There's times when it doesn't even really feel like a previous life. I pushed the memories away for years, but... in some ways they just sort of melt into each other.
[She pauses for a moment on that thought as well. Because yeah. It's weird to think about from an outside perspective. And it's something that almost didn't happen, all things considered... Alessa had been so determined to die. Only one thing-- one thing and a split second where she had a chance to actually make the choice-- had made her decide otherwise. It had been a big risk, one that potentially would have little payoff.]
[But little Cheryl's memories of a happy childhood had won out over Alessa's pain and desperation.]
And yeah. S'weird, I know.
... But if it changes anything... the last seven years of that life barely qualified as living. [Figuratively AND literally. Seven years strapped to a hospital bed in a dark, dank basement room, being perpetually suspended at the very brink of death by unholy combinations of magic, medicine, and madness...]
I might as well have died when I was seven.
And those memories... some of them... just felt like part of the second time around. I'd be six, and I'd remember something that happened years ago and think that it happened last week. Wasn't until so much later that I had to remember the truth.
So... even if I was originally born not that long after you...
[She rubs at the back of her neck, scuffing the heel of one boot on the ground.]
... I still feel like a kid.
This is the first time I've ever made it this far. ... Survived this long.
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There's times when it doesn't even really feel like a previous life. I pushed the memories away for years, but... in some ways they just sort of melt into each other.
[She pauses for a moment on that thought as well. Because yeah. It's weird to think about from an outside perspective. And it's something that almost didn't happen, all things considered... Alessa had been so determined to die. Only one thing-- one thing and a split second where she had a chance to actually make the choice-- had made her decide otherwise. It had been a big risk, one that potentially would have little payoff.]
[But little Cheryl's memories of a happy childhood had won out over Alessa's pain and desperation.]
And yeah. S'weird, I know.
... But if it changes anything... the last seven years of that life barely qualified as living. [Figuratively AND literally. Seven years strapped to a hospital bed in a dark, dank basement room, being perpetually suspended at the very brink of death by unholy combinations of magic, medicine, and madness...]
I might as well have died when I was seven.
And those memories... some of them... just felt like part of the second time around. I'd be six, and I'd remember something that happened years ago and think that it happened last week. Wasn't until so much later that I had to remember the truth.
So... even if I was originally born not that long after you...
[She rubs at the back of her neck, scuffing the heel of one boot on the ground.]
... I still feel like a kid.
This is the first time I've ever made it this far. ... Survived this long.