Day Two: Afternoon

[Zangya]

The flames danced in front of her face, taunting her with images of the past she had wanted to remember. The face of Zangya had transformed—she was no longer rough, or someone who preferred not to be a damsel. All it had taken was for her Prince Charming to return to her in her time of pure distress—and that was exactly what he had done. Her thoughts dwelled on him for ages, and then on her life in the near future. What could be done? What would she do?

She was unfit to be a mother. She was young, only twenty years of age. She hadn’t found the virtues that a mother would need, the instincts that she would have to teach her child. As she evaluated herself, she became more and more dissatisfied with her potential to be a mother. It seemed wrong that she was putting herself through this, living in pain, for this child not to have a life that fit the pain she would have to endure to bring it into the world.

She looked down at her abdomen, caressing the child in her womb—it had not moved yet, as the pregnancy was still a few months from its first true stages. She was only two months pregnant, after all—that’s why she had chosen to enter. She would not have come into the competition if she thought that she couldn’t handle it. In her current condition, however, she felt as if the child had not hindered her since her incident with sickness yesterday.

Yet, even as she attempted to build her confidence, pride herself in the endurance she’d had for such a young mother, she always seemed to fail with the final and most important question: could she provide for the child what it needed? She looked up at her beloved, but suddenly, he was not there to guide her. His mirage had disappeared from her campsite. It had left her alone. She looked around, and for the first time, she felt like she was on her own.

On my own. The words echoed throughout her head, a reminder of what her life would be once she had birthed the child. Pretending he’s beside me. She was just imagining him, he wasn’t there, he was DEAD for God’s sakes—she didn’t have anyone there to care for her, or for the baby—he wasn’t really there, he couldn’t help her, she was all on her own. All alone, I walk with him till morning. She looked up at him, or where he used to be, and remembered their travels.

Without him, I feel his arms around me. She remembered the warmth that she had felt at his touch, and the strength it had given her—it was almost unrealistic, now, to think that he would return and bestow that strength upon her again. He wasn’t real. And when I lose my way, I close my eyes and he has found me. Thinking of this, she closed her eyes tightly… but there was no one there. She couldn’t see a thing.

He had left her, all on her own.

OOC: Lyrics (scattered about the post) credit to “On My Own” from Les Miz