Dear Journal,

           I’ve lost myself and I don’t think I can ever be found.

           “What is your name?”

The wrinkled lady with a hard frown permanently etched into her face asked while savagely attacking her desk with her pen. Her name was Sandra Sanders. An unfortunate name. Still, the poorly named woman happened to be the best in the business and it was her job to sell the disturbed girl tied to a chair on the opposite side of the room false soothing words and sugar coated pills that would finally solve the equation she had been working on since she was a little school girl with a peculiarly advanced mind. At least, they had told the girl that Sandra was here to suck the crazy right on out of her. No one bothered mentioning the truth. The truth never mattered.

“Alexis Smith,” the girl whispered, the name slipping out of her mouth. Sandra’s eyes were glued on her, holding her paralyzed like a fly caught in a tangled web of words. Every time the girl so much as glanced up, she felt the ambush of Sandra’s memory’s razor teeth sink farther and farther into her, cutting into organs and restricting her breathing. For the most part, the confused girl’s eyes studied the cheap wooden floors as a result of her will to succumb to the spider rather than to become her very own predator and prey all at once.

The lady with the sad name shook her head. “No. No. No.” The chant was spoken on a frustrated exhale. She, just like the others, seemed to be giving up on the crazy girl. They were both competing in a race that the girl would inevitably win. The worst part of it all? The girl didn’t even want to win anymore. Her only wish was to be normal. “Not their names. Your name.”

A tsunami of confusion quickly crashed down on the girl, assaulting her with the rough waves of frustration. That is my name! Her thoughts were screaming to herself, causing her mind to once again be far too loud. It has to be. But every additional time she whispered the name, the worse it felt on her tongue. That name didn’t belong to the shell of a human strapped to a chair. “Lea Elizabeth Blackwell.” Instead of slipping out of her mouth accidentally, this time the name was said with so much conviction that Sandra had to believe her.

Sandra let out a shaky breath, relief flooding the room. Progress. She did something that the other four “best psychiatrists” couldn’t manage to do. She got Lea to think inside of her own mind. “All right.” The hesitant smile she was adorning found itself shimmering even in her voice. “Now, Lea Elizabeth Blackwell, tell me about your…” A long pause followed as she tried to decide on the best word. Gift? Curse? Oddity? Lea had heard all of them. “Ability.”

Lea’s nails went to her thighs, digging in. She supposed that all the time she spent digging into her own flesh was really a cover-up for her searching for the sanity she had lost when she was younger. “When I look people in the eyes I can tell their past and tentative future.” The words had become robotic almost. Half of her life was spent reciting that exact line.

The lady sighed; she was looking for something else. But the information Lea provided was enough for her and moments later the click of heels hitting the floor echoed across the room and then she was kneeling in front of Lea. “Here’s how it’s going to go,” she sneered. The switch from calm and caring to vicious and unfriendly was unnerving. “I work for a special section of the government that’s been busy trying to come back into power ever since we fell out of it. Nothing we do ever seems to be enough and that’s where you come in. You’re going to work for us. You’ll tell us who the terrorists are. You’ll tell us who will stop us from succeeding in the future. You will be our secret weapon.”

Sandra felt Lea’s protest coming before she even uttered a word. Quickly she yanked Lea’s head up so that she was staring Sandra straight in the eyes. Memories broke the girl’s levees and the waves were back to destroy her again. Her body jerked around, trying to escape Sandra’s grip but the woman was too strong. At that moment Lea could see everything. Every moment in the false psychiatrist’s life, whether it had happened yet or not, was visible to her. Her first marriage to an abusive man, her sister’s car accident, mother’s death. But the woman realized quickly that she needed more than a few harsh memories to make the crazy girl agree to the offer presented.

Sandra made a subtle motion for a man to walk in and as soon as Lea tore her glance from the psychiatrists to look at him, regret hit her like a semi-truck. Images of war and torture were the first thing that came to her mind and that in itself was enough to send her spiraling over the edge. A scream ripped out of the girl and she fell to the floor. She desperately clawed at her face, trying to end the montage of images and memories that refused to stop flowing. When that didn’t work she started banging her head against the ground. In the end she realized that there was no possible way she could win. The spider caught Lea in her elaborate web and she was the fly that couldn’t escape. “Okay!” She shouted, her voice hoarse from screaming. “I’ll do it.”

