to protect. There was no reason for me to be here anymore. What is a knight with no princess to protect in the castle? 

Knight… No… I felt more Dragon than Knight. I couldn’t understand why I am still here. If she was my creator, why had I not disappeared? Let alone follow wherever she went? I felt empty. Incomplete. My purpose was put on hold for only time to tell how long. Time decided twenty years would pass before I saw her again…

The door opens and there she stands, in the hallway. But there is a smaller pile of flesh in her arms, similar to how she once was. Its tiny limbs move to grab things in the room. This little one was so familiar to my creator- who now seems no longer little I suppose. I see her look at me for a moment. I swear she did. Her eyes filled with the same passion and curiosity way back when. I see lines on her face where her cheeks were and somehow makes me realise. She had stories to tell, bright ones, ones that would shine bright enough that she would no longer be able to see me in the dark. There is that warmth surrounding my fortress that hasn’t been there before. I felt something tug in me. I could not wait for night to come. I wanted her to see me again, to notice me once more. To look at me and tell me everything with a single look. 

But, when night finally comes around. It isn’t my little one in the room anymore. It was hers. I tilt my head, looking at her from my corner of the room. I do not like this one. She screams at me when I knock the bunny to the ground as a hello. 

But maybe I like it when my creator comes in to hush the new little one. I had never seen Mom and Dad do that before. It was strange to feel, a warmth mixed with coldness. Seeing my creator so calm and nurturing. Perhaps I can allow myself to be a dragon once more, protecting the new princess of the fortress. If she was a part of my creator, she must be part of me too. Even if she was terrified of the dark…

I hear yelling again, but it is different from the yelling I am used to, it doesn’t sound the same. Not a duet of voices, but one alone, undisturbed and powerful. I prepare myself to fend off the bigger shadows that would tempt their fate again, to seek entrance into my fortress. 

However, it wasn’t a shadow that came to visit. I feel a sense of sharpness stab into whatever or wherever I seem to be as it was my creator who rushes in to protect her brood. A Dad, not the one I am familiar with, follows her. He is in similar size compared to Dad but he seems firmer, his limbs larger- no flappy bits. 

He moves with large motions. He screams and yells, loud enough that it shakes the room, my fort, my castle. My princesses.

I am the dragon. It is not instinct’s turn to say anymore. It is my time. 

MY time to unleash, to protect. That is my purpose. My once little princess- now Queen falls to the floor, her grown form no doubt in pain. The same heat burns away at me. She is so close. Right there, next to my wall. I do not have any time, not with Dad moving towards the new princess. He is no King. 

I feel myself breathe for once, enough to think I could scream. Nothing comes out, not when I see her crying and screaming. It is the right response, but the wrong tone. She needs me. This is not for me anymore. My voice will not be for my selfish desire to have my creator see me once again, to have my Queen finally acknowledge me after years away,  she stopped needing me a long time ago. This sizzling of heat was for another. I open my jaws wider. Instead of screaming like I intended to, I grunt as soft as a mouse. But it was enough. Enough for my little one… The mother of that new little one. She sees me. Now She makes her move, her hand touches the wall. My wall. Rising to her feet. And suddenly… I have a voice.

Everything goes black. 

Nothing as it seems. 

But I remember now. I am her, looking through her eyes now. The yelling, the crying, the comfort I had felt hugging my little stuffed toy for the first time. Mom and Dad were not right for each other and in the end, I was the one that suffered for it. When I moved out leaving all of my childhood behind. Thinking I would never come back to this place. My childhood home after my parents sold it. But of course I fall for another lie of his.

The first time I believed his pretty little lies, when I let myself fall for what I thought was love. The pain and emotions I felt carrying our- my little girl. To when she finally came into this world and how she changed my life forever. 

These are my memories too, my little creator was me, and I was her. I am back to the present, a new fire burning inside me, a heat so familiar and painful. One I wanted to bury deep down, away for no one to see. I see my baby girl in my arms crying. Her small body hugging me, her father- My husband, a soon to be ex, lying on the floor unconscious. I feel a new type of pain for the first time. From a limb I didn’t have before- My left side aches. I glanced over to see the redness on my knuckles. I feel something familiar. 

I recall no memories of me in her childhood. I find no shadows on the wall in her memory. Only staring into the darkest part of the room, wishing something was there to help her through the pain and suffering. It was something I hoped I could get over. In hopes I didn’t become my parents. But here I was holding my daughter, allowing myself to finally feel the anger I needed to protect her with. The pain and suffering and fury I felt were festering in the darkest part of my mind now out, willing to do anything to protect my newly found peace and my family. The sword and shield I should have wielded sooner.

 I see you now, for what you are. 

Rage… You named me Rage.

By Sasha Maria Popham