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  “Listen to the voice, it will not lead you wrong, dear child. Just don’t share this with anyone. It will be our secret.”

  And it was. She still wanted me with her and she still loved me, that’s all that mattered. I was telling her daily what the voice had said, and she would teach me things like spells and incantations. She also made sure I learned her favorite song by heart. We used to pretend the three butterfly figurines were a priceless treasure and she would ask me to hide in the attic where we painted sigils on the inside of the door. I would close it and she would try to open it with her magick. I had to sit and sing the song. I was quite proud of myself actually because I won every time. The door wouldn’t open until I opened it from the inside and I loved the look of pride on her wrinkled face.

  We were so happy, and I will always remember those years. Then that day came. I believed it to be the hardest trial. That awful day that took her from me and with her, it took my soul. I will not bother you with details about her early death, I don’t think I can bare thinking about it if I’m honest, but I will never forget the horrible voice I heard hissing like a snake that told her she will die because she was protecting me. I spent hours hidden in the attic, singing the song and clutching the butterflies to my chest. Every crash and scream felt like a dagger that kept twisting and turning in my stomach and heart. I sang. Tears were running down my face, my body was shaking, I felt cold, so cold yet through dry lips, I sang as she had asked me to do. I sang even after everything went quiet. Then I stopped but sat there numb, afraid to open the door. When I finally did I wished I stayed inside the attic forever. Seeing her body in the wreckage of the house I called home, twisted in an unnatural way, her eyes looking straight at the attic door like she expected me to come and help her, haunt me to this day. I failed her. The only living being that showed me what it feels like to be loved, and I failed her. I deserved to die too.

  I tried to join her in the Otherworld, but always at the last minute, that damn voice that I hated now would convince me otherwise. Sometimes with threats, sometimes by making me feel guilty because she died so I could live and I wasn’t honoring that. So, I kept breathing and hating every breath.

  I was empty inside. There was a gaping hole where my heart, my soul, used to be and now, I was just a hollow shell. I ran. I don’t know what I was running from. Whoever took her from me? From myself? I didn’t know but I kept running. I changed my name and slept on streets, in abandoned buildings, anywhere I could find until someone called social services and off I went to foster care. I still think I was better off alone. It made me feel like a sitting duck but at least they made me go to school again so I concentrated on that. I could read again. It got me through many days.At around nineteen, I met a wonderful guy that was all sweet talk and looked at me like I was the only girl in the world. My hollow shell felt a little better, the hole closed down a little, and I even smiled from time to time. He wanted us to live together, share our lives and I couldn’t agree fast enough. After a few months it felt like I was living one of my nightmares. The mental abuse started. When you are not sure if you are dreaming or not, my grandmother used to always say look at your hands and feet. I tried not to look because I liked pretending it was just a dream. I would wake up anytime now.

  Words! Those damn words that mean nothing, yet they mean everything. They still feel like someone is draining the blood from your heart one little papercut at a time. Until there is nothing left, not even you inside your mind and your body. But he didn’t stop there, no. Then the physical abuse started. There was nothing of me left inside by that point, so I took it as a gift. If this was the story I was to live since I could remember, then it is how it should be. I deserved it. I truly believed that. The next trial came soon after. I’m still debating between this trial and the day I lost my grandmother because I can’t decide which one was the hardest. It was just another one of those days, you know, when he was upset because someone looked at me and I made the mistake to protest by saying I’m only wearing what he told me to wear and look how he told me to look. Arm candy. I despise that word and what it stands for. The fists started raining and I curled up into a ball and just breathed. “It will stop soon, it always does” I said to myself. Then he pulled me by the hair and got on top of me while I kept my eyes closed praying for him to just let me be, but he didn’t. I don’t really know what happened next because I left my body and I was sitting in a clearing where the trees were green and beautiful and there was an elven song somewhere in the background. It was safe here. I will go back when it’s over, it has to stop. It stopped a lot sooner than usual but only because of the pool of blood beneath me. He panicked too. It was like seeing my mother again. I almost laughed.

