"I am so tired. I am so lonely. I am so angry. I am so full of love that is never wanted, never returned, never even seen. I want to be enough. I want to be chosen. I want to be loved, not in secret, not as a burden, not as a last resort, but as a miracle, as a necessity, as something precious.
But I am not. I am never enough. And I don't know how much longer I can keep pretending that I am.
I don't know how much longer I can keep forcing a smile, pretending that the emptiness inside me isn't swallowing me whole. I'm exhausted from holding it all in, from being the strong one, the silent one, the one who never asks for too much because I'm afraid even that will be too much for them.
Sometimes I wonder if anyone would even notice if I disappeared. Would they even pause, or would life just go on without a ripple, without a gap where I used to be? I want to scream at them-look at me, see me, please, just for once, see the person behind all the things I do for you. See the cracks in my voice, the way I flinch when you brush me off, the way I shrink when you forget me.
I want to ask, why can't you care for me the way I care for you? Why can't you reach for me when I'm the one falling? Why can't you love me without conditions, without making me feel like I have to earn it, like I have to prove I deserve to be seen, to be held, to be kept?
I'm so tired of being strong. I'm tired of being the one who always understands, who always forgives, who always waits for you to come around. I want to be the one someone fights for. I want to be the one someone chooses, not because they have to, but because they want to.
I want to matter. I want to be the reason someone smiles, the person someone thinks about first, not last. I want to be missed. I want someone to ache for me the way I ache for them.
But every time I hope, every time I let myself believe, I end up alone again, picking up the pieces, stitching myself back together in the dark, telling myself it's okay, that I'm used to it, that I don't need anyone. But I do. I do. And I hate that needing makes me feel weak, makes me feel ashamed, makes me feel like I'm asking for too much when all I want is to be loved.
Why is that so impossible? Why am I so impossible to love?
Why am I so easy to forget? Why do I fade into the background the moment I need someone to see me? I give and give, I pour myself out until I'm empty, and it's never enough-not for them, not for anyone. I watch them laugh, hold each other, whisper secrets I'll never be part of, and I wonder what it's like to be chosen, to be wanted, to be the first thought in someone's mind instead of the afterthought or the obligation.
I try to tell myself it's not my fault, that I'm not broken, that I'm not too much or too little or too strange. But the silence when I reach out, the way their eyes slide past me, the way my messages go unanswered, it all builds up inside me, a weight I can't shake off. It makes me question everything-my worth, my place, my right to even ask for love.
I want to scream, to tear down the walls I've built around my heart, to demand that someone, anyone, just listen. Just stay. Just care. But I'm so afraid that if I do, they'll leave. Or worse, they'll stay out of pity, and I'll feel even smaller, even more invisible, even more unworthy.
Sometimes I wonder if I'm destined to be alone, if I'm meant to be the background character in everyone else's story. If my purpose is just to support, to heal, to comfort, but never to receive any of that in return. I want to believe I deserve more. I want to believe I'm not asking for too much. I want to believe that somewhere, someone could love me the way I love-fiercely, desperately, completely.
But hope is dangerous. Hope hurts. And every time I let myself hope, I end up here again-alone, aching, wondering what's wrong with me that makes me so easy to leave behind.
Maybe that's what hurts the most-not the loneliness itself, but the way it makes me doubt every part of who I am. I replay every conversation, every memory, searching for the moment I became too much or not enough. I wonder if I said the wrong thing, if I loved too loudly, if I simply asked for more than I deserved. I wonder if I'm the problem, if I'm the reason people drift away and never look back.
I try to fill the emptiness with distractions, with busy work, with silence, with pretending. I tell myself I don't need anyone, that I'm stronger on my own, that I can survive with only the echo of my own voice for company. But the truth is, I crave connection. I crave warmth. I crave the feeling of someone reaching for me in the dark and saying, "I'm here. I see you. I won't let go."
