The Change ( Can You See Me Now? )

[Athena (DELETED 6736)]

This book is weathered and bound in leather. It's got a loose string that she uses to wrap around the notebook and the leather decorated front and back in random symbols that she carved into the leather herself. The front of the book has a hand-done picture of The Tree Of Life.
It is locked in a lock-box that she totes around and sometimes stuffed in her backpack.

The front page is written in black spotty ink and reads as:

This Book Belongs To: Athena.

[Athena (DELETED 6736)]

Wed Jun 17, 2015.

I hate feeling like I owe that ***** anything. I hate to say this -er.. write this.. but I'm glad that she didn't leave me. How would I have found out who I am? How would I have this second chance? I'm not sure but that's how I feel. I hate that I needed it so much that I can feel the anger with every move of my pen. I know it's been days since I wrote in you and I know you're just a book but I'm sorry that I ripped all of my previous pages out. You look sad now with the way those ripped pages left a dent in you and in it's absence there's emptiness. I guess that's how I'm feeling. Empty. But it's okay because I have this chance and maybe instead of being the burden and the ****-up I can be something.I'm working so hard to kill these zombies that I don't even have the energy to finish how I'm feeling. I'm not even sure that I know what I'm feeling. I feel numb. All of my limbs are numb and tired and all I do is sleep after zombie-killing. It feels good to sleep now more than it did when I was alive.

At least the nightmares have stopped now. Or is it because I'm living my nightmare? It's better than being with them. Only time will tell.

[Athena (DELETED 6736)]

Thu Jun 18, 2015



I got my drums back today and my keyboard.. my bass. I stole it back. I stole it all back and I don't care what Rion says when she see's that I took all my things. I wanted my things. I needed my things. They belong to me and with me. I needed them. They are a part of me. I set them up in some spot that's hidden from the sun and Harrison helped me put it all together. I feel bad now that I think over it.. for trying to beat his face into the ground. I guess I have his Momma to thank that he didn't return the favor when he realized that he could have out matched me. He just pushed at me and was kind enough to let me go unscathed and helped me put the set together. That dude is solid. I'm so tired and I just want to go to bed. I'm trying to get back into the habit of being me.. and that means writing in you.

I'll try to be better at it. Keep up and write everything down.. but I'll just go with this happened tonight. I'll finish writing about today tomorrow.. when I'm not writing with my eyes half closed. Here's to sleep.

[Athena (DELETED 6736)]

There's a lot of silence when you're dead. I wonder if this is normal - to be so alone? I wouldn't know if it's normal in death because in life it was normal. I know I said I would write about Harrison and what happened but really it was just the man being a gentleman and my drums being set up. It was nice though, I couldn't handle carrying everything and he and I made sure it was set up nice. It's hidden and all my clothes are there because I don't like sleeping near Rion and Osi so I skip around town a lot. I'd rather sleep unaware in the QZ than sleep on their couch. The street doesn't bother me anyway, it just reminds me of Hunter. I can say that at the very least I'm glad that when I leave anywhere I always bring his jacket. I wear his jacket all the time unless I'm fighting zombies or going to soon.

It's one of the only things I have left of him. I only have memories of him talking to me, touching me, loving me. I have that too. I thought that whenever it was time for me to die that I would get to join him in death as I always had while we were both.. alive. I won't get that chance and being a vampire takes that from me. I don't know how to deal with those feelings. I've done nothing but pine for him for years now and I wonder if I was thrown this forever as a punishment.. or a reason to let him go.

What did I do that was so wrong? I can think of so many things but - which one- brought me to this reality? Why does it feel so natural for me to be this way when I didn't even feel like me before? Each thing I learn about my new self is.. almost becoming. What's natural about being a vampire? I've always been the disturbed girl anyways. I remember how much the other girls teased me but that didn't matter because I had him on my side. He was always on my side and nothing else mattered. He was my love, my best friend, and everything in between before I even knew what any of those things meant. I go to sleep and I wake up at night and I remember..

