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07/21/2022 05:17 PM
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ac 32: summers.
“Theia, let’s go!!” Atlas yelled from downstairs.
It became tradition once they were out of their father’s grasp to actually do normal summer things that other kids got to do that they could not. Or rather, that Theia could not. Theia was their father’s golden child; quite literally doing everything asked of her. It wasn’t until they left that she went to the circus for the first time and she realized she had come to enjoy it. Though she knew better, Theia felt stupid for getting excited about the small things to do that other people took for granted. Which often ended with her getting lectured by Atlas once he realized how she felt.
Rolling her eyes, she hurried downstairs, “ What are we even doing today?” She questioned, raising an eyebrow.
Their days often included his girlfriend and her two kids as well but Theia didn’t mind. Kids had always been her weak spot and she always wanted a younger sibling (that wasn’t Chloe).
“I figured we could go to Busch Gardens for the day. Maybe a late night flick at the Drive In.” Atlas suggested with a smile and Theia nodded her head. “I like that idea. A lot actually.” Atlas always went out of his way to protect her and make her happy. Upon first moving to Virginia after learning what their father did to Theia, Atlas spent weeks apologizing because in his own words, ‘he should have seen it.’ and Theia spent weeks telling him not to apologize, that it was fine.
“I don’t wanna go to Busch Gardens. I’m almost 20..” Theia heard Chloe whine from the top of the stairs and Atlas shrugged. “Too bad. Do your own thing, I guess.” Theia turned towards Chloe, a smirk gracing her features. Despite the closeness between the siblings as a whole, there was always a sort of clash between Chloe and Theia because Atlas forever saw Theia as his baby sister, even though Chloe was the youngest. “It’ll be fun Chloe, I promise. I’ll even make sure he stops and gets ice cream on the way.” Theia offered and Chloe groaned, nodding her head.
Loaded up into the car, Atlas drove to get them ice cream cones on the way to the waterpark, all four of them ready for a fun filled day. Theia would make sure of it.
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07/07/2022 07:55 PM
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ac 31: happy place.
Theia’s happy place is the water. She stays in her head a lot, especially after the events of the Estate. After they got home, it got to the point where she craved water, whether it was the edge of the Island or even taking a bath or shower as long as she could, sometimes even staring at the running water from the faucet or just leaving it running when she’s too into her head and needs to come down.
Being in or near water and simply hearing the sound of it, allows Theia to relax and takes her back to the many times she went to the beach when living in Virginia and the birthday that she begged her older brother to get her and her siblings a beach house right on the water. It was rare to find her not on the water. She loved it so much that on her birthday, until the day she left, her brother always got her a beach house sometimes for Christmas or her birthday and it’s a memory she always goes back to, on her birthdays especially.
Anytime she gets to be around the water instantly makes her happy. It allows her to forget anything that could be stressing her or putting her into a weird headspace.
Something else that takes Theia to her happy place is rain. Or even just simply the smell of rain. She used to love the sound of the rain falling on top of her balcony banister when living in Virginia and New York. The sound was incredibly relaxing.
She loves curling up with a good book and a cup of coffee in the rain or a nice book and a glass of wine when she’s taking a nice hot bath. Whatever gets her to a place to forget her current troubles and near water is acceptable to her.
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06/27/2022 01:16 PM
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ac 30: a day in the life.
Theia’s day can sometimes be pretty busy between required meetings and doing things for herself, though she doesn’t allow much time for the latter. 5 AM - 6:00 AM: Wake up and let Clover and Tito outside, go for a morning run once they are brought inside 6 AM - 6:45 AM: Take a shower and get dressed, make coffee 6:45 AM - 7 AM: Leave the house and head towards the Center 7 AM - 8:30 AM: Get logged in for work, start on her to do list from Sophia and make any required calls or send any required emails; take care of anything that was sent to her the night before 8:30 AM - 9:30 AM: Meeting with Maggie 9:30 AM - 10 AM: Have a brief meeting with Sophia to discuss any Organization related things 10 AM - 12 PM: Run any possible errands Sophia would need her to 12 PM - 1 PM: Meeting with Sophia 1 PM - 3 PM: Run home and let dogs out, grab lunch, as well as run any personal errands for herself if she makes the time 3 PM - 7 PM: Run back to the Center and respond to any other emails, schedule any appointments that arise, schedule any meetings and trips that come across Sophia’s desk 7 PM - 7:30 PM: Go home, possibly grab dinner on the way home, if not, she’ll make something at home, she uses this time to also spend time with friends. 7:30 PM - 9 PM: After dinner, Theia unwinds with a glass of wine or two and takes a hot bath. 9 PM - 11 PM: After her bath, she sits with a book and reads, it allows her to destress. Sometimes she’ll even unwind with a good true crime show on Investigation Discovery 11 PM: Goodnight Seattle
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05/26/2022 07:26 PM
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ac 28: death note.
Theia stared down the barrel of the gun. The only emotion she felt in that moment was annoyance. Annoyed that he was in her office, annoyed that he hadn’t just done it already.