But no one ever does. The phone stays silent. The room stays empty. The world keeps spinning and I'm left standing still, clutching at scraps of hope that flutter away the moment I try to hold them close.
I wish I could be different. I wish I could be the kind of person people stay for, fight for, love without hesitation. I wish I could believe I'm worth it, even when every experience tells me otherwise.
I don't know how to stop wanting, how to stop aching, how to stop hoping for something that never comes. I don't know how to quiet the voice inside that whispers, "You're not enough. You'll never be enough."
But I keep going. I keep breathing. I keep waking up and facing another day, even when it feels impossible. Because somewhere, deep down, there's a part of me that refuses to let go of the hope that maybe, just maybe, someday someone will see me-and stay.
And until then, I keep pretending. I keep smiling when I'm supposed to, laughing when it's expected, nodding along while my mind drifts somewhere else entirely. I let them talk about their joys, their heartbreaks, their dreams, and I listen-always listening-because I know what it's like to feel unheard. I tell myself that maybe if I'm good enough at being there for them, maybe one day they'll notice the cracks in my own voice, the way my eyes glaze over when the loneliness gets too heavy.
But every night, when the world goes quiet, it all comes back. The ache, the longing, the endless questions that circle in my mind. Why am I never the one they choose? Why do I always have to fight for scraps of affection, for a moment of real connection? Why do I have to beg for the bare minimum, for someone to ask if I'm okay, for someone to care enough to stay?
Sometimes I wonder if I'm cursed-if there's something about me that repels the love I so desperately want. Maybe I'm too intense, too sensitive, too much for anyone to handle. Or maybe I'm just not enough, and that's why I'm always left behind.
I wish I could stop caring. I wish I could build walls high enough to keep the hope out, to keep the hurt from seeping in. But I can't. No matter how many times I'm let down, no matter how many times I'm forgotten, I still want to be loved. I still want to be seen. I still want to believe that I matter to someone.
So I keep waiting. I keep hoping. I keep loving, even when it hurts, even when it feels like I'm pouring myself into a void. Because that's who I am. And maybe, just maybe, one day someone will look at me and finally see everything I've been trying so hard to hide. And maybe, for once, they'll stay."
At first, Diana's face was a mask of shock, her lips parted but no sound escaping. Then, as Luxana's arms tightened around her, the dam inside the little girl broke. Streams of tears burst from her wide, unblinking eyes-fat, glistening drops that cut rivulets through the ash and grime caked on her cheeks. They fell in silence, tracing the sharp line of her jaw, dripping from her chin to stain the blood-soaked earth below.
She didn't speak. Her throat was clenched too tight, her heart pounding like a trapped bird's wings inside her chest. The world around her-flames, ruin, the distant howl of the wind through broken trees-blurred and faded, leaving only the suffocating heat of Luxana's embrace and the endless, echoing ache in her own chest.
Diana's small shoulders shook with each silent sob. Her fingers, sticky with soot and dried blood, curled into Luxana's ruined dress, clutching at the fabric as if it were the last solid thing in a world collapsing into ash. Her breath came in ragged, shuddering gasps, each inhale tasting of salt, smoke, and sorrow.
She pressed her face into Luxana's shoulder, her tears soaking into the older woman's skin, mingling with the rivers already running down Luxana's cheeks. The two of them-monster and child, killer and survivor-became a single trembling knot of grief, bound together by loss so deep it seemed to echo in the very bones of the earth.
For the first time in her short, shattered life, Diana felt the presence of someone whose pain matched her own. She felt it in the way Luxana's arms clung to her with desperate strength, in the way Luxana's voice broke and faltered, in the way her tears fell as freely and hopelessly as Diana's own. There was no comfort in the embrace, only the raw, shared agony of souls who had lost everything-who had become everything they feared.
