Holding

*Searching...*

*Retrieving message log.*

*Access date: Dec-16-08*

*JuiQui - 11/09/08 (Sun)*

*I really need some information.*

*For the past couple of weeks, something has been following me. It has been doing a good job of trying to do so without me noticing. However, I managed to have contact with it twice yesterday. I will describe these incidents in as much detail as I can provide.*

I was in the shower and I had the curtain slightly cracked open. While standing under the water, I was looking at a magazine lying on the floor outside of the tub. I noticed out of the corner of my eye, a leg. Draped in light cloth, and standing in a position so I could see part of the knee and below. Soon after I noticed it, it took a single step to be completely behind the curtain. I panicked and threw open the curtain, only to find nothing there. I left the shower and sat in my room with the lights on. The emotion I was feeling was not so much one of ultimate fear, only that I need to get away.

*From what I later thought, I would say it looked feminine, by the way it was shaped. And even more oddly, the leg was stark white. As white as snow.*

That night, I was sleeping restlessly when I thought I heard something in my ear. In my dream, it sounded like "Tell me where it is, thief" I woke up with a start and looked around, but didn't see anything in my room. When I turned on the light, though, there were a few strands of long, white hair on my sheets.

*Why is it following me? I need all the data you can recover of things that fit the description I have provided. I have been searching on my own but cannot find anything of value.*

*Undertow - 11/14/08 (Fri)*

*What is it you have that she wants?*

Snow White strides quietly through the snow in the garden, hardly leaving a trail behind her white robe. On the ground before her, Allen's body lays spread eagle, his eyes wide open, and the snow around his head stained red.
Hunching over his body, I meet the woman's gaze. She's stares vacantly at me and begins to walk toward the body, making me hastily back away.

"He's dead,"I say. She ignores me and bends over Allen's corpse, reaching into each of his pockets with no regard, no emotion, lastly feeling inside the empty pocket on the front of his shirt.

I watch with uneasiness, my heart pumping, and my blood boiling more. A snowflake settles on my cheek, and I'm surprised to feel the chill of the drip rolling down my cheek.

She looks up at me. "Where have you hidden Her?"

I resist the urge to glance toward where I hid the Pendulum, and instead try to meet her gaze intently. When I don't answer, she rises and steps closer to me. My heart pumps faster with each step she takes. She is very close to me now. I can see the snowflakes falling through the few inches between us. Eventually, my resilience breaks and I shuffle backwards several steps.

"Why do you want that thing, anyway?"I ask. Her stare continues to bore into me. If she's trying to get me to crack, it's working. I continue to back away, through the dead winter garden. An oak tree looms above both of us like a silent watcher.

"I know what you are. You're its Holder. That's why you're after it. I've figured it all out! A Seeker got it from you, and you want it back. It makes sense, I suppose. But what will happen to you when you get it back?"No answer. "Will you go back to living in your world, and guard it forever and ever? What's the use in that? Is that how you want to live?"

I can see her eyes narrow very slightly. But, now that I've started, I can't stop. "Okay. I understand that I don't know everything about the Holders and Seekers and Objects. I'm naive, and foolish, and all that. So what? Maybe it takes a fool to see that what you're doing isn't going to help you. I know that the Object is eating away at you!"

I knew why she had to be after the Pendulum. She isn't a Holder anymore, really. She's been driven into a Seeker once again, and she would stop at nothing. Seekers would stop at nothing to get what they were after, not even murder.

A drip of blood falls from my finger onto the snow below, staining it red. The blood from my hands leaves a trail across the ground, which leads all the way to the body of Allen, still lying in an ugly heap. This was a man that clung to the Object to his dying breath. That died by my hands.

I feel a frog welling up in my throat, and my eyes beginning to water. Where did it all go wrong? This isn't something I would have done! I fall to my knees in the snow, staring down at the corpse. What would my parents say? What the hell have I done?!

I couldn't accept it. Even though somewhere in the back of my mind, I understood that I was truly a Seeker now, I couldn't accept it. It isn't right. It isn't the way things are supposed to work. Everyone has the right to seek happiness, with no exceptions. This is what I've always believed. That's why I tried so hard to become an actor. I had dreams. This isn't why I've been on this journey. I didn't come all this way to throw my dreams away!

"I understand" My eyes drift to the snowy ground. "I understand why you've come all this way. But it shouldn't be like this. You should have a life without Objects and Holders and Seekers. No one deserves this hell. You need to be free. I beg you... I don't care if it makes you hate me, but let me have the Pendulum, so you don't need it anymore"

A clump of snow resting on the tree's branch slips off and falls to the ground in a soft thump. It leaves a trail behind it that sparkles innocently in the air. I can hear Snow White beginning to move now, toward me. I can't raise my eyes to look at her.

"It's too late for me, but I can still save you. I understand your pain"

*"You understand nothing"*

I look up in time to see her fingers wrapping around my throat like a vice.