Being Anna Marie

Being Anna Marie part 19

(Thanks for reading!)

The moonlight’s glow trickled in through thick black bars caressing everything it touched and yet throwing shadows on objects out of its reach. The hallway light was dim through the small window on my prison door and yet I did not open it further to impede the sparely lit cell choosing instead to prefer the silence, oddly favoring the company of the dead over the living.

“So you’ve been creating a shit load of chaos in my absence,” Andrea replied into the stillness, the sound of the distant wind and the loud blare of the far off television her only competition.

“Not purposely,” my eyes were dejected as I thought of my escape, the life I unintentionally took, the answers I inadvertently found. “I’d say coming into powers with no knowledge of how to use then let alone rein them in certainly didn’t help.”

“It was her, wasn’t it?” Andrea asked, her blue eyes intent on my own confused gaze.

“Her, who?”

“Your darker half. I’ve been inside your body, your mind, Anna. She’s strong, determined to be set free, indomitable, unwavering in her quest to take over.”

Pushing my curls from my face in an attempt to distract myself from those words I replied weakly to even my own ears, “I have it under control.”

“Do you?” she resolutely implored as I felt almost compelled to meet her eyes again. “Because I’ve felt the malevolence that consumes her, the evil in her every thought. She’s tainted.”

Brows furrowed in suppressed annoyance, “then you’re saying I’m tainted. What, think I’ll switch sides?”

She shook her head in quick denial, her hair like spun gold sliding out around her shoulders, “you misunderstand me, Anna. It’s not you exactly that I worry about. It’s her power to dominate you, to manipulate and influence your every thought and action. Are you sure that when tempted by evil it will be you that can walk away from it?”

Beyond aggravated, I rose from my seat on my thin mattress, my eyes glaring down on my still seated seemingly calm older sister. “So what, am I supposed to give in? Surrender to darkness then? Seeing as I’m too weak, and will most likely end up there anyway?”

“Of course not, that’s not what I’m saying,” she exclaimed, her features frustrated.

“Then what are you saying?”

“I’m saying you need to be on guard, not only from your enemy but from that part of yourself too.”

Her words robbed me of strength and as if suddenly exhausted I fell back atop the bed, my curls blocking my face, my expression disheartened, “I know that. I’ve already realized that sometimes that side of me can’t be trusted.”

Fingers pushed back my wild tendrils forcing my eyes to clash with bright blue orbs, “not sometimes, always. Anna, she got you to escape.”

“No, she didn’t. A ghost took over possession, took over my body the same way you did. I couldn’t propel it from me and once he was gone… she just sort of took over.”

Drea’s expression revealed her perplexity before once again stubbornly becoming clear, “but still she doesn’t have the humanity be-stilled in you. She lusts for blood no differently than the demons we struggle against. It controls her every thought once she is confronted with the desire to feed.”

I felt tears not far from the surface, my voice thick with unshed emotion, “so do I Drea. I feel that unquenchable craving inside too.”

She shook her head adamantly, as if the gesture could erase the truth in my words, “no Anna, trust me it’s all her. It’s her emotions you feel, and everyday you need to fight her. You need to see her as the enemy now.”