Reunion

I was sleeping off a meal - can you guess what it consisted of? - at the edge of those...boundaries, when shouts and yells ripped me from my rest. I recognized the voices; I've heard them a thousand times in my life, in my dreams, and in the odd nightmare. I rarely have those anymore.

The first scream woke me up. By the second I was running, my feet pounding, my head pounding, my heart pounding. I must have gotten lost or turned around a couple times in those dark woods, under the light of the moon, but eventually I found them. My thoughts were racing, my mind overflowing with responses, my imagination running wild. All I saw was her, there, and her standing over her with a knife. It was confusing to see two of the same person, one trying to kill the other, but I tried to do the most rational thing.

I tackled her, I tackled the one who was going to hurt her. I knocked her down and she fell onto her own knife. I turned away; I couldn't bear to look at it. Even if it was a cruel trick I didn't want to see her dead. But as I held the living Carrie I knew that it was a cruel trick. I cradled her in my arms and the way she looked at me and the way she said my name I knew it was her, and not some weird doppelganger. All the same, I had to get myself away from there, and I had to get her away from there. My knees were weak like jelly and my head hurt like someone had set a bomb off in there. So I lay down on the ground, and I waited for someone to find us.

I killed someone. No - something. And I didn't do it on purpose. But it was still my fault.

What does that make me?

Why am I any better?