5 minutes.
I sit on the water. The water’s surface is calm and quiet.
While the strokes continue, I look at the person sitting in front of me.
I can only see their back, but I’ve become used to it.

4 minutes.
The coxswain is calling starts.
There’s only a few minutes left, but I cannot keep time.
Everything’s happening so fast.

3 minutes.
The judges call for the boats to line up.
Gracefully, we glide across the water.
Smooth and kept.
Our balance leans the boat port-side, but it is soon restored thorough the echoing voice of our coxswain.

2 minutes.
We’re in our lane. I now take in the presence of the other boats.
They look fierce and prepared, then I look back into our boat.
We need to stand just as strong.
We are strong, if not stronger.
I remember that, because there’s no backing down.
I will not show fear.

1 minute.
Coxswain tells us to sit at three-quarters slide.
The point is adjusted and voices become silent.
I am reminded of every day I worked at practice.
Down to the last hour.
Down to the last minute.
My concentration becomes keener.
I take my final reassuring breaths.
I am fearless.
I am strong.
I am a rower.

0 minutes.
“All boats, ready.”
I dip my oar in a bit deeper. The silence is almost frightening.
My nerves are on a thin thread.
I breathe deeply. There’s no turning back.
“Go!”
“Three-quarters, half, three-quarters, full, full.”
“Power 10! Let’s do this! That’s 10! 9!”
Only three sounds can be heard.
The placement and swing of our blades against the boat.
The coxswain’s encouragement.
My ragged breaths.

I don’t dare look away.
“Keep the pressure, girls! We can beat Oakland! They’re a boat-length ahead! Bring me up to their 8 seat!”
I disregard the alarms going off in my body.
I exert all of my energy. I’m feeling lighter.
“We’re gaining on them! Get me to their 7 seat!”
Time is nothing to me.
I cannot think, only do.
My sole thought is my technique.

“Ladies, we’re walking them! Bring me to their 3 seat!”
I don’t doubt my coxswain’s words, but I am tempted to look to the side.
Our boat leans starboard for a stroke, but jolts back in balance with the next stroke.
My body begs for a rest, even a let-up.
But that’s exactly what the other teams want.
A chance.
A single chance to dominate us.
But I won’t give in.
Not now, not ever.
“We are even with Oakland! We’re in the last 500, girls! Don’t let them catch up!”

The last 500…?
But we have gone so far.
I won’t give up!
“Ladies, power 10 in 2! That’s 1! 2! That’s 10! 9!”
This is the last chance…to show them everything.
My will.
My strength.
My resolution.
The time is now!

Suddenly, added adrenaline runs through my body.
My breaths become more ragged and I feel a bit high.
I don’t let up.
The horn goes off, signaling our finish.
I lose the will to move.
Our coxswain tells us to paddle, but relearning how to breathe seemed more important to me.
Regardless of the silent screams of pain in my body, I obey my coxswain’s order.
We wane off after a while and once all boats cross the finish, we congratulate the other clubs.
I’m becoming tired; my body is crying, but we’ve succeeded.

Everyone worked hard.
We shared everything.
Endurance.
Hardship.
Strength.
Courage.
Friendship.
C­onfidence.
And there’s only one way to show how strong we really are.

We row.
And that’s all there is to it.

I am Darkness.

Some people do not understand me.
Some people worship me.
No matter what they say, the truth will always be the same.
I am Darkness, and no one can change that.

Little kids fear me.
Something about me is foreign to them.
Their instincts act first and they fear me.
That does not change me, though.
I am Darkness, after all.

Then the kids grow up.
To some, I am no longer feared.
To others, I continue to be their fear.
This does not phase me.
I will always remain in the corner of your eye.
I am Darkness.

I know all of your secrets.
I know all of your hardships, your joys and your triumphs.
I take the form of a shadow.
I mimick your every move, but I cannot speak for myself.
I am Darkness, and I will always be by your side.

On the fourth day, God said "Let there be light."
I remained for those three days.
I did not disappear, though.
I became the shadow during the day.
I am Darkness.

Your monitor begins to beep.
Your strength is slowly fading.
Your eyes battle to see that one glimmer of light.
Do not fear being alone, though.
Do you remember what I said?
I am Darkness.
No matter where you go or how far you go...

You will always come back to me.

Let me tell you a story.
A story of sadness and happiness.
A story of defeats and triumphs.
A story of dreams and reality.
A story that has no ending.
Let me tell you a story about me.

I was born the middle child of a middle-class family.
We were richer than most, but I always thought otherwise.
As I grew, I realized mom was always there.

But the youngest always cling to her.
And the oldest caused trouble for her.
So I stood quietly in the corner.
I have to take care of myself, I thought. I cannot bother mom.
I would look towards the empty chair that my dad had sat in.
He just left for another country.
No time for kisses or goodbyes.
Just got up and left.