Sandra got up from her position in front of the girl and smirked, clearly satisfied in her success. “Fabulous. Nice doing business together.”

Dear Journal,

           They dragged me to their leader today and uttered words of promise and future. They told me that their goal was to make a better future for all of the people in the fallen country. Liars. Every single one of them. I saw glimpses into their future that even they don’t know about. Many things made themselves apparent, but overall the most important being that their goals are based slowly on greed. They should’ve just killed me.

           Dear Journal,

           So far up to now most of the people were just old congressman and people close to the government that might get in the way of the future. This time was different. They brought in a terrorist with vile memories that made me choke on my own breath. The terrorists thought I was crazy, which is fair enough because I am, and watched as I coughed blood out of my body. I wasn’t scared of his past, but rather his future. They were going to torture him in ways that surpassed anything the terrorist had ever done.

           They tell me that they’re trying to help their country become great again, but how great can people or a nation be when they succumb to the activities of their violent enemies?

           Dear Journal,

           Memories. I can’t escape. There are people here to destroy me everywhere that I go and I’m starting to search for my exit. I don’t know how much longer I can take this insanity that plagues my every moment.

           Dear Journal,

           They locked me up in a cell. No one wants a damaged tool.

           Dear Journal,

           The country is great once again they tell me. They took over, attacked their enemies and now speak to their people of brighter days and sunshine. They are now out of the valley of death the leader tells them. No one can get to them, they are invincible. No enemies will stop them and they will be the great nation that they used to be. They’re feeding the hungry and kissing babies.

           I know that they are lying to me. I can see it in their eyes. They aren’t out of their stupid valley. They’re even worse than before because earlier only a few countries hated them. Now the whole world does and this nation doesn’t have the money or army to protect itself.

           They are liars. They have enemies. They have me. They will never succeed. They will never help the poor. They hate the weak.

           Those who lie will never thrive and those who try to control the future are worse than the liars.

           Dear Journal,

           I am no longer myself as I never had someone to be.

           The soldier closes the journal of the poor girl who had been correct in everything she had ever said. She might have been mentally insane, but the seventeen year old was smarter than any of the people in the government could ever aspire to be. The soldier’s partner, Jason looks over at the journal quizzically. “Alex, why are you reading the Blackwell journal?”

Alex doesn’t bother to hide his shock. “You’ve read it.” Jason proved himself to be intelligent on a daily basis, but he never was one to open a book let alone an insane girl’s diary and actually find interest in the secret words spiraled across the page.

Jason nods. “Of course. Lea Elizabeth Blackwell. The girl with a gift that the government tried to force out of her years ago. She helped the government succeed for a while but eventually the inevitable happened and she was locked up in a jail cell for refusing to cooperate. She let terrorists stay in the country and cause havoc based on some mild theory she had. She killed herself thirteen years ago. She would have been thirty today if she hadn’t.”

“Committed suicide,” Alex mumbles, not very surprised but still disgusted with the government for letting the girl that was supposed to be helping them go crazy. “I suppose I can’t really blame her. Her life was spent running away from people and being used by a corrupt government that would do anything to succeed again.” No matter the motive, she was correct. They are in a bigger war than ever before and were losing horribly. There is no brighter future. There is this.

“They still talk about her today. She killed herself about two years before I joined the army and they still talked about her then. I guess at that point people still had some hope that the government was going to do something worthwhile.” Jason says, frustration leaking into his voice. “It doesn’t matter though. She killed herself and that’s that.”

Alex shakes his head, knowing what his friend said was wrong. “They murdered her. Sure, she was the one to hang herself or pull the trigger or whatever she did, but it was because of them that she did it.”

“It doesn’t matter why she did it, Alex,” Jason mumbles irritably. “She’s dead and we will be soon if the war keeps going this way. It doesn’t actually matter what she wrote. Yes the government lies and is corrupt, everyone knows that. But unlike her, we don’t have a choice in the matter at this point to help. Right now we have to focus on protecting our friends and families from the terrorists that she let roam the country. That’s the difference between us and the government. We care about helping our people and they just want to stay in power.”

Dear Journal,

           I have grown tired of searching for myself in a rusty prison cell surrounded by liars, terrorists, and people who would rather kill me then watch me live. The truth is, I found my answer a long time ago. I am no one. And that is perfectly okay.