The first sight of her pulled me into another world, one which I am still trying to escape from. At least, that's what I would like to say. In truth, it's not the world that has changed, just my place in it. While externally everything is as it should be, since she made her entrance, all that I used to perceive may as well have happened to another person. Skeptical as I am of a glorious reunion with that past life, I can't say that I have no hope altogether. But time is not on my side.

How could one person cause a person to break in two? All she did (with ease) was, through her presence, simply release from inside me a doppelganger that I never knew existed. While we share many things, a soul is not one of them. Each time I hear a call from the old world, this parasite tries to drain it too, desperate to compensate for its missing core. It is an ashamed admission that this husk has nonetheless managed to best all of my attempts to overthrow it.

On certain quiet nights, as I pause to reflect, I try to play back moments that left an impression on me, most of them likely only inhabiting my head and no one else's. But I deliberately avoid anything to do with her. Partly it is because of how she has seen me on the road to self-damnation. Yet there is also an element of me wishing to pretend that things are the same as they've always been, that it's still the same pair of eyes that sees and understands everything around him. If I were to concentrate really hard, I think, maybe I would be able to get back to familiar surroundings. On other not-so-quiet nights, though, the facade of all this seems quite clear to me. Whatever I may convince my mind of, there is no escaping from the universe with the secrets I hope to dream away.