A Broken Curse

She always said that there was someone special out there for me and me alone. She never told me who though. “You’ll know when you find them,” she said with a sly smile. “No matter how many lifetimes it may take you to find them.”

Lifetimes? I always wondered about that. How could it take lifetimes when I only had one life? Her answer was always a small, knowing smile as she shook her head at me fondly.

My job took me away from Willow Creek where I was born to the old town of Widenburg. The countryside was vastly different than from that of Willow Creek, more earth-toned rather than spring-like. It was lovely there with the faint chill in the air, and I quickly settled in.

It was several weeks before I noticed her. She, the one who was always in the corner of my eye now that I thought about it, seemed to be following me around the town. I’d see her when I left for work in the morning, when I grabbed lunch at the coffee shop, when I returned my books at the library. Somehow, she was always there, watching silently.

She was an exotic darkness to my fire, and I found myself being drawn to the mysterious woman. “May I sit here?” I asked.

The woman tilted her head, steepling her fingers. “You may,” she responded in a cultured and guarded voice as if afraid of being burned.

I sipped at my coffee in the silence. “What’s your name?”

The woman seemed to smile a bit, reminiscent-like. “Nitya,” she said. “May I inquire as to yours?”

“Seraphine.”

Nitya’s eyes widened for a split second. It happened so fast that I was sure that I had been seeing things.

That was the start of a beautiful friendship. Nitya was calm, collected, soothing to my fire, a yin to my yang. She belonged by my side, and I by hers.

Our friendship was what led to a walk along the beach on the island. It was originally a celebration of my promotion, but it turned into something more. Something neither of us could find the will to regret.

We fell into place, two puzzle pieces woven together in a tapestry that no one could see. My guardian would follow us, a grin on her face and a glimmer in her eyes.

In the weeks we were together, I had never set foot in Nitya’s house, but one day, she requested that I did. “I have to tell you something,” she said. “I have to show you something.”

I followed her up the path to a cottage. It was small but cozy. Warm colors were scattered throughout it, but Nitya didn’t stop in any of the rooms. She led me to a passageway and down the stairs hidden there into a basement, or rather, it was a memorial. A memorial to me, but as I stepped closer, I realized, I couldn’t be this woman grinning in these photographs. Some where taken centuries ago. I turned to Nitya, expecting her to laugh, to claim it was a joke.

Nitya looked right through me, staring at the photographs on the wall with the urns beneath them. “I’m immortal,” she said.

I wanted to laugh. I didn’t. The pain in her eyes told me that this was very real. Nitya stood beside me and pointed at each picture. “Alice, Freya, Victoria, Kim, Jacklyn, Fiona, Louise, Georgia, Margaret, Daisy, Shade.” Names of lost loves. My eyes filled with tears involuntarily. Than Nitya pointed to the first picture, this one a painting. “And Seraphine.”

“They all look like me,” I whispered.

Nitya nodded. “They are you. I have been waiting for so long, loving each reincarnation of my original love,” she said, turning to me with a fierce look in her eyes. “And now, I have her again. My Seraphine.” She reached out and cupped my cheek with her hand.

Wonder filled her eyes as she looked at me as if I was the most precious thing in the world to her. She knelt to the ground and pulled out a ring. My mind flashed to a similar scene that wasn’t a memory but was at the same time. “Will you marry me at long last, my Summer love?”

“Of course,” I said, taking the ring and putting it on my finger. Tears streamed down Nitya’s face as we kissed.

“My love for the Summer, my love forever,” Nitya whispered with a smile through her tears.

“The curse is broken at long last,” my guardian breathed as a mysterious wind ruffled my hair. “May you finally live beyond the Summer, Seraphine.”

AN: This was written for the Short Story Challenge. The theme was Summer Love, and this story was inspired by a Tumblr post about dating an immortal and finding out their previous loves were previous reincarnations of you. It has 779 words and 9 screenshots

Fate

You cannot change your fate. Those were the words my mother always told me when I began to doubt the Creator’s plan. “The Creator has a plan for you, for me, for all. You cannot change it, Renee, and the sooner you realise that, the happier you’ll be.”

That was years ago before the fire that took her from me. Her last words as she lay dying on that hospital bed were, “This is the Creator’s plan for me, my daughter. Do not cry.”

That was when I lost all faith in the Creator. Why would someone so all-powerful let my mother die? Why do they allow such tragedy in the world? It was then that I decided to forge my own path. Afterall, fate is really only affected by our decisions, isn’t it?

My uncle raised me when he had time. He spent a lot of his time at work and the rest of it at home reading up on missions that were in the process of being completed. He didn’t have much time to look after himself, much less a child, so really I raised myself.

I didn’t believe in soulmates and true love. As a teenager, I made it my life’s goal to leave a trail of broken hearts behind me. I had three boyfriends that I kept playing with until the day before my birthday. “It was fun, but you’re nothing to me. Just another checkmark on my list.”

As an adult, I worked at the local bar as a bartender. Sometimes I would seduce one of the patrons for a while before viciously breaking their heart.

That’s how I got you, my little star. One forgetful night and a little too much to drink, and you were conceived.

I don’t regret having you though. You brought true happiness to my life where once I had merely pretended to prove a point.

I spent as much time with you as I could, already well aware of just how short and fragile life could be. You would run to me when there was a monster under your bed, come running out to hug me when I came home from work, and in return, I helped you with your homework and read you stories.

One tragedy after another happened that year. I was at work when you became trapped in the pool. You spent hours swimming and trying to get out. I returned just in time to watch the reaper take your soul onward. “How dare you? He was only a child! My child!”

