Inherited Shadows
She was born like any other child in this world. A small, tender, and, if you asked her parents, seemingly ordinary blob of flesh. They didn’t know she had already made her choice. They had forgotten their own and because of that, they handed her the fragments they carried: their fears, their doubts, and their obsession with control.
The fracture weighed on her, as it had on them all. She noticed it early on, this sense of not fitting. She felt off and different, like someone trying to see through a fog that everyone else had accepted as the weather. She hoped and dreamed, her mind created a habit of imagining possibilities… and then the fear around her distorted them. It made her feel small and powerless most days, hopeless on the worst of them.
As she grew, the fog thickened. Depression settled in like an unwelcome guest who refuses to leave. She saw the beauty in the world, but it felt… just out of reach. Love existed yes, but always a little hidden just behind the veil.
Then came the moment that changed everything: a near-death experience.
Don’t worry, I won’t get all grisly. Let’s just say it was one of those moments that shakes you awake, whether you like it or not. In that quiet, hovering place between life and something else, she felt the pulse of the universal magic like never before. She remembered her pre-birth vow. She saw the love that had always existed in her family, hidden behind fear and control. The love her life had taught her was a lie, shined like the brightest truth to ever exist. A bright light illuminating the darkness she had often found herself in.
She returned to the breath and bone of physical existence… and oh, the world felt sharper, it held a loneliness and a new ache that felt heavy. Life itself seemed distant, and the fractures in her family were suddenly impossible to ignore. But now she knew what her life could be, and the choice was hers.
Determined to understand, she traced the fractures of her lineage. She saw the fear in her parents’ eyes, the pain in her ancestors’ echoes. So many patterns being repeated over generations. And here’s the crucial part: she didn’t take on the fear. She didn’t perpetuate the fracture. She healed it. Slowly. Patiently. With small acts of self-love, with kind words of nourishment. It was a quiet acknowledgment of what had been hidden for so long, while holding on to the possibility of the love future generations would wield.
The family softened. Children found their childhoods once again. So did the adults. The air lightened as her family once again found breathing easy. Magic that had once been fractured, began to flow again. And love? Oh yes, love bloomed into sight, unstoppable now that the veil had been lifted.
And so, the chain was broken. Not by force. Not by conquest. But by a heart brave enough to remember, and patient enough to heal.
And the universal magic? It sang a song of remembrance.
“Finally. At last, you remember, you were always whole.”