𝔗𝔥𝔢 𝔇𝔢𝔪𝔬𝔫'𝔰 𝔇𝔬𝔩𝔩

Part 34

"The things we do for a love like this are ugly, mad, full of sweat and regret. This love burns you and maims you, and twists you inside out. It is a monstrous love, and it makes monsters of us all."

- Lucille Sharpe (Crimson Peak)

Kate never wanted to be strong. She never wanted to be a spy. She never wanted to fall in love-- she never wanted any of it. All she wanted was to simply exist. She wanted to exist without any of the requirements of life, the negatives and the positives. She didn't want to be a sentient being, but rather a mouse or a bird. This was something that knew all about the world it lived in and yet it didn't matter because this being had no awareness. It has no desires, no grief, no regrets; this is what Kate desired to be. She didn't want to have to pay some sort of price to live. In fact, she wasn't entirely sure she even wanted to live.

"Why did nobody tell me?" Kate asked, pressing her lips together tightly to keep from crying.

"Orwell ordered that you were not to know; it would make things easier that way, you wouldn't fight your conditioning," Whitman explained.

"You purposefully made me into what I am." Kate's voice wavered.

"No, that you're wrong about. We didn't make you into this, we simply kept you under control." Whitman was quick to deny this claim.

"Impossible." She gasped, the tears silently falling down her rosy cheeks.

"I'm afraid he's right this time, my dear." Fyodor placed a gentle hand on her knee. She slowly looked at him with wide, pleading eyes, silently begging him to tell her the truth.

"What?" She breathed out.

"Perhaps it's for the best that you don't remember living these events." He brushed her hair out of her face.

"Tell me!" She begged nobody in particular.

"It's best if I'm not the one to tell her, she won't believe me." Whitman audibly sat back in his chair, listening to everything fall apart for the Doll he had taken under his wing.

"Do you not remember all of the fights you would get into at school? Did you forget how frequently you changed schools? Do you not remember your very first kill at nine years old?" Fyodor asked, twirling a strand of her silky hair around his finger. Kate let out a sound that resembled a whimper as she wrapped her arms around herself.

"Perhaps you do remember." He whispered as he leaned closer to her.

Fyodor was merely a man-- no, he was merely a demon. He had finally grabbed this angelic light that was Kate Chopin and he had yet to decide what to do with it. He loved her but not entirely in the way that one should love someone. This was his problem; no matter how much he loved her and could love her, he always loved power more. He loved the power he had over her, having both a good effect and a bad. His words could make her tremble and he thoroughly enjoyed that he could do this to her specifically.

To be in love with someone, to him, meant you viewed them as God did. He saw her entirely, he alone could understand her and this was where he found himself at a crossroads. Since he was the sole person to understand her, he could do with her whatever he desired. Did he continue to corrupt and break her down or did he build her up in a way that made her much stronger than she was now? Building man in His image meant that He decided what their purpose was, what he should do with them. Since Fyodor was God, he had the opportunity to build Kate up in his image, making her just like him. He could never rid himself of the feeling of wanting to ruin her.