I'll never see his face again and the pain is just as fresh as the day he left me.

[Athena (DELETED 6736)]

And there's no remedy
For memory
Your face is like a melody,
It won't leave my head
Your soul is haunting me
And telling me
That everything is fine
But I wish I was dead
(dead like you)

I've been thinking about you so much today tonight. I think now that there's so much silence that I when I could fill my day with the ladies chatter or with everyone's surrounding sounds, I'm now greeted with heavy silence. I keep thinking that you wouldn't want me to be alone and that you were always worried that I didn't get out enough. That I didn't have enough friends or enough to do but what you never realized was that I only wanted to be with you. I could care less if I was left at home with the instruments because I could just make music until you came back and I could make you smile. I miss your smile so much and every waking night here is harder because of it. I miss your big arms and the way you always held me like you could keep me together. You really did keep me together all those years and now I feel so stupid trying to do it by myself. I feel like an idiot trying to keep myself together while I keep falling and stumbling with each step I make. I mean look at me.. I'm a ******* vampire.

I'm a ******* vampire and you're dead and I'll never be with you again. Have you moved on? Was this God's way of both punishing us and helping us? Have you forgotten that you're mine? I haven't forgotten. I really haven't.. I desperately wanted to just live my life out until the day that I left this earth and get to see you in wherever we ended up. I was always hopeful for heaven.. but who knows? We've done some things and said some things.. I'm not sure what it costs to get into heaven but I can only assume I can't afford it. I hope you did. I hope that you could afford it and that you're happy..

I hated being told that it's unhealthy to wait to die to see you again. I guess after years of fighting that battle we both now know that I lost. I'm already dead and I'll never see you again. I keep trying to remind myself that I'll never see you again but my heart see's you everywhere. I play music and there you are again like you haven't left and that you're simply listening to me play. If only it were that simple again.

[Athena (DELETED 6736)]

Sorrow. Guilt. It's all coming down on me and its all that I feel. What's my sorrow without a little guilt? I'm sad because I miss you. I need you. I love you. I am guilty because now that I am dead. Now that I am truly gone.. I feel crushing guilt. Did I have a soul? It may have died when I did. It didn't stay with me, did it? You can't even have that part of me, can you? You had all of me once and now you have none of me like I have none of you. We have our memories. Do you think about us? Do you think at all? Can you think at all? I hope you can. I wish that you can.

I'm a blood sucker now. I'm those novels I used to read in high school but I am better. I am better because....because I am real. I am still me. I feel like me when I play. I feel like me again when I listen to music. To our music. We used to listen to the songs together. We used to play the songs together. It's like a little blanket of us and I want to hide under it. I want to hide under this blanket of memories like I once hid in your loving arms. I miss your arms. I just want to weep and weep and weep again but the sorrow I feel is only because this time I left you. I left you this time and I always promised to never let you leave me. Do you remember? You'd be simply impossible and still I wouldn't let you leave. I couldn't let you leave. I didn't. You left me and I had no choice. I don't have a choice now, still. I'm stuck here. I'm stuck with them. I'm stuck like this and there's no getting back to you. There's no getting back the sun.

[Athena (DELETED 6736)]

*** Bipolar - A disorder associated with mood swings ranging from depressive lows to manic highs. ***

People may experience:

Mood: apprehension, general discontent, loss of interest, hopelessness, anger, elevated mood, mood swings, apathy, euphoria, sadness, guilt, or inability to feel pleasure.

Behavioral: crying, hyperactivity, self-harm, risky behavior, irritability, aggression, agitation, impulsivity, or excess desire for sex.

Cognitive: slowness in activity and thought, lack of concentration, unwanted thoughts, false belief of superiority, delusion, or racing thoughts.

Psychological: paranoid, agitated depression, anxiety, manic episode, or depression.
Sleep: difficulty falling asleep or excess sleepiness.

Also common: restlessness, rapid and frenzied speaking, or fatigue.