I became used to keeping myself company.
Sure, I had friends.
But I was an introvert.
 I would get extremely nervous just answering the phone. 
And too shy to invite them over.

Junior High rolled around and I began to have problems.
The once-obvious displays of affection between my parents had collapsed.
Now the sounds of bicker and despair loomed over the house.
My will always shattered at the first uttered word of discord.
The tears are comforting to me, but I cannot control them.

I was not vocal at the time.
I was not a vocal person at all.
Because of me being me, I got a stalker.
There were days when I dreading coming to school.
It was not in fear of my life: it was the fear of seeing my stalker again.

He loved me: I treated him as though I had scorned his parents.
He claimed to love me: I insulted and degraded him.
He claimed to love me: I hated him.

High school was not far behind.
But that's when the London Bridge fell down.
My London Bridge fell down.
Grades fell, Parents separated, Going to therapy.
And in the midst of everything, I fell into a trap.
Crafted by an abusive boyfriend.

I was slandered.
I was scared.
I was hurt.
I was abused.
I was controlled.
I was insulted.

I was pushed into a drinking fountain.
There was no blood, but I still remember where it hit.
I was insulted repetitively: rivers erupted and my face was drenched.
I was taken advantage of: I was now terrified for my life. I gave into his commands out of fear.
I was a toy: he found someone else while we were dating, leaving me all alone. 
I hate being alone.
I was controlled: he made me dependent on him. And I was afraid to refuse when he came crawling back to me.

It was not until Junior year.
Junior year started it all.
I had some courage. I had some guts.
The break-up happened.
I became happier and confident during the aftermath.
But the past would not leave me alone.
I tried to date again, but my chest would clench just thinking about it.
My nerves go on overdrive and my senses are heightened.
I cannot relax around men.
At least, not men I want to date.
Even the thought provoked panic.
It baffled me so.

Senior year was the best by far.
There was resolution in my eyes.
My hands trembled, but my heart did not.
The die was cast.
No fear held me back.
Only one thing bothered me.

Would I survive?
Or would I die?

I walk down the street like I normally do.
In my normal way, in my normal town.
I have my normal chats with my normal friend.
Everything about today is normal.
Yet, something is missing.

I take a stroll down the park, where autumn has began.
The leaves cover the ground with abundant colors of yellow, red and orange.
Normally, I step on the leaves as I take my stroll.
I normally enjoy the sound of the leaves crunching under my feet.
The crunching is normally a sign that the season has now changed from summer to autumn.

But an idea festers in my head.
What if I don't step on the leaves?
I take my next step and I am about to crush another leaf.
But I stop my foot midair.
Gently, I shift my foot to the right of the leaf and set my foot down on the pavement.
With a sudden gush of wind, the leaf of red hue soars in the sky.
The shimmer and shine of the mid-day sun emerged from the frame of a red-hued leaf.
Another abnormal thing happened.
Taking in the sight, a smile adorned my face.

The abstraction of color brought such joy to my heart.
It was a feeling I had not quite felt before.
I'm not sure what to call it.
Was it hope? Excitement?
Whatever it was, I stopped stepping on leaves after that.
I felt I was a kid again, imagining the leaves as lava and taking action to avoid them.
The adrenaline was an unknown feeling to me.
My friends would stare as I would gracefully avoid the leaves, and their looks were not normal to me.
Their faces scrunched up in dismay and their eyebrows furrowed.
It did startle me, their new looks, but I felt something deep down sing.
Their displeasure made me smile.

My eyes danced in the sunlight as a figure caught my fancy.
Her hair was as brown as a old bark tree, but it seemed more fragile than paper.
Her blue eyes conjured a storm in my own and I could not bear to look away.
Her dark red dress reminded me of the color I had not seen so long ago.
I felt compelled to her.

Her mouth opened to form words, words I could not hear.
I read her bare and worn-out lips.
"Come."
Her eyes, body and lips beckon to me.
"Come."
I wanted to see her.
Everything I was doing was abnormal.
So was the step my foot made towards her.

"Come."
Her hand is held out for me to grab.
I take another step and it becomes a run.
My body is no longer in control.
My body submitted to her.
"Come."

The distance between us is just a couple steps.
But what I catch a glimpse of is the last thing I remember.
The devil somehow knew I wished for something new.
I knew something was wrong when I no longer saw the eyes of an incoming storm.
Fear struck my body.
The car was seconds away from my side.
Pain crept slowly into my being.

And then death struck me.

I have not fully bloomed.
I do not know what a true, bloomed flower looks like.

