Author: BellaDonna
Story Title: Too many faces
Gen or Slash: Gen
Rating: G
Category: ficlet
Disclaimer: This story is a work of fan-fiction. All used characters don’t belong to me and I just borrowed them. The only profit I hope to achieve with this story is the pure pleasure of the reader.
Author’s notes: This story takes place shortly before Jarod escapes from the Centre and shows his thoughts about his work and maybe the reason, why he escaped.

For Sabrina

Too many faces
by Belladonna

What is it like, when you look in the mirror and see your own face there, a face that is your own, but of which you cannot be sure that it is you that looks back at you.

I can be everyone I want to be.
I can change into anybody I would want to.
I can do any job I need for what I do without having to have studied it or needed to have studied it for my work.
I can slip under any other skin I want to, pretend that I were another.
I can do or be all this.
These are my abilities.
This is it what they taught me.
This is it what I do.
This is it who I am.
But who am I really?
The answer to this must be that I don’t know. I truly don’t know the answer for this question no matter how much I wished for.
I don’t know who I really am, who the real me among the many faces I have worn might be, among the many people I have been and the many identities I had to take for them. I don’t know who I am or where I come from, I don’t know where my parents are or who.

They taught me to be many, other people, to have and to pretend to have other identities but who I am and who I have been, all this they have taken from me. I don’t know it myself anymore. When I look into the mirror I see there my own face. It is my face that looks back at me, but is that truly me? Is that truly me or is it just one of the many people I had to be for them? I don’t know anymore, I don’t even know if I took all the faces, all the people away I had to be, all the minds I had to be and to impersonate whether I would still find something left. Am I still there deep under all these others? Is there still something left from me?
What if there would be nothing left, what if I don’t exist there anymore?
This is a question I ask myself so many times, have asked it and probable will ask myself even more often. This is also the one question to which I cannot give an answer to and that I fear the most.
What if the answer must be yes to this question, what if there is truly nothing left that is me?
They have made all this out of me, for my whole life they have disposed over me, given me people I had to be, whose thoughts I had to think and whose lives I had to live for them; that I had to feel for them. But what about my own life, my own thoughts and my own self that is buried so deeply now under all these others?
They can’t have taken everything from me, there must be something left, I must be left somewhere.
They have taught me to be many, but in return they have taken everything away from me. They have taken what had been my life, my family and now I can barely remember it before they were there. I don’t know what my life had been before, before they ripped it apart and taken away everything I had.

But they didn’t stop at that, they didn’t do only that.

They have taught me to be many, but what happened to those I had to be? What have they done with my work I had to do for them?
I know now that because of me, because of all the things I have imagined and done for them, a great pain was caused, caused in all these innocents I had to be, all these people who had their own lives; lives, that were probably destroyed in some cases because of me just like they had destroyed mine. They used all I did for them for their own purposes; they used me. I cannot allow that they will do this anymore, that more lives will be destroyed because of me, because of what they make me do for them.

They have taught me to be many so that I don’t even know who I really am. They have destroyed so many lives through this, through me and I cannot allow them to continue with this. All these terrible things have happened because of my work, because of my gift to be many, because of what they taught me to be; because of what I am.
I cannot do this any longer for them but now I will have to become many to make up for this. Now I have to become many so that I will be able to help all these innocents who have lost their lives, whose lives have been destroyed just like they did to mine. I have to do this, to make amends for all I helped them to do through my work. Even though I never wanted to do again what they made out of me, I will be able to help others now because of what I am, to help others not to have to suffer a similar lot like I had or those of the many others who had been influenced through my work for them.
They have taken everything away from me, but I won’t allow them to take the last thing I have left, the only thing that will help me to make up for all the things they did without my knowledge but with my help nonetheless.

My humanity.

Myself.

And this I don’t even know if they have already taken from me, too.

But it is the only thing I have left.

~fin~