VAIN | Inside the Universe

Chapter Thirty Four • Retribution

Autumn arrived with an earnest lack of subtlety. Leaves choked the streets and every wanderer put a bit of vigor in their steps. It's the lull between seasons when the sun only shines in reminiscence of summer's affection, but there was no mistaking the shadowed, bitter chill in the wind that whispered the promise of winter's return.

Rose-tinted glasses are no longer sold, for the city has truly awoken once more. Rich off deceit and tourist's money, it can finally let that god awful smile go. I bet it's gathered enough offense to impart its revenge on anyone who dares to stay and make a home of its misery.

It's a brutal and humbling time I know all too well — one I favor quite lusty, in fact — when the city shows it's unyielding dichotomy between a poet's dream and worst nightmare.

New York is a cruel mistress. And in knowing how furiously addictive the affair, I couldn't be too surprised when I landed here, oh so gracefully, practically meshing with the street as if we couldn't be separated for even a moment longer. Had I ever known our intimacy to be without a bit hurt, perhaps I would have thought twice about staying. Though our affair is nothing short of a noir fantasy - the beautiful collaboration between a victim and her killer.

This city knew Safiya Natalle before she truly knew herself. As far as it was concerned, she was a natural-born artist of a masterpiece she couldn't yet see. There is an unmatched anonymity to this city that it used to lure her in, offering her a blank canvas to explore herself upon. For she held a rage that seduced chaos itself, a power of which she didn't want to meet until she was forced to.

It craved her art. In every way it could, New York pushed her into the depths of brokenness, teaching her every bit of darkness this place has to offer. Thus through the guilt, the helplessness, and the pity bred a rage so unbearable that she finally snapped, releasing her true power for the first time in the same city that broke her.

I suppose, in the films, when the victim vows it's loyalty to that very subjection, they also profess that the only way to beat its killer is to become it. Thus, she really had no choice but to learn from the best, for she knew nothing greater at that point then the assassination of her own sanity.

I can barely feel her, now. That Safiya has been battered to an unrecognizable degree, but I know she's still here. If there's anything to know about her, she will claw at her grave until her last whisper of breath because if she knew nothing better than how to survive.

I can't imagine she would think this is smart, being here in my condition. Yet, from the bits of her that still resonate, I could think of no better place to hide than with that who expects the worst of you.

This city knew her plenty and loved her well, and I could practically sense the disappointment when it was I who returned, standing from the ruins. Though I have no time to mull over the welcome party. I'm on borrowed time, and each minute leaves me more like a shell of my past than a functional being.

So to appease them all, I tap into the last bit of life Safiya Natalle could give me and start down the street.

In her days, she often moved like how a shadow would appear as an undetected and looming darkness that you can't run from. I'm not her normal prey, but seeming as though I contributed greatly to her death, I should have expected to see the outline of her follow me with every step, its presence only making the ghost of her more apparent.

She's always hated the weak, and god did she despise me. It took me only a moment to regret giving her life again as her wrath began instantly. The torture she chose was to move us through the streets with an effortless rigor, ensuring that I saw how painless the mundane things are for her as I felt so intimately everything she didn't. I felt the scorching blaze of the sun as if I were its sole victim, the pit of guilt that plagued my constant mind, and the disgust for the stranger who managed to cop a feel that would've meant nothing to her after two seconds. It took all of a few seconds to be touched by the overarching realization that I wasn't of her world anymore.