When I was born, I was protected in a brown encasing.
Appointed to the people I called parents, in a place I called home.
They were my guardians and my lovers.
Even when I began to began to sprout and grow a green stem, they still surrounded me with love.
That is, until my first bud began to grow.

When I was thinking of budding, the protection around my foundation broke.
The once-brown casing had cracked and broken as my two guardians.
I try to straighten myself and grab at the brown outline.
But it is hollow and breaking.

My roots begin to grow beneath me and I cling onto what is left of my lovers.
My roots reaches soil and even though I feel broken, I feel amazing. My bud grew, despite my uncertainty since my protection abandoned me.

Just when I had grown more buds and about to bloom my first flower, my roots hit some bad soil.
The soil was dry and cracked: my roots grow no longer.
The rain had eased and my soil was lackluster.
I begged for the rain to come back, I prayed for it to heal my dying and drying roots.
And as I waited, I began to wilt.

Weeks went by and I continued to wilt.
My once pink colour had been tainted brown.
My leaves had turned a bark brown, scrunched into a violent, compressed form.
Even my powerful stem had succumbed to weariness and could no longer stand tall.
There was nothing else I could do but wait.
Wait for the rain to come.

And then, I saw a sight that I couldn't recognize.
I was shaded from the sun's rays by a grey apparition.
I felt a trickle slide across my form and felt another in my soil.
Oh, wondrous day!
The rain had come at last!
I savored every moment of that rain, that glorious, wonderful thing!
I felt revived and anew.
Oh, beautiful day!

Using every bit of the renewed soil and water, my bud was reawakened.
Slowly, I pressed a petal back little by little.
I took my time to do it right.
My first flower, I had to do it right.

Underneath, I had kept the struggle inside.
But now, it was time I show how happy I really am, inside and out.

That was when I bloomed for the first time.
And it was worth the pain.

I look different inside everyone.
I am the being who rests on your shoulder when you are brought up to dismay.
When you have no where else to go, do not worry.
I will always be with you.

Most people view me as the perfect, innocent person.
With blonde hair stricken with the light of the sun.
A white, flowing dress as clear as the clouds.
Some imagine me with wings that allow me to reach up to the skies.
What do people really think of me, I wonder?
My body is petite and small, without the presence of wrinkles.
I open my eyes, clear as day's sky.
Light blue orbs puts the finishing piece on my face.

My feet brush against the blades of grass.
I walk down the grassy hill, not noticing the eyes from afar.
After a while, my bare feet scrape against the hard surface of cement.
Groups of people do not stop even for a second and a loud, deafening sound slinks into my ears.
Without thinking, all the people walking past me step on my toes, crushing them.
To get away from the noise and pain, I make a turn into an alley.

All the sudden, I realize that I am no longer in the open fields.
Now, I am in the enclosed space of shadows.
In my burst of confusion, I am grabbed from behind.
My lip collides with the brick wall, causing it to split open.
The blood trickles down the outline of my face, staining the once-pale skin into a red blush.
I let out a gasp when pain becomes a factor.

A weapon of sin rests enclosed in me.
My wound seeps into the front of my dress.
Everything is turning flush red and my eyes are fogged by tears.
Pain and its foreign concept become real.
The object in my body is ****** out and I feel my essence fading.
My life is fading; yet the person does not stop.
Using the same smeared blade, a sliver gleam rips the bottom of my dress.
My voice is strained and struggling to make any sound.
I am silent: where has my voice gone?

My hand manages to cling on the perpetrator's arm, but he does not stop.
I feel another wave of pain in my lower half.
My voice comes back in a single scream
He does not stop.
There's so much blood, I am beginning to feel light-headed.

Please, somebody, save me!

Hours go by and I feel my conscious fading.
He finally stops and gets up.
He does nothing to help and leaves me in the alleyway.
My disheveled form is hidden by the shadows that lay deep in the darkness.
I cannot move my body from the pool of blood leaking from my wounds.
Am I dying?
I close my eyes, too tired to keep them open any longer.

The man walks down the street and heads home for the day.
He greets a woman in his house, kissing her and rubbing the apparent bulge from her stomach.
He shuffles under the covers as he attempts to sleep.
He feels another weight on the bed and looks over.
He might have been expecting his wife.
What he got was me.
My wings were tainted with my own blood, maintaining a dark red color.
The eyes that had once been as clear as the sky are now clouded with yellow thunder.
My face adorns a grin wide enough to make my cheeks fall off of my face.
The bloodied knife was raised in my hand.

The grin still on my face, I plunged the object.
The blood splattered on my soiled dress.
A laugh erupted from the pit of my stomach.

One should know better than to **** the very angel of Death.