I keep looking over my little page of my symptoms and I keep wondering if that has any hold over why I feel so muddled lately? I just keep reading the words over and over again like I haven’t got them memorized, burned forever in the back of my mind. I’m just trying to make sense of something that is forever changing. Forever climbing and forever falling. Like my Mother didn’t keep screaming her questions at me: “ARE YOU OKAY TODAY? DO YOU NEED A HUG? MAYBE SOME CHOCOLATES, ATH, YOU LOVE CHOCOLATES.” I miss her voice. It may have always gone an octave higher when she asked those questions but it always rang with concern. I have to give her credit, honestly, she always did try to understand me my entire life but she just couldn’t understand. Why did her daughter always have to be so different? Why does she like this and everyone else likes that? It never made any sort of sense to her and I was always the weird girl she got stuck loving. I can be honest and say that as I got older and my moods kept swinging.. she did her best to help me. She really did. I guess she never banked on the fact that no matter how hard she tried that I always felt more and more like a freak. The car drive back and forth between home and the therapy office may have been to help me in the end but during? I was the freakiest of them all. I was the girl who had everything but problems. My parents loved each other. We lived in a house that was too big for us. I never had to skip a meal or miss out on something that I wanted. How selfish of me to have any problems at all. How selfish of me to have any doubts, any worries, or any other feelings but joy and happiness. How selfish of me to want something different. How selfish to want less when everyone wants more.

I just wish that my Father could have been that loving and understanding. As I got older I kept hearing about how daughters and Fathers are supposed to be but all I really remember of mine was that he never understood. He didn’t ask me any questions no matter how embarrassing those questions always were. He loved me, maybe, but he didn’t understand me and that’s what I always really needed. I needed to be understood because I was the girl who had to go to the nurse's office since Freshman year of high school to take her medicine. I was the weird girl, the awkward girl and when Mom died? I was the girl who wanted to die, too. Maybe this is my punishment for being so selfish in my life. I had a Mother who loved me unconditionally despite our differences and a Father who worked hard to provide for us. Maybe someone said ‘give the girl her wish’. I got my wish alright. Yet, still, I’m left yearning for more when so many others want what I have again. I’m selfish.

But really am I? I guess wasting a precious life regardless of reason is selfish in it’s own way. I wouldn’t know because I’ve been told my definition of right and wrong is hazy. Maybe they just didn’t agree with me. Maybe they were just trying to help but I can’t be anyone but me. I can’t help but to be the girl with the manic highs and lows. I’m obsessed with death and it’s not because I hated who I am, it’s because I want to be with the one’s I love. They died and all I have left is my Aunt. I guess I could say my Father too but it’s always been more like comfortable indifference. We are too different for anything more. I’m sure unless my Aunt spoke of my disappearance he wouldn’t know yet.

I wanted to die and I did die.. I just didn’t stay dead. I didn’t stay down and I came back up fighting like I always have. I keep thinking about dying. I keep thinking that I’ve always wanted to die and now here I am. I never wanted to die for me but I wanted to die for them [.i]. Does that change anything? Does that make me better or does that make me worse? I wanted to die to be with them and now I’ll never see anyone I knew before again in my life. I’m forbidden. I’ve got to keep the masquerade and for now vampires live in between pages of books and on the TV screen. Oh, that’s silly isn’t it? They’re not living. I’m not living.. I am the undead. Yet, I still feel and I’m still as confused as before. I wonder what my aunt thinks? I wonder if she worries about me as I walk all over the place thinking about her. How worried she must be. She must think that I got off my meds again. I guess in a way.. I am. I just keep going climbing up high only to keep crashing down like the worst wave in the ocean.

I feel scattered and blown off with the wind like a discarded piece of paper and it’s the worst feeling. I’m aware that I’m Bi-polar and I’ve always known this but as I progress in this world I just feel worse only to feel a little better after.
I don’t understand and it just feels like a constant struggle, I walk a few steps only to be knocked backwards again. How do I even begin to explain it? I think that’s why I thought those people were looking at me.. but when I lunged at them for yelling at me to help.. I only fell against the wall. Maybe that was karma instead? I refused to help these people who said that I could. What would make them think that I can help? I can’t even help me.