  He took me to the hospital. I was expecting him to go to get a doctor like my mother did and to never see him again. I felt fortunate. Well, I did until they checked me in the hospital and told me they are sorry that I lost my baby but from a fall down the stairs like mine, it’s to be expected. Yes, that was my story. I was clumsy and fell down the stairs. We lived in a one-story house. They told me I’m young and I have plenty of time to have children. They kept talking, but after hearing I lost my child, I couldn’t hear anything really.

  Should I mourn that soul that never got the chance to release that first scream as it exited my womb? Would I have loved it like I wanted to be loved? Could I? Can you love a child if you have never felt how it feels to be loved as one? Or should I be grateful that it would not live to have the black hole in its chest that never closes but you keep holding on to that damn hope that something, someone will come along and close it a little. Just so you can breathe. Maybe I should be grateful. Yes! I think that is what I should feel.

  I kept my hand on my belly for days, not saying a word, not sleeping, not eating. Only tears kept flowing until they eventually stopped too. I thought losing my grandmother took my soul, but I think there was some small part of it left behind because I felt it ripping and leaving my body. Now, I was a shell. A body moving around with nothing in it, a puppet controlled by an invisible master. I believed myself dead. It sure felt like it.

  The voice returned when I had no more tears left and lead me through each day. Telling me what to do, what to say, when to sleep. I obeyed. I was dead anyway. It led me through many countries, moving from place to place, always staying one step ahead of something. What that something was, I have no idea and I couldn’t care less. I even got my college degree. I was a quantum physicist but it was the voice that got it not me. I just did what I was told. She taught me about frequency and energy, about the Universe.

  One day, after many years, she made one mistake. She started telling me the things she used to when I saw a cute boy back when I was younger. It brought back all the memories with a vengeance so I did the one thing I knew how. I got myself a therapist and he silenced the voice for good. Well, as long as I took my tablets and I made sure I never missed a day. I took control of my life. I immersed myself in my work, stopped paying attention on how my hair looked, my clothing style changed, too, as well as my desire for makeup. I was not arm candy. I was a physicist. Not a victim, not a survivor. I was, and still am, a fighter.

  Don’t get me wrong, I still have my moments where I wish I were no longer breathing. There are still days where I feel like a soulless shell. The nightmares never stopped from the day I lost my grandmother. I met people, good people in the last few years that I care for. I can’t call them friends. I don’t know what that means to be honest, but I do care very much for each and every one of them. But not even they closed the gaping hole in my heart. So, I just work and breathe. It’s the only thing I know how to do and the only thing I’m good at.

  Well, the only thing I was good at until recently, I should say, but that’s a whole other story. I’m still looking over my shoulder, running from something but I still don’t know what that something is. I just have this feeling in the pit of my stomach that it’s coming. Another trial? I’m already a pro at th
ose.

  So, that’s my story. Hopefully, you still have some tissues left in your box. Do me a favor and don’t feel sorry for me, pity is not something that people like me want or need. Learn from this that life is what you make of it. Every new day is a new beginning and it’s up to you if you make it an epic tale or a tragedy. Life is not that hard I promise and it does get better, as was recently proven to me. We just need the right people and the right mindset for it. Most importantly we need to believe in ourselves. We need to find what sparks those ambers deep within our hearts and fan the shit out of them. Turn them into an all-consuming fire, an inferno. Make yourself burn for what you are and what you believe in. Only then will you find your purpose and your true self. That’s what I did and if I can do it, so can you.

  My name is Alexia Semiramis. I am a water elemental, a woman, a fighter and a rebel. Most importantly, I am a witch! Welcome to my world!

  Also by Maya Daniels

  Semiramis trilogy

  “Semiramis-Awakened” Book 1

  “Semiramis-Reborn” Book 2

  “Semiramis-The Vessel” Book 3

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  Stand-alone novels

  “The Cursed Kingdom” coming out Feb 2019

  “Venus Trap” coming out Feb/March 2019