Prologue

"Destiny has two ways of crushing us…. by refusing our wishes and by fulfilling them."

I've always been a strong proponent of fate. My family never understood why, and I didn't really either. I had no reasons, no justifications. But everything in my soul told me to believe. When things got tough, I told myself that everything would work out as it should. Life is just a story that needs to be unfolded. Everything is there from the very start, outlined in solid black ink, waiting to be traced over by experience.

As far as the future was concerned, I didn't see too much choice. An omnipotent power had it mapped out so specifically that everything in my body was attuned to that path. I wasn't put into this world to waste space. I had a designated purpose, a predisposed agenda of unknowing sacrifice and sin.

I also believed in the power of duality. Everything in life was supposed to be evenly matched, paired off in perfect harmony. Everyone had a soul mate; everything was but one half of a broken whole. The point of life was to search for the other pieces, and to put the world back together until the puzzle came together with divine clarity.

But what if something happened to intrude on destiny's plan? There were so many things that could potentially get in the way. Distance, separation, death; they all ghosted quietly over the earth with the amazing power to tear apart and it happened all of the time.

Fate didn't scare me. It was life that scared me.