Puppets 2 - The Strings are Cut

I stood in the smoking remains of a building, wondering what happens next.

It was two and a half years ago that I had first been taken to this place, which had served as the headquarters of a group called Real Power after they had learned about my gift for controlling the minds and bodies of others.

They placed a device in my brain to bend me to their will, and then sent me out as their agent, moving among the rich and powerful and forcing them to obey Real Power.

Yeah, I thought it was pretty ironic too. The one who could turn others into puppets was in fact a puppet as well.

For two and a half years, I had been forced to use my gift to intimidate people, doing such acts of horror that I shudder to remember them, unable to even apologize for the things I was doing.

So I stood amid the ruins, wondering what had happened here. Had some victim retalited? Was it some internal lethal power struggle? I had no idea, but as I wondered I carefully felt around in my mind, seeing if I could once more make my own choices.

Soon, I was convinced that whatever had happened, I was free. For the first time in two and a half years I didnt have a puppetmaster telling me what to do.

I should have felt relief at that, but instead I felt an odd sense of loss, and I stood there frozen for some time, unable to even conceive of what it meant to be able to make choices.

Finally, I made a decision, the first decision I had been able to make for myself since this nightmare began.

I had caused horrible pain, been a tool for humiliation and grief for the last two and a half years, and I had a lot of victims out there - men, women, even children.

And now, maybe I could do something for them.

I could offer them help, hope, healing.

It might take me the rest of my life to do this, to be an instrument for good, but it wasnt like I had anything better to do with myself.

Because my strings had been cut, at last, I could do this.

Because I am no longer just a puppet.