With all that had gone on in my life…I found myself constantly questioning my sanity; wondering if any of it was actually real.
I felt like I was caught in this one particular nightmare I used to have as a child.
Where I dreamed that I woke up one morning and everyone was an alien except me. I would go outside and I was the only normal person.
I felt like everyone was an alien now.
Everybody was a slave to Carmina and her beauty; their eyes glazed over unable to detect that she was manipulating them…
…and using them to manipulate me; trapping me in a world of eternal punishment.
I suffered horribly when she took away those that I cared about the most…
…especially the love of my life.
I was losing touch with reality. Was it all just in my mind?
Had I really abandoned my own child? A child that I was supposed to love unconditionally.
Did I kidnap a monster in her place…blinded because she was beautiful?
The things that happened as a result of what I had done couldn’t possibly be real…and if not, how do I wake-up and leave this hell?
I woke up from one nightmare and entered another.
Only this nightmare was my life and I couldn’t wake-up from it.
It was the middle of the night…time to do what I had to do.
I hurried out of bed, changed my clothes and began to pack.
As quietly as I could, I grabbed what I could fit into a few suitcases. I didn’t want to wake Eva. I had to leave with Carmina and I knew that if Eva found out, she would try to stop us.
It was time to wake Carmina. I realized that I hadn’t given her time to pack, but I didn’t really care. We had to leave now.
I opened the door and my heart almost stopped as I was startled by Carmina already standing in the hallway.
I had to concentrate in order to calm myself. What was she doing by my door in the dead of night?
“It’s time,” she said in a monotone, soft, creepy voice.
“Time for what?” I asked, sure that I didn’t really want to know. Was she planning on doing something to Eva and her family?
“To return…” she said; not looking at me, but past me. I broke out in a sweat and my heart was beating so loud that it was pounding in my ears. I didn’t even want to know what she could have been staring at behind me.
On shaky legs and weak wobbly arms, I managed to keep a grip on my suitcases and walk past her.
Without even leaving so much as a note for Eva, Carmina and I walked out into the chilly night air. Maybe if we left town, Eva and her family would snap out of their obsessed daze and forget that Carmina and I ever existed.
Of course I had no way of knowing. I would have to have faith that their lives would return to normal.
I was once again leaving my hometown. But unlike before when Nick and I left together, dreaming of the future as a pair of happily married newlyweds, I was leaving reluctantly; full of fear.
The road was lonely as I drove and Carmina sat beside me silently staring straight ahead.
I realized that she didn’t have very much to say to me when there was no one else around for her to manipulate into hurting me.
Either that, or she was busy planning other ways to destroy me more than she already had.
