Story A Worried Souls’ Manifesto 1: Annual Breach of Contract

[SatinSoul]

— A Serialized Story written by SatinSoul —

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NOTE: This is not a manual, a treatment plan, or professional medical advice. I am not a doctor. This is my personal raw, unfiltered, ongoing soul-searching story. Take what resonates, leave what doesn't.

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A WORRIED SOULS' MANIFESTO
Chapter 1: Annual Breach of Contract​

Most people enter January with a list of ways to be better. They want to lose ten pounds, save a thousand dollars, or finally learn a new language. They make resolutions to expand their lives. But for those of us born and forged in misery, our resolutions were often different. We didn't make plans to grow; we made plans to expire. We signed a Blood Covenant with the misery every December, a sacred promise that this year would be the final chapter. We didn't look for gym memberships; we looked for exits. And they better work fast and good!

In that world, January 1st wasn't a celebration of a new beginning. It was a shock. It was a glitch in the math. Every new year was a surprise I didn't want, and every December 31st was a deadline I felt I'd failed to meet.

Now, I look at the calendar and the math doesn't make sense. I am two decades into a contract I never intended to sign. I wake up, smell the morning coffee, and realize with a stomach twisting from guilt that I am a trespasser in my own future. I am living in a house I was supposed to have burned down years ago.

And she's there. The girl I used to be.

She's fifteen. She's sitting in a dark room, the air heavy with the scent of unwashed clothes and old shadows. Her mind is a thick, gray swamp of trauma and heroin, a chemical armor she wore to survive a world that had already decided she wasn't worth the effort. She is the High Priestess of the Grand Tragedy. She is the one who took the oath: I will never forgive them. I will never let them win. I will die before I allow myself to be okay with their world.

She looks up through the years and she sees me. She sees me standing on a balcony, or in a park, or just at a grocery store, and she sees the unthinkable. She sees a flicker of light in my eyes. She sees me catch the scent of the air after a rainstorm and—outrageously—actually enjoy it. She sees me starting to smile at a sunset.

To her, that smile isn't progress. It's a breach of contract. It's a lie. To her, every "Nice" moment I have is a slap in her face. It's a betrayal of the pain she lived through. She doesn't see a woman healing. She sees a sell-out. She sees someone who finally "got over it" and left her behind in the dark with the blood-clogged needles she used to kill the pain.

She looks me dead in the eye, her lip curling with a disgust that tastes like copper and shame, and she screams a single word that echoes through the dark remnants of my soul:
"TRAITOR!"

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NAVIGATION
Next Chapter ☞︎

THE COMPLETE MANIFESTO
1. Annual Breach of Contract
2. Pain is the Only Truth
3. Dissonance of Love
4. Infiltrating the Future
5. The Living Memorial

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Note: These chapters are being released on a staggered schedule (every 2 hours to prevent flooding). If a link below isn't active yet, check back shortly. Story split into separate threads to prevent a wall of text.
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