[Athena (DELETED 6736)]

Every said: "Honestly? The only way I learned the difference was paying attention to the way they moved. The way they act."

Rion’s been off and I hate to say that I miss her blue hair and her quick tongue. But honestly? I do. I don’t like to tell her often how much her wit amuses me. It really does, though. I like to watch the way she rolls her eyes as if everyone were below her. The way she walks and talks is as if she enjoys her person being a mystery. I enjoy it too. It’s been in my experience that the broken ones, the one’s who hide, those are people to be connected with. Those are the people who tend to hurt other’s less. It matters not that usually she’s taking a dig at me. I just like to hear her speak. I like witty people. I enjoy a good laugh even if it is at myself. I also like to think that it’s just as equally important to laugh with others as you laugh at yourself. A deep belly laugh.

I went to see Every the other night. I’ve seen all over our family CrowNet that she’s extended help wherever she could. I thought she could help me. It’s been bugging me. That old woman and her son.. how they just kept following me on my way to the abandoned warehouse. I had only wanted to play my drums. It’s still my favorite thing to do. It still brings me to peace when I feel like the world holds none for me. I guess they ruined that. I was already feeling uneasy but it only helped to create more uncertainty with how they pleaded like they just knew that I could help. I’ve never been able to look at anyone and just know that they could help me. I’ve always experienced a ring of doubt in the back of my head. It’s always rang louder than anything in my mind. Doubt.

As Every talked to me I felt that doubt dull. I’ve never been capable of helping anyone besides maybe Hunter in my life. She told me that I could. That I am very new but that I would grow.. I wonder if that means that with time will come whatever powers they are begging me to use? I wanted to ask her more questions but I thought it best to leave that conversation with Rion. I like talking to her, when she opens up to me and I hope that if I open up just how much I’d like to help these spirits who follow me.. she will be inclined to let me just that much more in. I have to open that door with her, I think, She already opened the door with not leaving me to die someplace in the sunlight or maybe something worse. I can’t assume that I know everything because I still need to ask questions. I still need to ask so much more questions that I feel like perhaps I should start a three or four page list just to remember to ask them all.

I’m hopeless… I know but as I learn more and more about this life I feel less like someone lost and instead like someone who’s just learning to crawl again. I’m no fool to think that any of my earlier problems are gone. I know that isn’t true because they flare up often. I feel less happy and then happy again later. I don’t always understand. I guess that’s half of life; not understanding. I’m okay with that because knowing everything just sounds dreadfully boring. To me it’s like having all of the answers in the back of the book instead of stumbling on them myself. I don’t want to know everything. I want to know enough.

[Athena (DELETED 6736)]

I look like a corpse.

I really really do. She told me to take a picture of my face after she handed me a flashlight - and BOOM I look like the ******* dead. I shouldn’t be surprised. I am the ******* dead. That shouldn’t have made me want to scream like the little girl I used to be years ago but it did. I almost screamed in front of this stranger because when I looked at my picture I looked like a rotting ******* corpse. A ROTTING ******* CORPSE!! REALLY!! FOR REAL!! I AM NOT KIDDING!

I mean why would I write lies down? That doesn’t make any sense but I’m walking around looking like a corpse. Well, actually she said that we all are. That all of the different walks of this life ( apparently ) look like a corpse in different settings. Mine? I look like a corpse in the bright ******* light. I am so unsettled by this. I guess I’ll live my life in the darkness that I used to dream about. I guess this rich girl got her ******* wish. That’s so annoying, really. Out of all my wishes? I get this one. Let’s be honest though! WHO didn’t read one of Anne Rice’s The Vampire Chronicles books and didn’t wish themselves a vampire for the rest of time? I mean I wish that I could just come across ONE person. It’s such a stupid wish. They always try to warn us don’t they? They always say ‘be careful what you wish for’ and I don’t want to be careful. I want to be reckless in my imagination. I want to be reckless with my desires. I want to be reckless when it matters. I wanted to have adventures. I was going to be a rockstar. I was going to live alone with all of the cats in the world and just dream about him and die one day. I was going to die with everyone knowing my name in some way or another. I was going to take away someone’s breath with my talent on my drums. I was going to do more during the day.