Diana's mind spun with memories: the faces of those she'd loved, now gone; the warmth of a home now reduced to cinders; the echo of laughter now replaced by the endless roar of flames. She realized, with a shiver that ran from the crown of her head to the tips of her toes, that she was no longer alone in her suffering. In Luxana's arms, she found not solace, but a mirror-someone just as broken, just as lost, just as haunted.
Her tears flowed harder, her body wracked with sobs so deep they seemed to tear her apart from the inside. She clung to Luxana, not out of love or forgiveness, but out of a desperate need for something-anything-to hold onto in a world that had become nothing but pain.
Luxana's arms, once so desperate and crushing, finally slackened. She pulled Diana away, her blood-slicked hands trembling, her breath ragged and uneven. For a moment, their eyes met-Luxana's zircon-rimmed, wild with grief and longing; Diana's glassy, hollow, utterly spent. The little girl's lips parted as if to speak, but no sound came. Her body, wracked by sobs and terror, simply gave out.
Diana's knees buckled. She fell backward, limbs limp, eyes rolling up as the world spun away from her. Luxana's reflexes, honed by violence and sharpened by desperation, kicked in-she lunged forward, catching Diana's frail form before it could hit the scorched, blood-soaked earth. She pulled the girl back into her lap, clutching her close, rocking her gently as Diana's consciousness slipped away. The little one's head lolled against Luxana's shoulder, her breath shallow and fluttering, her skin clammy beneath the grime and tears.
Luxana's own body trembled-not from exhaustion, but from something deeper, a hollow ache that pulsed through her bones. She pressed her forehead to Diana's, her tears mingling with the girl's, whispering fractured apologies and broken lullabies into the smoky air.
And then, with a sudden blur of movement, Luxana rose. She lifted Diana's limp body into her arms-cradling her as one might cradle a dying hope-and turned her back on the burning fields of Omeen. The world behind her was a wasteland: the sky a ragged wound, the earth a graveyard of ash and memory, haunted by the ghosts of everyone she had ever known.
She walked through the carnage, her footsteps silent amid the crackle of dying flames. The air was thick with the metallic stench of blood and the acrid tang of smoke, but Luxana did not falter. With every step, the shadows seemed to peel away from her, the darkness folding in on itself, as if the world itself was exhaling its last, shuddering breath.
And just like that, Luxana-monster, mother, mourner-left Omeen behind. The land she had bled for, burned for, wept for, was nothing now but a memory scorched into the bones of the earth. She vanished into the horizon, carrying the only soul left to her, leaving behind a silence so deep it seemed to swallow the world.
Above them, the sky still wept darkness, the wound refusing to close. And in that unending twilight, the legacy of pain, love, and ruin drifted on the wind-echoes of a story that would haunt the ashes of Omeen for generations to come.
Luxana loved children. It was a truth that ran deeper than her magic, deeper than the blood on her hands or the ruin she left behind. She understood them in ways few adults ever could-knew the language of their silences, the meaning behind their trembling hands, the stories hidden in their eyes. To each child, she offered a piece of her mind in a way that only they could truly grasp: sometimes a gentle word, sometimes a stern look, sometimes a secret shared in the hush of twilight.
She never forgot what it felt like to be small and unseen, to hunger for comfort or understanding. Perhaps that was why, even in the darkest moments, she could kneel to a child's level and speak to their pain-mirroring it, holding it, never dismissing it. Her presence was a strange balm: equal parts unsettling and magnetic, a force that drew children close even as the world around them burned.
In Omeen, after the devastation, her affection for children twisted into something fierce and protective, yet haunted by sorrow. She could cradle a sobbing child with blood-stained hands and whisper truths that would settle in their bones for life. She could look into a child's eyes and see the reflection of her own lost innocence, and in that moment, she would give them not just her wisdom, but the raw, unvarnished truth of survival-delivered in words that only the young and wounded could truly understand.
For Luxana, loving children was never about shielding them from the world's darkness. It was about giving them the strength to face it, and the knowledge that, even in their pain, they were never truly alone.
To be Continued...