Tears in his eyes caused a smirk to grace her features. “Jake..” Her voice trailed off as she took a sip of wine from her glass. “It’s ok. You can do it. I mean, I get it..” She stood up from the chair at her desk in her brother’s home office. She felt amused at this man’s actions and all she wanted was for him to pull the trigger already.
“I killed your older sister and you hate me for it and that’s ok. You should hate me for it.” Walking over to him, her arms crossed over her chest. “I’m surprised you haven’t done it already. I took away something that meant everything to you and now you can do the same to my brother. Your best friend. I figured it’d be a no brainer.”
“Theia…” Jake wiped his tears away and Theia chewed her lower lip, taking another step towards him. “I changed my mind..”
“It’s ok. I’m not mad,” She shrugged. “Slightly irritated because you’re taking so long to get it over with but..” She shrugged her shoulders again. He opened his mouth again and she shook her head. “Atlas won’t be mad either. We’ll tell him it was an accident.”
Jake still wasn’t budging. Theia knew that if Jake didn’t do it now, he’d either come back and do it again or tell the police what she did and she couldn’t have that either. That’s when she remembered the knife under her desk chair but she couldn’t backtrack and grab it now. He’d realize what she was doing and she’d rather get her fate over with. After everything she’d been through over the years, she was tired of fighting.
“If I got the chance to kill your sister again, I’d do it. I’m not sorry.”
That’s when the gun went off; a bullet right through the chest. She felt like she couldn’t breathe and instead of fighting, she gave into it and everything around her went black.
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05/12/2022 07:39 PM
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ac 27: token.
Theia brought a few items to remind her of home. Although she knew it was necessary for her wellbeing, parting from home and her siblings was going to be hard on her and she feared at some point, although unlikely, that she would forget everything and everyone that made her who she was.
She brought quite a few but there are a couple that she holds near and dear to her heart. The first one is a picture of her and her three siblings. Her siblings are people that got her through nearly everything and they are incredibly close with each other. Despite their fights, they were always able to reconcile and mend everything with no problems. The 4 siblings always did nearly everything together, going so far as trying to figure out ways to get one of their significant others out of the picture if they didn’t like them.
Although it’s a handful of pictures, Theia also brought pictures of her older brother, Atlas and her older sister, Jessa. The two of them acted as Theia’s tether in a sense and were always capable of bringing her back to Earth. However, Atlas always said that she was the one that held the family together as a whole. Theia knew that she could always go to Jessa and Atlas whenever she needed anything, whenever something was bothering her. Despite the closeness of the four together, the three older Bennett siblings were closer than close. They had gone through multiple life events together and her older brother was the first person Theia told about her father’s abuse.
As weird as it sounds, Theia also kept a glass that he let her have grape juice out of when him and Jessa had wine the night her and her two older siblings were playing five finger filet and nearly cut Atlas’ finger off when she was 12 and he was 19.
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04/28/2022 06:42 PM
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ac 26: escape.
Her eyes scanned over the text message. She was being offered a way out and a way to still keep Eda safe. That was the most important thing. As long as Eda was safe, she didn’t mind how this would go for her. She glanced over at Eda playing in the corner. This was all that Eda had come to know and she found herself wondering if taking the small girl away from it all would be the best thing for her. In the few minutes that passed since she read the text, thoughts swarmed her mind. How would Eda adapt to it all? Would she make friends outside of Sanctum?
Ayla chewed her lower lip as she read over the text message again.
“It’ll be safer for you. You’ll be with your family again.”
Was this really what she wanted? She missed her mom and her sister. Her and her sister were as close as two peas in a pod and understood exactly why she felt the need to leave. But her mother didn’t. Her mother viewed it as Ayla trying to hurt her on purpose and maybe in a way, Ayla was trying to punish her mother for everything she didn’t do when it came to her father, while Ayla viewed it as doing everything different and doing what she needed to do to protect herself and her own child.
Ayla’s thoughts snapped back to the task at hand: whether or not she would leave the Organization. Hearing her phone vibrate again, Ayla jumped and read over the text.
“Nothing will happen to you, I promise.”
Ayla turned her phone face down, silently cursing at herself for the conversation she had with the stranger at the coffee shop early that morning. Did he pick up on it being a cult? Sure. Did she miss her sister and her other friends back home? Absolutely.
She looked around her living room and picked up her phone and quickly typed out, “No, thank you. I’m fine here.” and pressed send.
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04/18/2022 02:24 PM
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ac 25: cult interpretation.
She comes in every day like clockwork. A Turkish coffee and a bagel with a small fruit cup. Occasionally she has her child with her and in those instances she also orders a yogurt. Every day she sits at the same window and is doing a lot of writing or if she isn’t writing she is regularly on her phone and it’s intriguing.
Throwing down the towel, I head over to her table and the young girl looks up at me. Nothing like the fresh face of innocence. “Ayla?” I ask, looking over her shoulder and she jumps then looks up at me. She flashes a quick smile but it’s obvious I scared her. “What’s that?” I nod in the direction of her iPad screen and she shrugs her shoulders. That makes me even more curious so I lean in closer to her. I can tell that she tenses slightly and it makes me chuckle.
