Days have passed since the war at Chang'an. Lives lost, families apart and futures ruined, was this all a part of the cycle or was it just the beginning of a new one? Who held the answers, and who was willing to change this fact.
"Ying Yue, bring me my pajamas!" I yelled out, a somber tone masking the aggression and tying my words together into a dominance-filled order. I sat in my room, naked, the moonlight piercing through my curtains and onto my statue-esque body. I groaned and ached in my state, sleep now nothing more than a fading echo, the very concept of rest feeling so painfully benign.
Ying Yue entered my room hastily, grasping the pajamas, slightly out of breath. My sudden call must have startled her, but as always, she did as I told her to."Seat yourself, Yue. You're stressing me out," I muttered, hunched over as I sighed, pointing to the chair in the corner. She placed the pajamas next to me and went to sit down, worry lingering in her expression, though a small sigh of relief escaped her as she settled. Was I usually such a terrifying force in her life?
I stared at the floor, my vision blurring for a moment, the moonlight shifting strangely as if it were breathing. The silence in the room felt heavier than usual, almost watching me, almost waiting. I rubbed my temples, trying to ground myself, but the air around me felt off… too still, too calculated.
Was this truly my room?
Or a memory of it… a recreation… something observing me from within my own thoughts?
My heartbeat slowed as the idea consumed me. Ever since the battle at Chang'an, reality felt thinner, as if one good push would tear it open. The screams, the frozen arrows, the silhouette on the hill—none of it left my mind. It all replayed with a precision far too sharp to be natural.
Was I reliving it? Or was something forcing me to?
I lifted my eyes to Ying Yue. Even she seemed distant, her outline almost flickering under the moon's glow, as though she were both here and not here at all—present only because I acknowledged her.
Was she real? Was any of this?
The thought wrapped itself around me, suffocating yet somehow comforting.
Maybe reality wasn't breaking. Maybe… I was finally seeing it for what it truly was.
I was usually in control of myself and others, demanding and forcing them to do as I wished, but this time it felt as if I was the one being controlled—something I had never realised until now. I don't know if I enjoy it; in truth, it makes my skin crawl knowing that my very actions could be manipulated by an ulterior force, something far beyond my hands. Words begin to lose their meaning as I stare out the window with a furrowed brow, my fists clenched.
"Oh, how this world is confusing… ever-lasting and so fruitful, yet in the end it becomes life's greatest curse."