Time Repeated Once More

"I'm going to run away. I'm going to run away and never come back. I don't care about my fiancé. I don't care about my family. I'm going to run away. Do you want this scroll back? I'll give you it back. Here."

The little girl, A-Li, rambled out all her plans and dreams, thoughtlessly as if she were truly alone, her voice full of hope and full of vigour. She fidgeted as she sat on her knees, fiddling with the hem of her skirt, clicking her fingers silently, and knotting all the loose threads of her slightly fraying clothes, tucking away the newer rips and tears made from her clumsy fall to get away from the hut. Her voice stuttered, wobbled, and paused randomly, without regard for the effects it had on her unsure and slightly naïve tone of voice.

She truly looked as if she didn't care how she looked, and how she was perceived by the being hiding within the hut.

She didn't look like she didn't even care that what she was talking to was something that had previously threatened her with untold harm, a being glowing an evil, hellish red and almost completely made of the shadows that haunted you in the night. She had recovered from the shock too quickly, as soon as she saw and recognised that the being wasn't a threat.

Like it was a habit that she was only too used to performing.

The habit that her own mother had forced her to develop.

The same habit that she had forced Lee to develop.

Lee could barely contain his own disbelief at the situation. This was the woman, the little girl, who had suffered the same fate that he had: pressure from the village to conform to a set of behaviours which did not fit them; a marriage which they both wished to escape and were willing to run from, and a family which used the same tactics of fear and violence upon them, over and over again to manufacture them into the mould they wanted.

Lee was willing to accept the actions of the Jade Emperor, a being that he would not dare even look upon. Lee was willing to accept watching the aftermath of a Celestial War, and the avatars, denizens and the messengers of the underworld who feasted on the corpses of the dead soldiers. Lee was willing to accept the birth of the being that had chased him through the forest and had showed him these visions, seemingly as punishment for betraying Heaven and secreting information and the scroll.

Lee was not willing to accept that this little girl was his mother, and that she was once so much like him, and capable of being kind.

If she had experienced all this before, why did she beat the same principles and ideas, that had caused her so much pain at his age, into him, for him to carry out?

If she understood all this, why did she do this?!

Why?!

Why!?

"WHY!" Lee screamed out at the illusion of her, his voice hoarse and tears burning his skin as they fell down his face.

He swung his arms through her body, punching at her face, his hands disappearing into her image, and the force of his blows subsumed by the sheer presence of her past self. His own face moulded from her own, and now apparently, the state of his mind and his feelings had been held by her before being inherited by him.

He thought that he opposed her actions, her attitudes, and her ideas.

He had never thought that they could ever be on the same side. That they could be on the same side. That they ever were on the same side.

Lee couldn't accept this.

He watched her, forcefully detaching himself from the situation, as he watched her scramble backwards to roll up the scroll. Her body a blurry blob through the watery veil which separated his eyes from her sight. Her nimble hands were quick and precise, perfect for sewing, hemming, crocheting, and all one could do with making meaning out of endless loose rolls of fabrics.

Her wrists, even through Lee's eyes were too thin. The bones she carried jutted outwards at odd angles. Those bones normally concealed by layers of healthy muscle and necessary fat on his own wrists. They were steady regardless, but that seemed to add to the pain that was brought on, by merely looking at them.

Lee was too sensitive to the fact that, throughout his life, injuries did not matter at all, as long as they did not hinder your work, or your progress. As soon as they did, it was your own fault for the weaknesses that you could not overcome. Whether those injuries be the lack of fingers on the hand of a child, who sat two rows behind him in school, that needed to hold a brush, or the buckling knees of an old man, struggling to cross the bridge over the river.

Lee had not gained the one, single injury that would define his life, person, and character, before eventually ending him, gifted by his parents. The gift that he had dreaded his entire life, and suspected would become his back, after day after day in the fields, completing the same tasks over and over again.

His mother had her wrists it seemed.

She lifted up the scroll, holding it in both of her hands as she quickly darted back to the God, offering the scroll the scroll high above her head, in an act of kindness that Lee could only dream of.

An act of kindness from his own personal monster.

The God, hiding away in the hut, twisted around himself and made a sound, perceived by the human ears, almost akin to purring. She beamed brightly at the God, her eyes so, so wide. The edges of the scroll just brushing against the shadows of the threshold of the God's new prison.

Lee wasn't sure if he should be proud of her for her actions, or whether to view this as a tragedy, assigning her pity instead for what she would become. There was no going back and changing her, rescuing her in the hopes that she would become a better parent.

He could not hate this little girl. He could not hate A-Li, especially when she was so much like him. She was bruised and broken in all the same ways, and in all the same places.

Lee could not even wish her hope for a fruitful escape, considering he knew what her life was to become.

It was easy enough to hate her though, too similar to himself.

But...

But...

But...

Lee did not know what to feel.

His mother had been too separate people this entire time. Once upon a time, years ago in her youth, she was just like him, but now, she was somebody else completely.

His mother was emphatically two different people to Lee, and he struggled to reconcile them together in his mind. He clutched his head in his hands as she leaned up to the creature in the hut, and he watched one of its hand form and reach out to the scroll.

It looked almost entirely human in shape, but made of the same shadows as the rest of the body, the glowing eye being the exception. It's arm looked like a limp noodle however, looking wavy and soft, prone to collapsing at a second's notice to let the fully formed hand drop off the rest of the body.

A dark blur, dressed in a dirty, navy blue, crashed into A-Li and knocked the scroll out of her hands.

Lee regretted as he saw his father.

He wasn't even worth Lee's time. Should have been fucking around if he wanted any real emotions attached to him. The sight of his father, as a young boy, just invoked small, hollow pangs of maybe what could have been.

All overshadowed, by the raging hatred and frustration at the stupid idiot at knocking A-Li away from the God.

"Stay back you beast! A-Li, come with me!" he grabbed at her, his rough hands pulling on her own, stretching the skin away from the bones of her arm. He was callous, brash, and hurtful towards her.

No wonder she wanted to run away.

He treated her the same way she treated him.

"Take the scroll! It's evil, and it wants it!" he ordered her, yanking her body behind himself, knocking her body against his own by the overuse of his own strength, scowling as she was flung back, by his own will, onto his back, her hands and elbows digging into him, as she crashed and almost fell to her knees.

She moved to fling the scroll into the hut, over Lee's young father's head. She rose her free arm arm upwards, which he grabbed, and almost threw her, head first, into the hard ground.

"No!" he screamed out, giving her a stray kick at her.