The reaper didn’t respond. It wouldn’t have mattered if he did, my little star was gone.

At my next doctor’s appointment, I was told that I could no longer have any children. “It would be dangerous to your health. You would most likely leave your child alone in the world.”

I continued working at the bar, and on my way home, I would often stop and look up at the stars. “Why?” I would demand of the Creator who seemed to mock me with tragedy no matter what I did to avoid it.

I spent the rest of my life alone, watching mothers and fathers play with their children in envy. How I wished it was you and me playing together.

How I wished you would still come running to me for advice. How I wished I could watch you fall in love. Instead, I attended your funeral rather than your wedding.

I was nearing the end of my life when I saw her. She was young yet seemed older than she appeared. The girl approached me and sat down beside me.

“I know who you are, Renee,” the girl said. “You tried so hard to fight against the Creator’s plan that you ended up following it.”

“Who are you?” I was outraged. How dare this child say such things?

“I am called many different things in many different places, each with a different face,” the girl said cryptically. “Here, I am called Raven, the Creator’s voice in this world.”

“You? You are merely a teenager.”

Raven laughed. “There are many things you don’t understand, Renee. I am one of them, but there is something I suspect you have learned.”

I sighed, not wanting to admit what I knew now. Raven smiled before standing and walking away from me. The last thing I heard from her was carried to me by the wind.

“You cannot change your fate.”

A/N: This was written for the Sims 4 short story challenge for July.

Dear Creator, Why?

     Why did you ask this of my father? Why did you sentence us, his children and future descendants, to this? As you well know, I am currently one of six children out of the hundred you expect my family to pop out in as few generations as possible. My siblings and I are not even really people, never have been. Our names are numbers, French numbers to be exact. How did you expect this to work? How is it working?

       This is a fairly typical morning in our home. Dad's in the background, cooking breakfast and stocking the fridge with meals for the next few days. My brothers Cinq and Six are sitting at the table with my sister Trois, all doing their homework. Trois's twin Quatre is sitting beside me. We're also doing our homework. The man is Clayton, baby daddy number 6. Dad's going to let him feel our currently unborn younger sibling once before shooing him out. 

       At this point, we know the drill. We don't bother trying to befriend him. He'll be gone and never come back soon enough. Clayton hasn't yet realized this fact and seems determined to try and make friends.

      This is Un, my older brother. Ever since he became a teen, he's been helping Dad take care of all of us. He's often filthy, tired, and stressed, but he's often cheerful as well. I share a room with him. It's weird thinking of him as a him. Not that long ago, I knew him as Une, my older sister. I don't care. No one in the family does. Dad's a drag queen with some weird genetic defect that makes him able to become pregnant, and all of us kids cross dress for the fun of it.

      Un's the favorite sibling for all of us. He's always there. I have to thank you, Creator, for giving us the best older brother we could ever ask for.

     This is Dad. I'm not sure how he took care of all of us before Un aged up, but take care of us he did. He's a skilled programmer, but instead of going to work, Dad hacks and makes viruses for a living. It's not much, but we haven't starved yet. I guess that's your doing again, Creator. 

     

      Like I said, this is Un. No one's sure where his eyes came from because Dad swears up and down that Un's father did not have them. For the most part, Un takes after his father Jacques. He has two half-brothers and a half-sister on his father's side that we've never met and probably never will. Un's a cheerful dance-machine.

       Then there's me. I'm Deux. Like the rest of my siblings, I mainly take after Dad. My father was Brandon Wong, an alien in disguise. I'm not sure how I feel about not having a single alien trait, but I have enough confidence in myself that I don't let it bother me too much. This is how you made me, Creator. 

      Next are the twins, Trois and Quatre. Trois is the blonde. She's an old set of waterworks. One minute she's happy, the next she's gloomy. Quatre's the goofball of the family. Their father was a nurse that helped deliver Un and me named Deon. Like Jacques, Deon's dead now, but he lives on in these two idiots.

     After a long line of girls, Cinq was my father's first son. He's the genius, never to far from a book. Makes sense though, his father was a librarian named Randall. Cinq enjoys acting like a girl and doesn't seem to care if we slip up and call him "her". I bet he'll become a her when he ages up.

     Six is currently the baby of the house. He's the son of Marcus Flex, the leader of Powerhouse. Dad says that his eyes are most likely going to change color when he ages up which I think is good. The color looks a bit weird on him in my opinion. Don't make him mad either. He's the hot-headed kid and doesn't need much to bite your head off.

     Dad left for the hospital to have Sept, just like he did for all of us. Jase Louis has always been the doctor to deliver Dad's children. We haven't really met him, but Dad says that he's become a good friend of his through the years.

     Un was the first to welcome Sept home. Most of us were happy to have another younger sibling with the exceptions of Trois, who cried, Quatre, and Six, both of whom got real mad. Dad says Un was angry when I was born, but every time a new baby comes home Un seems happy about it, so I don't really believe him.

     Seven birth certificates have filled the wall that was set aside for them. Where would you have us put the new ones now, Creator?

     It's my birthday today. Dad made a strawberry cake, and the whole family celebrated. This was also the first time Dad hasn't gotten pregnant again after having a baby. Have you decided to give us a break, Creator?

     I've decided to just be a regular tomboy. I was a bit scared that Dad wouldn't approve despite what he said about it being our choice, but Dad just smiled and gave me a hug when I told him. 

     I may not understand your ways, Creator, and I may not approve of the path you have given my family. I trust you though to see us through all the hardships that stand in our way. I love my family, and I wouldn't change them for the world.