I can’t walk outside in the day. Honestly? I don’t think much of it because if I continue to be honest with myself the day never suited me anyway.

[Athena (DELETED 6736)]

I’ve felt flesh on flesh. I’ve felt the way a man’s love feels, tastes, I’ve been in the midst of loving you. I’ve been on the side. I’ve been on top of what’s a mountain of us. I’ve lost myself so deeply that I’m no longer on top. I’m not even on bottom. I’m nothing. You made up half of everything that I was so doesn’t that at least leave me with half? Don’t you still have the other half of me? Am I broken? Am I bent? What am I if not lost? I’m so lost that I’m not even sure I’m walking in the right direction anymore. I feel one way.. and then I feel another. I’m fickle. I was never fickle before was I? You held all the answers and I’m left with questions.

I haven’t been to your grave since the funeral. It was too hard. It felt like my tears would never dry. I’d like to say that your death still doesn’t hurt but at least now when I think about calling for you - I know no one will answer. You don’t exist anymore. Hunter and Athena are no more. I’ve come to realise that. I’m so alone. I don’t have to be us anymore.. I can be me.. except I don’t know who I am anymore. I don’t recognize this Athena. I’ve laughed without you. I’ve smiled without you. I’ve kissed a man who wasn’t you.

I took Clo to see you. Did you hear us? Did you see us? I pray to God or.. whatever that you did. That you understand what I understand. I have to let you go. I want to let you go, Hunter. Don’t you understand why? I’m a mess. I want me back, Hunter. I want.. I don’t want to wallow in my guilt anymore. I killed someone. I took someone’s Hunter and that leaves a nasty taste in my mouth. I don’t understand then why it was so satisfying? Why do I dream about doing it again? I’m not sure. I think that I would like to do it again. I’ve never felt more free than when I felt his blood ooze down my throat. I haven’t felt free in a long time. I think if I thought about it.. maybe it would have been the last time you loved me.


Can I be happy again? Wouldn’t you want me happy? I’m so confused when I’m alone. I don’t have you to talk to. I can’t talk to Rion about this. Would she understand? I don’t think anyone understands what we were. What we used to mean to each other. We only had each other.Then what is this happiness? Am I lying to you? Am I lying to him? I took her to see you and that wasn’t easy. She saw the ugly part of me. The part of me that still holds onto you so desperately that I can’t see myself anymore. I didn’t see me - I saw you.

He’s seen that. Did you know? Did you watch me almost collapse a BUILDING on top of him? I wonder if that reminds you of when you first kissed me? We had talked earlier that day in school and I told you of the troubles with my Father. You said you understood. Then later that day you just marched right up to me and kissed me because you wanted to know what it would feel like. Of course, I responded with violence and used your excuse. “I wanted to know what it would feel like.” I suppose then I would have made the entire school fall on your smug little head for thinking you could kiss me like that.

I almost dropped the building on him because he assumed he could understand. I wonder if he still thinks this way? I’m much too busy with my lips to ask him if he thinks that these nights. Maybe if I do ask him I won’t drop the apartment building on his head? I guess I’m not too different after all and that thought comforts me. I don’t want to be too different. I want to be me. I want to be the me without you. The person I was when every happy moment didn’t make me think of you and suddenly be racked with guilt. I am not so much feeling guilty these days that I feel guilty for not being so guilty. I am happy, I think. I’d like to say that every time I spend with him makes me happy but he frustrates me. I can’t say that I dislike it because I almost relish the feeling. It’s intoxicating. Or is that just his lips?

Hell, what do I know?