Cryptic Words and Hidden Letters

019

:: Fourth voice, Kalliope

I was almost there. Years of hardships and sacrifice, I almost touch the success at the end of the road—but my knees trembled, my whole body collapsed. I can't find the push, I can't get up, half of me was buried six feet under the ground. My voice suddenly lost, my vision became blurry. I have nowhere else to go, and my dreams started to fall piece by piece. I couldn't gather my strength, as every bit of hope living within me fades away like dusts blown by a strong and disastrous wind. I was blown until I found myself dying at the verge of the cliff where nothing else can catch me anymore, no parachutes. It feels like drowning in a sea of hopelessness, and no island can be found.

I've been always grateful for the life that was given to me. I made mistakes, but I tried so hard to keep myself back in track and make everything right. But why do I experience the most cruel chains of fate every time I make a step and live with a good intention for the betterment of most?

Death is inevitable, yet I still want to cheat it.

I break the laws, but still free. I escaped from theft and judgement, yet still living. I survived years of poverty, and still breathing. I fought my battles, and still dreaming.

All I did was to make a goddamn way to survive, but why did the world suddenly take away the greatest reason of why I am living?

I hit a rock along the way, but still put my faith intact because I believed that everything happens for a reason. I begged for my family to have a great life, in exchange of giving up every fucking mistake and wrongdoings that I'd done. I gave up every crime just to be worthy of what they fucking call 'grace and mercy.'

I became a good person who tried to follow what's written. I changed from who I was because that's what I should do.

I read the words, understand it with all my heart; accepted it and spread it in the midst of worrying about what will happen in the future—but it meant nothing.

You took away my reason to live.

That should be me, lying in that coffin. You should have take back my life instead, and not hers.

I kept my mouth shut, silently blaming everything around me. I want to shout. I want to burst out my anger, hoping that I'll be free from this damn situation.

That I'll wake up and realize that this is just a nightmare.

I slapped myself, probably the hardest slap I could ever give. But all I got is a swollen face and shitty puffy eyes.

I didn't wake up.

This hell hole is my reality, and I'm not accepting it.

Not now, not ever.

"Condolence.."

"I don't give a fuck about your condolences," I muttered and walked away from a person I didn't even bother to know, nor even see when my grandmother was still alive.

See? People only come at your burial, when you're no longer breathing and dead. But when you needed them, they keep on turning their backs away as if you're some sort of a dangerous stranger stalking them, or a deadly virus spreading around.

Fuck humans. Fuck life.

Fuck everything.

"Kalli--"

"Not now, Sera. Leave me alone."

I heard her heavy breath, and her steps walking away. But another murmuring voice lingered in my ears, and the anger automatically paves its way to swallow my mourning soul.