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Trinity
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I watched the flames shoot up in that now familiar pattern. The screen had disappeared, and the colors had returned back to the purple, blue, and black. Everything about those flames just seemed so sinister and dark. I didn't want to watch what it was going to show me, but I knew that I had no choice. I was going to be forced to see what it had to show me no matter what.
"This, Trinity, is the result of what happened when you refused to go with your father that night, and when you all let him escape. You and your mate, along with all of those that were there to help and assist you during that battle, were all incapable of stopping Gannon Cornelius Edmond from escaping and wreaking more havoc."
"I thought you were all for my father succeeding and were condemning me for foiling all of his plans." I glared at the voice. "Now you're telling me that we were wrong not to kill him there?"
"I am showing you all of the destruction that your actions have caused. I am not on his side or yours. Well, if I were to choose a side, it would be yours, Trinity. I am you after all you, it makes sense that I would ally myself with myself. However, as I am nothing more than a shadow entity that resides in the innermost depths of your desires and secrets, I am not actually bonded to anyone or anything. My job right now is to simply show you what has formed me. And what the choices that made me has caused. There is much destruction that you have caused, and many lives that your choices have snuffed out."
"How? How is it that my choices led to these deaths? I didn't kill that prisoner and neither did my mate. That was a choice my father made, not me."
"Please, Trinity, just keep watching, you will see in time. We are going in chronological order at the moment. Well, as much as possible anyway. There may be some straying from the timeline but that will only be when necessary." The other me was still sounding like she was all knowing and therefore better than me. Dammit! I wanted to punch her.
"Whatever, can we just get a move on with this next memory?" I rolled my eyes at her and tried to hurry things along.
"Ah, but this next one is not a memory of yours. It is simply a showing of what happened after you let your father escape." She was still acting like that was an intentional thing. Like I wouldn't have rather killed him then and there? I would have liked to have saved us all a lot of trouble.
"Whatever, just get a move on please." My attitude was getting worse and worse by the moment.
"Certainly." She grinned at me and looked at the crackling fire. That was when the screen reappeared, and images started to move for me to see.
I was watching my father with some of his top people. They were some of the warlocks that I saw back when we were rescuing the children that he had kidnapped. There were two men and a woman and, for some reason, I could feel how powerful they had been from here.
They had been powerful, but we were stronger though. We defeated them and were able to save all the children that had been taken.
This set of images, though, wasn't from the time that we were saving the kids, this looked like it was a series of images from a mass kidnapping spree. The problem with what I was seeing right now, though, was that these people in the images before me weren't just taking the kids, they were taking everyone.
I watched as my father and his three henchmen arrived at the house of an Alpha Wolf. They had clearly been afraid that something was going to happen because they were barricaded inside the pack house.
The warlocks with my father blew the side of the building off and people started to scramble. Most of the people that I saw were women and children along with the elderly and the people that were too sick or weak to fight.
There was nothing but chaos. The warlocks were firing magic attacks at everyone and swooping all over the place and cackling. It seriously looked like some horror movie scene where witches and warlocks were attacking innocent villages. Or maybe they were more like demons? Whatever you wanted to liken them to, they were scaring me as well as the people in the images.
As I watched, at least two dozen men and women were kidnapped by the warlocks. And the thing is, they were all taken magically. They either got sucked into a magic bubble that held them, pulled into a vortex that swirled around them, or were held by magical dolls.
The entire attack only lasted for maybe two or three minutes. That was all it took to take so many people. It was a pure chaotic ambush that none of them were prepared for. Men, women, and children were all taken from their families and their pack in such a short amount of time.
The whole scene started to shift then. I watched as it was repeated over and over again. It wasn't the same pack, or the same type of people. It happened to other warlock covens, wolves, bears, deer folk, felines, even a group of merfolk that were living on land near the sea.
Over and over again I watched my father and his people steal people away from their homes and take them back to his hidden house of horrors. It was the same house where I had found the children in, so at least I hadn't overlooked that somehow.
In that house after everyone was taken, I watched my father start to experiment on the poor souls. They were turned into monstrosities. They were deformed and no longer recognizable as people. They were beasts and creatures that would frighten anyone when they saw them.
This was the beginning of my father's army, the people that he had used to attack us all those years ago.
"Enough!" I snapped at the other me. "I can't watch this anymore. These were my people, and my father destroyed their lives."
"Yes, he did. But, you know, if you had gone with him he might not have done that to them. Also, if you and your mate had been able to stop him, then he would not have had this opportunity either."
"I admit that stopping him would have stopped this, but if I would have gone with him, there is no telling that he would have left those people alone. He might have still created his army."
"Perhaps yes, perhaps no. We will never know now, will we?" The other me was looking at me with a calm and serene smile. All I wanted to do was throttle her, smack her, destroy her, but I couldn't. I was helpless right now.
"How is this my fault though? Should my father not bear the blame, not me? He chose to do this, not me. How is any of this my fault?" I was on the verge of tears now. I didn't like this at all.
"It is not your fault directly, Trinity. However, your choices, your actions lead to this happening. If you had made different choices this might never have happened. That is what I am trying to tell you. These are the consequences of the choices that you have made. These are the devastating results of what you chose to do or not to do over the years. You need to see this. You need to come to terms with it all. You need to understand and accept it all. Until then, you will not be permitted to leave this place."
"But why?" I put my face in my hands and sobbed. I couldn't help it, I just had to cry. I was crying over the lives that had been lost. The destruction, the fear, the chaos, all of it. I had not been the cause of it all, but I had watched it all play out before me just now. I had seen the fear, the heartache, I had seen it all and it was destroying me as well.
I hadn't known about all of this. I hadn't known what had been happening in the world while I was preparing to face my father.. I had been afraid of the monsters when I saw them and I felt for the loss of the people that he had experimented on, but I hadn't once thought about this being the results of his hunting missions. How? How could I not have known that this was happening to my people?