{"sf1_id":1580999,"sf2_id":"JewqOVMn","title":"Hidden","author":"Amethyst Mare","words":1063,"posted_at":"2020-05-20T14:10:00.000Z","tags":["Abuse","Abusive relationships","Adult","Adult Themes","Allegory","Broken thoughts","Dark","Dark themes","Depression","Experimental","Exploration","Fiction","Fragmented thoughts","Gaslighting","Metaphor","Modern","PTSD","Relationships","Short Story","Story","Unhealthy patterns","abusive","anxiety","experiment","flashbacks","mental health","song lyrics","warning"],"url":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/1580999-hidden","original_url":"https://sofurry.com/s/JewqOVMn","image_url":"https://cdn.sofurryfiles.com/submissions/thumbnails/cd/0d/cd0db64e-9a9b-4f9c-bf11-46188fec6eb2","description":"Relationships are not all sweetness and light where lies abound...\nAn experimental piece.\n---\nThis story has been available for early reading one to two months ago on SubscribeStar and Patreon (SubscribeStar contains extreme content while Patreon does not)! Please check the tiers on the following links if you would like to support!\nPatreon (no extreme content): https://www.patreon.com/arianmabe\nSubscribeStar (includes extreme content): https://subscribestar.adult/arian-mabe\nMy erotic eBooks are available on Kindle and Smashwords worldwide also!\nKindle (Alis Mitsy):https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07GLWQZFP\nSmashwords:https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/ArianMabe\nAs always, I am open for commissions starting at 30 GBP per 1,000 words - please e-mail arianmabe[at]gmail.com for more information or see my profile!\nStory © Amethyst Mare / Arian Mabe\nCharacters © respective owners","content":" **Hidden**\n\n**\u0026nbsp;**\n\n_Written by Arian Mabe (Amethyst Mare)_\n\n_\u0026nbsp;_\n\n**\u0026nbsp;**\n\nSick and tired, sick of hiding, the past of my life shaded in shrouds. Where do I go from here when the path that I wanted to lead crumbled before me, standing on the edge of a red-raw life, dripping with the blood that is and isn't on my hands?\n\n\u0026nbsp;\n\nThe wind blows, pushing me back. But I can't go back - I'm here now. And I've been waiting to be here for so very long. Years, in fact. And the years, unlike the hands of a clock, can never be turned back, leading one into a false sense of what time has and has not passed.\n\n\u0026nbsp;\n\nWait, wait, wait.\n\n\u0026nbsp;\n\nHide, hide, hide.\n\n\u0026nbsp;\n\nIt's a shame, you're a shame, should never have spoken up. It was you, all your fault, my fault, I'm the \"you\". So, what does this \"you\" do with the \"her\" and the steps forward that are left to take?\n\n\u0026nbsp;\n\nThey don't want me to go on, no. They want me to hide. You and me, me and you, lost forever, yet I'm the one left alone, hidden in the shadows.\n\n\u0026nbsp;\n\nThe underbelly of the world would be too good for me, or so they say. So they say, so they say. I stopped paying attention to what they say but the quiet in my mind opens old doors, whispering thoughts and memories clawing into an active mind where they are opened up, picked apart, inspected without written consent.\n\n\u0026nbsp;\n\n_Are you insane like me?_\n\n_Been in pain like me?_\n\n\u0026nbsp;\n\nControl, fear, manipulation. Yet it is me, it is me, I am the one left to hide. The creator of such despair smirks and holds their head high, the important one, the one who believes themselves above everyone else. And just where has that gotten anyone at the end of the day?\n\n\u0026nbsp;\n\nNo, no, no... I am sick of hiding, sick and tired. The wind catches me, lifting my hair from my neck, salt on my lips. I am here, I am real. But what am I supposed to do when no one wants me to exist, to be real when I could simply not be here?\n\n\u0026nbsp;\n\n_There's a war inside my head,_\n\n_Sometimes I wish that I was dead:_\n\n_I'm broken._\n\n\u0026nbsp;\n\nI only heard that recently and, well, it rings true. They wanted me dead but not dead, not really, just broken. Sometimes \"dead\" and \"broken\" are just as bad as each other and can mean the same as each other. Sometimes they mean completely different things. It matters little and it matters for everything else all at once at the same time.\n\n\u0026nbsp;\n\nBe alive, be dead. They care, I care, yet both for different reasons. Isn't that funny how that happens?\n\n\u0026nbsp;\n\nNot really but, hey: if I don't laugh, I'll cry. And the edge of the cliff is calling.\n\n\u0026nbsp;\n\nYet that cliff means exposure and I cannot shrink for it forever, the weariness of hiding pushing down on my soul. I don't want to show everyone who I am, for fear that they'll see through it to something that even I can't see, yet the lies are spread and the lies abound, twisted truths into falsehoods that have no grain of memory left in reality.\n\n\u0026nbsp;\n\nWhen does a truth become a lie? When it is embellished or when it is told from another perspective? Change the words and you change the truth of the same story and there are a hundred sides to a single story and then more.\n\n\u0026nbsp;\n\n_I think there's a flaw in my code,_\n\n_These voices won't leave me alone..._\n\n_\u0026nbsp;_\n\nOut, out, out. I want to listen to you no more, you demons simpering in the back of my mind. You tug me this way and that way, clawing and crying, your squalling no longer wanted here. It will be a time yet for it to simmer down but I can wait, I'm good at waiting. I've been waiting a long time to come through and shut those voices out. You may have left me broken but not for long.\n\n\u0026nbsp;\n\nThe cliff calls, crumbling, trickling away into the ether. I can't see the waves and the rocks below, the gulls calling, only a black abyss. For that is the true drama of coming out of hiding, letting everyone see who you truly are, the hole in your heart forever there and the fog in your ears clouding out what could have brought you through into the light so very long ago.\n\nStep up, step softly: they call.\n\n\u0026nbsp;\n\nBut not the \"they\" of the past but the \"they\" of the future, the \"they\" of promise and the \"they\" of lightness. Bring forth the lightness in dappled groves, sunshine filtering through deciduous leaves. This barren land is no place for anyone, least of all one who has spent so many years wandering, searching, hunting for any last scrap of truth and understanding when the true understanding to be learned is that it was never there at all.\n\n\u0026nbsp;\n\nYou can't reason with hate.\n\n\u0026nbsp;\n\nThey'll see, one day, but that's not for me to worry about. It's not for me to allow you to live here anymore - so it is here you can and will stay! Live in the wasteland for all I care, there is no space in my heart and my head for those who sought to tear me apart.\n\nStepping up, stepping forward: calmly now. There's no longer anything to fear here and the broken, it is said, may always be fixed.\n\n\u0026nbsp;\n\nI hope that is true.\n\n\u0026nbsp;\n\nTime will pass and time will heal. But I shall be hidden _no more_.\n\n\u0026nbsp;\n\nThe cliff does not beckon, it lies behind. The wind blows back my hair, teasing through tresses.  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; Falling, flying - what's the difference. This is the freedom that I've been waiting for. The edge has passed and I laugh aloud, on show, on display, yet simply as I am. That's all I have to be, all that I ever had to be, and, now, forever and always, that is okay.\n\n\u0026nbsp;\n\nIt was always okay to not be hidden.\n\n\u0026nbsp;\n\nFreedom is sweet.\n\n\u0026nbsp;\n\nI wish I'd known that before.\n\n  \n  \n\n"}