Dear Diary,

I remember when I held you in my arms for the first time.
After buying a series of books, you were given to me free of charge.
You even came with your own set of a lock and key.
My writing pattern was irregular, but you are living proof of my life.
The picture may spark memories, but the pencil is still in my hand.
I embed my feelings into your former blank pages.
Even today, I remember what year and time I wrote in the page.
I was 5 when you came into my life.

Every year, I rediscover you.
Taking the pen in my hand, the ink emits off your pages.
I remember having other diaries.
But their pages remained blank.
How did I choose you to be the one I write in?
The one I dedicate my time and years to?
You’re just like them, aren’t you?
But you’re not.
Are you a virus?
Or an angel?

Somehow, you survived middle school.
You even survived high school.
Now, I will be entering college.
I grasp your felt cover once more.
There is only one question I have left to ask.
Do I take you with me?
Or do I leave you behind?

I was thinking of leaving you behind, at first.
To keep you at home so you wouldn’t lose your way.
That’s what I thought would have been best.
But when I unlocked you and rubbed my fingers across your pages, I changed my mind.

When the school days dwindled and graduation drew nearer, I received a letter.
It was a letter from my freshman year.
I couldn’t remember the assignment, but the content was about my future.
My freshman innocence was almost laughable.
I soaked in the letter, remembering how I used to be.
And then I found it.
The reason why I write.

I write for myself.
I write from my heart.
I write for the ideas.
I write for the dreams.
I write for the possibilities.
It gives me the courage to continue.
Encouragement to no longer desire failure.
But to embrace success.

With that, I have answered my own question.
I give you one last glance.
I bring you into my chest.
So even you, diary, can understand what my heart needs.

I’m taking you with me.
I’m taking you with me because I want to remember.

You are the reason I began writing.
And the reason I continue.

I cannot see.

If I could paint every color in the world on a mural,
I cannot tell you what I see in my own painting.
I am not blind;
I simply choose not to seek the truth.

As a result of my stubbornness, I only seek hope,
Something fragile but not broken.
I cannot tell you honesty,
for I simply choose not to seek out the truth.

Why do people search for something so endless,
That not one person has found it?
I cannot tell your lies and deception from truth,
Because I simply choose not to seek the truth.

If I could open my eyes again to the universe,
would anyone really care?
I cannot tell you why my eyes are closed, but
I wish not to seek out the truth.

My mask is dark and black and my cape void as the night.
Do you still wish to come near me?
Spare me your feelings,
For I will not seek out the truth.

If truth is with me, I will hide it in a box and lock it up.
When I come out of the darkness, I will open it.
Please, won’t someone save me?
Save myself from seeking out the inevitable truth?

You told me to open the box, and I did.
Inside, there was nothing but my own fears.
Oh why, why did you ask me to open the box?
And now I am blinded by my own truths.

I can see, but I may as well be blind.

I have a bounty on my head.
And nowhere to run.

My name is Aegis.
I am a creature of the dark.
Or, a hybrid of the dark.
In my mother's finally stages, she was bitten by a pure-breed vampire Lord.
Because of this, she gave birth to an abomination.
She gave birth to me: A half-breed vampire.
I was taken in by this vampire lord, whom I learned to call father.

He took me under his wings as I began to learn magic.
It was natural to me.
Especially the powers of darkness, swarming me in a warm embrace.
I didn't ask for this power, but it is a part of me. I cannot deny myself.
That scent would waft into the air.
Oh, what sweet essence.

Then I went on an adventure and I learned the truth.
I was bred for this.
Bred for disruption, chaos, the lost balance in the world.
My mother was targeted, by no other than him.
I dare never to utter his name ever again.
He brought me into this world, so I will take him down with me.
Oh you, who was a familiar.
You are now my enemy.
Prepare for your downfall.

Imagine anything.
Imagine.
But why?
How do we imagine?
It's because we are here, right?
We are beings, aren't we?
Human Beings.

Beings can dream.
They can imagine.
But why?
It's because of Change.

Our surroundings change.
Our places change.
Everything begins to shift.
We beings become confused.
We are unaware of the path anymore.
The path's become blurry.

Beings must adapt to the flow of change.
That's the only way.
The only way to find the path again.
But there are obstacles.

Once we have the courage to step forward,
Arms grab at our feet.
If we cannot find out strength,
The arms will drag us down.
When reaching our resolution,
Only then can we take our next step forward.

We eventually find the courage to step again.
Then, we begin our journey over.
We may walk down the paved and constructed path,
But the uneven road may be our new direction.
Filled with uncertainty and danger.

The pavement is just a start.
Taking another step, bricks arise from below and catch our balance.
Paving a new road each step we take.

The mist of confusion and uncertainty cloud our sight.
Yet, we continue to pave down the new road.
Our own path.
One we can call our own.
Other people help lead us to the path.
But now, we must finish the path on our own.
To our new worlds.