I am trying to discover my purpose in life. Why am I on Earth? Me? Was it a punishment that the soul within this shell had accumulated through past atrocities? Sydney would say “yes.” But I? I am not quite sure. My life, everything in it, is complicated. My father – I know it is not his fault, but yet he passed it on to me in his death. Within me now is a very confused, troubled, and tormented soul, meshed with that I had within my childhood. There is me, and there is me, and together we are me. One is me, and another is much older and knowledgeable than I, yet we are one. Family legacy, I suppose, though unsure as to why it could not have been my older brother, as he is, in fact, the first heir. But circumstances of the quickening are understandable. I was the only one there to accept – and the emperor knew this. He had killed my father because it was he who wanted to receive my family’s legacy – but he had not known of my presence. Thus began a year of physical and emotional torture within the walls of a living Hell. It wasn’t until a month after his passing that I understood why my father used his last breath to offer an apology to me. I have been cursed. Never will I know love, true love, with happiness and security. Always will the emotional instability and pain exist; the loneliness will never be quenched. Whomever I love will die, either physically, or within. Such is the case with everyone. No, it is not my own fault that all my relationships end in misery – I do not psychologically tell myself this when entering into it – but when each ends as prophesized, I can only accept it as evidence of the inevitable. I know now why a piece of myself was cast from Heaven, falling from God’s grace, though it was God’s Will for him to do so. Someone must challenge the minds and souls of those roaming on this planet, to be the great adversary, to have them choose between Him and something else … and though that something else is not what He wishes, oh no. He desires praise from all living things. However, here I exist, to carry on His Will, to test those presently existing, so that they may understand the truth behind their reason. I do as He wills my legacy to do, and yet He turns a blind eye to me, and curses my kind. This burden would never be light, and this I know. I can offer fleeting satisfaction to desires within a lustful heart, grant petty wishes to others with greedy eyes, but I cannot offer a true gift to one with an honest soul. I am surrounded by those who want me, desire me – my acceptance, my body, my knowledge. And yet I am not allowed to want another back, to love another, else misfortune befall them and myself. Sydney nearly murdered me, trying to make it look like a suicide. Lotus … did, just that, killed herself. Anne married another for it simply was not meant to be. And Orchid … Orchid … I seem to only cause him pain. When I became Xander’s pet, I saw it as an opportunity … to use it as an excuse to pull away. Perhaps he would find someone else and forget about me, all the pain I had caused … I cannot begin to count the number of times I had apologized in my mind to him. And I wonder … have I ever told him, outloud? Have I ever told him, with my mouth, how sorry I am for this distance, and a dream that could never be … That is what makes it a dream. A beautiful dream, but a dream nonetheless. I thought for a while I could try to fill the void in my life with fleeting pleasures. Perhaps enough of them will stop the emptiness, even for just a limited while. He still doesn’t know … I don’t really know how to tell him … why I am the way I am. I am still me ... within me ... but I don't want to be me, I just want to be Me. Searching for me, Vincent