I stand facing two mirrors, as they, and I, reflect. I stare at my present self and see the modest yet beautiful blue clothing, the pearl necklace; I also see the sickly pale skin and the dark circles under my eyes no one else seems to notice. My eyes meet each other straight on with a false confidence ingrained after years of performance, my countenance and posture radiating a strength that my mind no longer possesses.

I turn my head and see myself in the past. Warm brown eyes gazed back at me with a blissful ignorance, an ease as foreign to me as her smile. She displayed an authentic happiness I have been unable to replicate even after all this time of practice.

The girl in the mirror laughed; I can't hear the melodic sound, though, nor have I had the pleasure for years. I reach out as if to touch her, to prove that she is real, but my fingers meet only cool glass in her place.

I turn my back to them both and see nothingness.

I don't get to return, nor will I ever be able to. Change happens so fast, and I thought adapting would too, adjusting to my new world. But I have everything: safety, respect, social status. I've had everything, almost as long as I can remember. For the first time in my life, though, "everything" seems almost trivial.

No matter my thoughts, thousands were killed to give those ideals to us — whole new lives and new freedom from the atrocious dangers of the time before. No one will experience unspeakable acts done out of vengeance, despair or desire ever again simply because those emotions don't exist anymore. We are all safe, and we have our role in society to fulfill with little question to our purpose. Each of us contributes to the soundness of the system and its further continuation. Or else we cease to exist.

And they call that freedom. A gift of protection and order. Little do they care that giving us freedom took it away in the most substantial meaning of the word: choice.

The question then hangs over my head as if it were a dagger waiting to fall. Can I be the ignorant, but happy, girl I envy, without regard to the outside world? Can I be my own escape?

But that's not who I am anymore. I don't smile, I don't laugh, I don't get to be that person. After everything, I get to be a shell, who cares only about her own survival.

And that's not who I want to be.

I turn again to face both mirrors. They are two reflections of myself, yet they do not represent who I am. My choice is neither. My choice is someone new.