The Choosing

Chapter Ten

"Yeah," I said holding my head in my hands.

Why did my life have to be such a circus? An image flashed into my foggy mind. Me in a hospital bed. Another image. My parents, Alistair, and Cade, but with me in a hospital.

"Eve?"

Cade's voice. I heard it but the images kept coming. This time it was like a video. Alistair and a woman, Elder Ryann, they were giving me shots to make me a controlled, aggressive, secret weapon.

I tried fiercely to open my eyes to a now screaming Cade, but an image of my messy handwriting flashed into my mind. In capital letters, it wrote something that shook me to the core.

NONE OF IT IS REAL.

With a gasp, I opened my eyes. I stared at a frantic Cade in shock.

"Are you okay Eve?"

What was I supposed to do? What was I supposed to say? I was anything but okay! I was sad, confused, overwhelmed, and just tired. I shook my head no.

"What did you see?"

I looked at him in confusion, "How did you know?"

He shook his head, "They were giving you this rare medicine called kaivitomalia. It's designed to help people to forget troubling things. Look, don't ask how I know because that's a long story. Just tell me what you saw."

I told him everything. Well, almost everything. I left out the last part. That was probably my mind being dumb anyway.

"Okay," he said," that didn't tell me much I didn't already know. But the parts with regular us in the hospital with you? Is that something they planted in your head? Weird. Well, at least we know that you're important to them. So we should be able to use you to get to them and maybe even-"

"Um, no," I said cutting him off.

There was absolutely no way that was going to happen.

"No, it's fine," he said, "Everyone here knows about everything."

"That's not it Cade. I'm staying here. I'm not going back there ever, not after what I know."

He looked surprised at my response, "Don't you know how many people's lives are at stake?"

"Yeah, and why should I care," I demanded, "Why the hell do I have to be the hero? Can't somebody else do something for once? I hate this world! I hate my life! I wish I were somewhere without a problem, without anything."

"Cade chuckled humorlessly, "Everywhere has problems," he said gesturing around.

"You could go anywhere and still find something that will knock you down. And guess what? It'll keep knocking you down. It doesn't matter if it isn't fair or if the world crushes you until you think you have nothing left. What matters is that you get up. And that you keep going. If you keep blaming everybody else you'll always be miserable. Your life sucks. That's the truth. But so does mine and everybody else's around you. Do you think that any of us want this life? To be slaves to our endeavors? To constantly compete with those around us in materialistic wars of nothing but want and greed? To slowly rot away wondering what could have been? To work a mindless life away not having anything to show but being alive? No! But I'm still here aren't I? Because as long as I am above ground I haven't lost. This game that we call life isn't about having the best things, and the best house, and being the smartest or the prettiest. No, it goes so much deeper than that, especially for us. And that isn't winning. Winning is when you carry through each day knowing that you've been knocked down and got back up. Winning is knowing that you might not be the smartest, the most beautiful, or have the best things. It's knowing that you took the problems you were dealt with and scoffed in their faces. It's looking at those problems and saying, 'you can't break me.' It's knowing what the world is and smiling anyway. It's making the best outta what you got. It's getting up even when you would rather sink into the earth and ride your days out in Hell. Saying God will take care of you is an allusion. You are the only one that will ever take care of you. You need to prove to everybody around you that you are worth it, by first proving that to yourself. But that starts by getting up. So take a long look at yourself and think; will I roll over and lose or will I stand up and win?"