23:27 by H.L. Roberts: EXCERPT!

"TIME.

In the beginning, that was all there was. Seconds, minutes, hours pressed together, forming a mask of illusion that could never be dropped. A wall of steel grew around their hearts, one that couldn’t be broken. The United Misfits image could never be distorted.

It was wrong. It wasn't right. No matter what her heart told her, it was wrong. Every flutter that skated through her stomach. His every skipped heartbeat, meant nothing. She was nothing. He was nothing. They were nothing.

It had been said many times, by many different people, the most broken person in the world could hide behind a perfected smile and a fake laugh. This could carry out a person's persona, something that never even existed to begin with. That would never exist. Laughter and smiles filled with fake truths and real lies could hide what that person wanted to show, or to tell, the truth.

In the end, she wanted to break free, but chains restrained her, blocking each move before she could make a single one, turning her into a prisoner, a captive in her own life.

Those chains squeezed tighter and tighter, never loosening their grip. They choked her from the inside, wrapping her tighter with every deceitful accusation and fake persona they put in her life. Deadly thoughts clouded her vision and stomped through her mind. Both of their minds.
Their hearts were noosed, yanked in every which direction. Like a snake. Until it all stopped. Until they both stopped fighting.

And when the fight dissipated​, she could no longer turn away from the deceitful ways they had so graciously bestowed on her."

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