“Sanctum. What’s that?” I question, finally feeling bold enough to ask about the logo on the sleeve of her sweater. Ayla stops typing and lets out a deep breath, closing the case of her iPad. I’ve clearly annoyed her and I make a mental note to apologize later. “Sounds..culty,” I responded, sitting next to the small child. “What is it?”
Ayla let out a sigh. I could tell by the look on her face that she was trying to think of the best way to describe what it was. She chewed her lower lip and shrugged her shoulders, “It’s..” She glanced around the coffee shop before her eyes landed on me. “It’s a family thing..Why do you ask? That’s…weird.” She responds with a raised eyebrow.
“The logo on your sweater. You wear it a lot so I was curious,” I responded. “How would one go about joining this family?” That’s when I get a smile and she practically bounces in her chair and she reaches into her back and pulls out a pamphlet.
“Read it..” She responds with a shrug of her shoulders and scoots back, although nearly knocking me over and heads out the door with her daughter, her drink and the remainder of her order in hand.
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04/04/2022 12:55 PM
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ac 24: lost and found.
The days after being rescued, Ayla’s sole focus had been acting as though she were fine. Not only for herself but for Eda too. Since being home, Ayla has had a hard time sleeping, the events of them being lost flooding her mind. Her fears of leaving Eda playing at the forefront. The only way she’s found herself able to sleep is having Eda in the bed with her and it helps that the small girl doesn’t want to leave her mom as well. She’s had moments however, where she finds herself waking up in the middle of the night, watching her daughter sleep and thinking of the possibilities of how Eda’s life could be very different right now. At first, the thought of food only made Ayla want to barf, but now her appetite has resumed as though nothing happened.
The thing Ayla is most grateful for is being back home with Eda and being in her home. Being home made Ayla feel like she had some sort of security back. For a bit afterwards, Ayla hated the idea of leaving the house, although she knew she needed to. At least for the sake of work. There were days she didn’t feel like going and on those days, she found herself cooped up inside working on another painting or reading a book. They calmed her like nothing else could, especially when Eda was asleep. She’s also incredibly grateful to be able to take showers, realizing that was something she had initially taken for granted.
Though she has no ill feelings towards the leaders about what happened, she does wish they could have been rescued sooner. A lot of the people she cared for were injured and needed help. She knows there will be several instances of “They left us out there on purpose.” but Ayla chooses to be optimistic and believe that they got to them as quickly as they could.
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03/21/2022 12:57 PM
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ac 23: cruiseline.
“Don’t react, don’t react.” Her mother’s words rang constant in the back of her mind, always.
Ayla had always been terrible at controlling her emotions. She had a history of feeling things too deeply and it made her angry. She wished she could be like other people and have better control over them. She was envious of those people; her lack of being able to keep her emotions in check often got her into lots of trouble.
Though she oftentimes lacked the ability to control her emotions, she also learned just how serious the consequences were when she let her emotions take over and have control. She learned what the consequences would be from her father if she let them have control but even then it was hard to stop, and by the time top she got with her ex, she still hadn’t learned to stop and it only got worse. She knew how her mother acted when her father was around and she refused to let anyone have any semblance of control over her. Even if she had to endure the painful consequences later.
Then she had joined the Organization. She was grateful and even more grateful to Sophia. She associated this with safety, and therefore did everything she could to work on her emotional control. She got it into her head that if she didn’t get her emotions in control, that she would end up back out with her ex and that was associated with danger and now she had a child to take care of.
Ayla worked hard to gain control, grateful for the guise of a safety net. Though she still feels her emotions very intensely, especially when she’s upset, she’s able now to easily push them down and push them to the side as to not be on the receiving end of any potential punishments.
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02/21/2022 01:01 PM
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ac 21: attachment & love.
Theia doesn’t do relationships. Her avoidance when it comes to relationships comes mostly from her upbringing and the fact that she and her siblings always judged each other’s significant others and more or less chose each other’s significant others. Theia on the other hand dumped people before they could get close enough under the pretense of them not being good enough and fitting in with her siblings. She hates letting anyone get close to her out of fear that anything she trusts that person with can be used against her later. Her attachment style is avoidant & distant. With her father’s treatment, her mother turning a blind eye, and the pressure her older siblings put on her almost daily, Theia became incredibly independent, refusing to build an attachment with nearly everyone she came in contact with, even platonic. Theia believed she needed no one, especially since no one was ever really there for her. Except for Atlas and that was who she always depended on. The lack of parents in her younger years resulted in Theia raising herself and becoming incredibly confident and self reliant. She hates the emotional attachment that’s required of a relationship and she would rather avoid them at all costs.
Shockingly, her primary love language is quality time. Despite how she can probably come across to others, she prefers spending time with those she loves over buying gifts and other materialistic things. The lack of love and attention she received as a child plays into this now. She appreciates having alone time or quiet time with those she loves. She craves deepening her connection with those she’s close to. Her secondary love language is acts of service as Theia really loves to help those she cares for with various things such as helping them with small tasks or having small tasks done for her.
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