Les Ombres du Passé

[Liafinelle]

[...] Was it the dream again? She was not sure. It must have been, right..?

Every night it was the same. The mists were so thick, that it was hard to tell where she stood. She started to walk hesitantly through them. There was no colour in here at all and she smelled something that reminded her of dark wintery nights.

“You came back.” A barely audible whisper tickled her ear. She turned immediately, her hands drifted towards the rapier - a perfect, monochromatic copy of herself was facing her. It was grinning, yet the smile did not reach its hollow, black eyes.

“Why are you doing this to me?“ Melanie’s voice echoed through the emptiness. She heard loud, shabby laugh in response. “Me? No, you are doing this to yourself.” The shadowy figure was circling around her. She felt its eyes upon her face, judging, weighing, testing. “Do you think they would understand? Don’t be naive. I’m everything that you have.” It stopped for a second, as if awaiting an answer, but she did not speak. “Why are you scared? Didn’t you promise yourself, that you won’t be afraid anymore?”

Melanie’s face revealed nothing as she spoke.  “What do you want?”
“Listen to the voice.“ Her gloomy duplicate has spoken, but she did not understand. “Which voice?”

“You know which. Stop neglecting the truth.”

Her sapphire eyes opened suddenly. It was just a dream, right? Yet a ghastly feeling of being watched by invisible eyes lingered on her, till she fell asleep again.

[Liafinelle]

Mélanie knew she was good. Few people were saying she was the best, even. She delivered every pose with purposeful clarity, as if her body became one with the music. I did so much to get here. She ignored the stabbing pain her pointe shoes delivered to her feet. Perhaps she has overtrained her body again. Just a little bit, just a little bit more…

She ended her performance with an assemblé and bowed in front of the audience. Three faces sat in front of her, yet each was avoiding her gaze. “Something is wrong.” echoed through her mind and stayed there, somewhere below her thoughts, even though she tried to cover it.

A man cleared his throat. “Mademoiselle Coulette, I am afraid, that your performance was not good enough for you to make it to…” It was impossible. But she did not hear his voice anymore. The edges of the world became blurry and her body suddenly felt heavy. This can’t be true.

She glanced over her shoulder to see one of her competitors. Melanie knew she will remember this venomous smile till the end of her life.

She cried that day. The noisy sobs echoed through her room and she knew it was making him angry. She cried so much, as if she cried borrowed tears, and when the last one ran down her face, she never cried again. I will not be afraid.

Something pushed from the back of her head, getting more intense with each second. “It was her. She did that to you, she was jealous... You have to make her pay.”