Niko’s Eye

Prologue.

Death is the passerelle to being born again, and as somebody that you love dearly dies, we grieve and also commemorate their life. Loss is engrossed in our lives and also in our community, yet we celebrate everything that they have achieved in their lives, whether it be for good, for love, for the natural world, or the human race. It is a time when our eyes are opened to see how important life truly is and to appreciate the gift of life, even more.

And yet, Niko was only gifted with 7 years to feel the warmth of her parent’s love. That was not enough for a little child to survive on.

Snow pirouetted in the rays of the sunlight like a ballet rehearsal, led by the gentle wind. As Niko stood and idly stared out of the window, watching the snow, there was a tiny glint in her globes, that grew wider, as open as her little sister’s eyes, when the street had become a fresh new page, waiting for her playful feet and mittened hands.

“Be careful, Havana!”

She urged her little sister not to run too fast, or she would hurt herself.

She did everything to protect her little sister, especially from the pain that she was being forced to live with.

The image of her mother’s lovely face burned in the back of her mind just like the fire that lapped her delicate skin. She remembered how her very fair hair had bleached into a delicate whiteness and a few lines had appeared around her joyful eyes, which were always covered by large, horn-rimmed spectacles.

An expression, almost like regret, flickered around Niko's full lips. She clenched her teeth as she thought of the men who were responsible for the death of her parents. Those ruddy fools.

It’s almost time. Everything has been prepared. She took a large old-fashioned notebook and folded it in half. It contained the code names of the men she was going after.

Revenge is not a dish to serve cold, it's a knife with rusty edges, kept by one with blood on their hands.

She once read that somewhere and decided to live based on it. All she cared about was justice.

There was a tiny spark in her brain, like a light bulb. The kind of spark that carries more possibilities than she could ever be aware of or imagine, but there were so many ideas and plans there in that whirr of static bliss. She could almost taste the revenge, so sweet. She could almost feel the electric shock in her veins. It was the dying need for revenge and the calling card of a new adventure, of paths awaiting her metatarsus. Anything that was up ahead could be a great challenge, and there could be tears, but it was Niko’s journey to take on. She smiled slyly. Everyone around her did not see the mystery, they did not see the need for a chase, all they saw was nothing but a wretched little mystery. Everyone around her had felt contemptuous of her situation, except herself. The ideas were going to be turned into a reality, and for the people who were going to receive the collision, they least expected it. So she laced up her combat boots and leaped forward.

Somewhere in this world, there's a psychotic, hopeless romantic that longs for a different life other than the one that she's living. Somebody once called her a 'pathological liar' for having the desire to feel the warmth of a solid, personal affirmation. She did not have the correct paintbrushes to create a masterpiece with the acrylic paint she had been given. She did not believe that having lovely, round eyes would cost her the innocence and neo-liberalism that no female can ever regain even if they cried s**t-load buckets of blood. She ventured into the world using her fine fingers to stroke her canvas. Sometimes decadently, and most times, remorsefully. Nights spent in front of a broken mirror, in a home with no lights. She crawled to bed every night for the desire to be what she could not be, weighed her soul underneath the candlelight. One day she imagines that she's SZA and deals with the bullshit in her throat by belting it out in the rain. The next day, she's running from the infatuation she experienced in the peak of her high school days. Lonely soul, hopeful girl is she. She sits at the bus stop waiting for a lift from an anonymous man. Hoping that, this time around, she can succumb for a decent meal. Breathless, from running away from herself, on the soles filled with holes and frantic from paranoia-filled cocaine nights; a reflection of her on-going struggle to regain her voice. A personal odyssey. It is never easy to walk in the presence of mortals with a lovely façade of strength and poise. She knows better than to cry under the stars, in the comfort of the ground, with the company of mice. Every day was a new day for a new falsity or prevarication. She thought of it as bulldozing her way into people's minds and hearts. This was why she thought of herself as a psychopath. In the daytime, she would waste her existence in trying to forge her 'true identity'. And at night, she would pour fountains of sodium from her eye sockets and wonder where her true purpose lies. She may have engulfed her soul with darkness and she may have been a sadist but was Zara really a psychopath or just another teenager who was misunderstood and terribly misinterpreted by herself and society?