Tanya sat in the library with a blank look ahead of her. The past few days had gone by in a blur.
The sun dipped into the horizon and painted the sky a lovely shade of pink and purple with a bit of vibrant red. The lights in the library that were hardly visible, came to life at the dipping of the sun.
The ambience and the feels would have naturally inspired Tanya to go above and beyond to study nonstop while basking in the feels of the library but she just felt blank.
These days she felt like a husk. An empty hollow shell of a past that probably only she remembered. The thought that other people might have remembered left an odd taste in her mouth.
It would be nice to see people who remembered what she did, who experienced what she had experienced, who were reminders that she didn't hallucinate more than half the things she had gone through.
Then again, if they remembered what she had done, how she was before she had changed; if they knew the extent of her ugliness and the blood she had on her hands…
The world blurred for a moment and she felt her head throb dully. She wanted to shake it off but she failed miserably. Soon, she felt a wave of nausea hit her as she forced the rising bile in her throat back down.
Memories of the past flooded her. The death of her family, her friends, her loved ones, her…
Dread filled her as she tried to remember the last loss but couldn't. It wasn't because she couldn't, but instinctively she just refused to do so. It was as if she were scared of what would happen after she remembered; as if she had been through what would happen after she remembered.
She slowly looked out to the darkening sky that still had a line of pink in its upper horizon.
Adam… She fluttered her eyes slowly at the thought of his name in her head. She stretched out her hand to her water bottle that was just beside her notebook. A fearful glint flashed through her eyes as fear evaded her senses.
He probably wouldn't remember… She thought to herself in a bid to reduce her fear and past guilt. I have a chance to start all over and be out of his way so that he can be with Bertha. She mused in her chaotic mind.
Somewhere deep in herself looked out of herself and down at her, berating her for her petty and selfish wishes, and her reluctance to accept her fate and try to rectify it.
She buried her face in between both palms of her hands as she felt her inner self sneer at her weak, pathetic, and cowardly behavior. She weakly sobbed into her dry palm, occasionally groaning in anguish and internal pain.
Weakly, she raised her head from her palm with a dull look in her eyes and a dry face devoid of tear streaks, wet or dry. The sickening feeling deepened as a painful realization sank within the pit of her stomach…
This attitude of hers was a semblance of herself in the later part of her past.
A coward-like past.
Tanya swallowed heavily as her eyes reddened. She couldn't run away and even if she could, she refused to. Was this how she would protect her family? By being a coward and running from her past?
A silent but timid voice tried to tell her that it wasn't cowardly. She had suffered and she was trying to lick her wounds. Her heart constricted as she heard a harsh voice that held a sneer in it call out to her. Coward!
A shudder ran through her at the voice as she trampled on the timid voice in her head. Her face grew hot with unseen tears and she bowed her head to the table and made silent groaning sounds.
This wasn't how she was going to protect her family. How could she move forward if she was scared of looking backwards in critique of her past actions?
She had to be ready to die if the need arose. She also had to be ready to kill.
But then again, she had never been unprepared to do so. Both in the past and now.
***
Marianne sat at a distance and watched Tanya. Originally, all senior school students studied in the library for prep, with the exception of the seniors assigned to the multipurpose hall, which was usually used for prep.
Today, they were off prep duty and had the comfort of studying in the silent library. They've had that comfort since the day Tanya had a panic attack.
Marianne sighed as she thought about it.
She had only ever seen Tanya at her weakest during the first few days of her training in Alvise's main HQ. She quickly made up for it through months of sacrifice, hard work, perseverance, and many sleepless nights.
In almost everyone's mind, including hers, Tanya was like their boss, Alvise. She was unpredictable, very accommodating, untouchable, and undefeated. She never bowed in the face of defeat and almost everyone considered her to be non-human.
She was just that good in their eyes.
That was just until a couple of days passed when a man's name brought out such a strong reaction from her. Strong enough for her to fly into panic and shut down completely.
Marianne shuddered at the events that occurred right after. Tanya was resuscitated and brought out of her state of shock but her body used that recovery time to rest.
It was like a mini-coma, Marianne thought. The majority of her brain's activity has shut down, and she refused to wake up after a couple of hours.
Somehow, Alvise had gotten wind of what had happened and everyone within the base had suffered for their negligence in protecting Tanya. But then again, who could protect someone from their selves?
Eventually, Tanya woke up, but ever since then, she had been really out of it.
Staring into space, muttering and mumbling under her voice, acting grouchy and getting unnecessarily violent, sometimes getting verbally and physically aggressive to herself but never to others, losing focus and attention, and then last of all, calling people by their full name or forgetting their names completely.
Marianne had tried her best in assisting Tanya, but somewhere deep down, she hoped that her knight in shining armor would come and save her best friend.
Soon, Tanya sat up and kept reading as normal. The thoughts of a knight in shining armor were put on hold as she watched her best friend. This was the coolest she had seen her be in the past week.
Maybe… just maybe, she could get her through this on her own?
A heavy sigh escaped her lips. This was going to be… another long night.
***
The night was cool and accommodating for a nice undisturbed sleep.
The room had air conditioning, but Tanya had gotten used to the habit she had picked from her friend, who only used the A/C as a last resort.
As she was slowly sinking into dreamland, a pair of strong arms snuck around her waist and she was startled awake.
"Relax Anya, it's me." A familiar voice whispered into her ear and Tanya felt her body obeying before her mind could process the request.
His breath on her neck made the little hairs on her neck stand on end, but her body sank into his warm and comforting chest and arms.
"When they told me that you had been acting a little out of it, I refused to believe until I saw it for myself." He took a brief pause before he asked, his voice devoid of its earlier mirth, "Little Anya, what's wrong?"
Tanya shuddered a bit before she turned her body around to fully face him. Once she had his gaze on her face, she broke down and began to sob on his chest. All her pent-up fears and anxieties came bursting forth like a dam. It couldn't stop until it had washed everything away.
Alvise froze when the woman in his arms began to cry. He knew Tanya wasn't as strong as everyone made her out to be. When she trained relentlessly without sleep, she was simply using the training as an excuse to ignore her nightmares and fears.
When she couldn't train anymore, she studied to the best of her ability. Some might say her fear was a driving force for her success, but Alvise knew otherwise. It wasn't a driving force, it was an escape route.
He wouldn't call Tanya a coward. She was brave enough to keep on loving while looking ahead to a future that contained all of them. There were times he had caught her mumbling things about risking it all this time. He didn't understand and he wouldn't press.
It would be a lie if he had said that he wasn't curious but there were better things to do than forcefully prying into a weary person's past. She was going to open up eventually and he was confident he would be one of the first, if not the first, person she would tell when the time came for that.
It was all in due time. For now, he had to reassure his little woman and make sure she didn't do anything that he would eventually regret not interfering with.