Chapter 2

Fading Mirage (Chapter 2)

I woke up suddenly aware of the rain pounding in the roof. I turned and tossed in the comfy bed until my mind settled that I won’t be sleeping any time soon. I sat back and took in my surroundings. I was still in the room, and it was already dark. The darkness was so dense it seemed like it was trying to engulf me and the beating of the rain added to the creepy atmosphere I was getting. I stood up and found my way to the lights beside the door. As soon as the lights went on, the beating of my heart started to slow down. I sat against my bed in the floor and closed my eyes.

I don’t even have anything to think about. I could think about where I am right now, about all these people I’m meeting, but I found myself not caring. This isn’t my life. I opened my eyes finding myself more afraid of the truth swallowing me whole than of the darkness that surrounded me earlier. Then, my eyes landed on the mirror across me. A thought occurred. I jumped up from the floor and rushed towards the mirror.

In front of me was a wide-eyed girl with ginger-red hair scattered all over her face, fair skin and unusual violet-hued eyes. She was slender and average in height.

I even forgot what I looked like.

How am I supposed to figure this all out?

Without giving any second thought, I rushed out of the room and went downstairs. There was no one around anymore but the fire was still burning, hinting that they were just here a moment ago. I couldn’t risk getting caught, so I sprinted towards the door and stepped towards the darkness.

The rain was so heavy that I had a hard time seeing through the made fog. I ran blindly towards a random direction just to get me away from the house that felt like prison. Then I hear someone calling out to me.

“Hey! Wait!” said Marissa who was chasing me as fast as her frail body can take her. “Wait! Don’t run!”

Seeing her chasing me fired up my anger. Who is she to tell me to wait? She’s nobody. I picked up my pace but instead stumbled on a rock and fell in a mud puddle.

“Oh my goodness!” she exclaimed as she caught up to me. She then helped me up and grabbed my arm as she looked at me worriedly. “What were you thinking?!? It’s dark and freezing out here!” she rubbed her shoulders with her free hand and shivered. It just occurred to me how she looked even frailer and older.

“What was I thinking?!?” I shouted back at her, unable to pull back my pent up rage. “I’m not thinking! I don’t know what to think! I should be angry right now! Angry at what I lost!

I pulled my arm from her grasp and took a step away from her. “But-but I’m not,” I mumbled. “I’m just angry out of frustration, cause I don’t even know what I just lost,” I covered my mouth to stifle the sob threatening to come out from my chest. “I don’t even know who I am supposed to be,” I cried out.

She pulled me into a hug and stroke my hair gently not saying anything. I gave in to her wondering if my mom was ever this tender, and then wondering if I ever have a mom at all.

After a while under the rain, I started calming down. I felt her shiver hardly and felt guilty right after. I just made an old woman run after me in the dark and stay under the rain for who knows how long.

“We should get back inside,” I murmured, breaking away from her hug. She nodded and looked at me with relief in her eyes. We headed towards the house and I hurriedly stayed near the fireplace while Marissa went upstairs. She came back a few minutes later with two towels with her.

“Here,” she offered and sat beside me in the floor.

“I’m sorry for what I did- I mean for what I made you do,” I murmured under my breath just enough for her to hear.

She just smiled and turned back to watch the flames. For a moment, no one spoke.

“I’m not going to say that I know how you feel right now, cause I don’t, though I lost my fair share of those I love,” she said finally breaking the silence. “But you need to understand that there’s nothing we can do right now, running away won’t fix your problem.”

“All we can do now is wait, and I know that there’s a chance that we’re actually waiting for nothing, but that’s so much better than sulking and wasting away a life that so many haven’t been blessed with,” she said, still focused on the flames like she was talking to it rather than me.

“Why are you so kind to me?” I finally asked.

She breathed out a heavy sigh like she was expecting the question but didn’t want to answer and finally looked at me in the eyes.

“I told you that I had lost a fair share of loved ones right?” she smiled a sad smile. “Well, I actually lost every single one of them.”

“Do you remember the world war 4?” she asked me. I nodded.

“I was actually a part of it, I was there,” she continued. “Me, my husband, and my two little girls lived in Washington DC that time. At that time I worked as a head chef for a wealthy family in DC. Before the Republic of the East Countries took over the whole of America, just as they started attacking, I was able to get away with the family I was working for and flew here to London.”

“They were supposed to leave with me, but they didn’t come,” she continued, her voice shaking. “And I never got to know what happened to them.”

“I guess what I’m trying to say is, at least I know how it feels to be alone. Even with people around telling you that they understand, that they were there for you, it’s not the same when you know that a big part of you was lost, you get lost too.”

“It took me years to finally stop sulking, and when I look back now, I feel like I’ve wasted precious years that could’ve been amazing if I just learned to let go of control. And that was when I met Lea, she was abandoned in my porch as a baby, and I thought how blessed I am to be given such a treasure. It was like a sign for me to start over, and I’m glad I did.”

She stood up and looked at me once more in the eyes and suddenly I felt safe.

“We better go wash ourselves now before we get a cold, good night, I hope to see you in the morning,” she turned back and headed towards the stairs.

I could run away now, she won’t know.

But I didn’t want to anymore. I don’t want to lose any more time than I already have being bed-ridden for three years.

            When she was only a few steps away, she slowly turned around and searched for my eyes. It was a while before she spoke.

            “Can you be Amethyst from now on?” she asked.

            “What?” I asked her back right away, not getting what she was trying to say.

            “You need a name. Amethyst, just like your eyes.”

            Amethyst. A new name. The only name actually.

            I just nodded. She smiled back and disappeared upstairs.

            It has been a week since I arrived at Marissa’s house. I tried my best to open up to her about what was going through my mind but it was tough. I’ve also met the orphaned children she took in. There was Lea, who was really making an effort to be friends with me, Mike and Paulo, the identical twins who just ran all around the house everytime, and Sophia, the youngest, who just learned how to walk a couple of days before I came around.

            So far, I’ve liked Mike and Paulo the best, and they were also the first ones I’ve warmed up to, though I still couldn’t tell the two of them apart. They weren’t mature enough like Lea to understand the situation. And they were definitely not too young like Sophia who just pulled on the hem of my pants every time I was around her. When I’m around them, it was natural, they were not nice to me, they were straight-forward and asked me any question they thought of.

            “Why do you live here? Don’t you have a family?” one of them asked once with his English accent. They were sitting in the floor after they just finished running around the house while I was in the couch with Lea listening to her tell stories about the people in the town.

            “Paulo,” Lea warned him.

            “What did I do?” he asked defensively, “Why are you always so mean to me Lea?” he stood up and placed his hands in his hips, trying to look threatening.

            Lea was about to fire back at him when a stifled laugh escaped from my lips, Lea looked at me with wide eyes and a mouth gaped open.

            “What? You think I don’t know how to laugh?” I said to her trying to look offended, “And was that your “grown up” look?,” I faced Paulo. Lea, turned to look at Paulo who was looking at me like I just insulted him.

             “I have a family actually, or a father at least, but I can’t remember him, “I explained to him, trying to make it sound like it was no big deal.

            “Oh. You’re stupid,” Mike snickered.

            “Mike!” Lea raised her voice at him.

            I smiled at his retort, “No, I’m not stupid; I just have amnesia, that’s all.”

            “What’s um-neesh-ya?” Paulo asked as he sat down beside me in the couch.

            “Yeah, it’s when you like bump your head or something likewise, and you forget things,” I told him.

            “Oh,” Mike stood up and bumped his head on Paulo.

            “Ouch!” they both cried out.

            Mike paused and blinked his eyes several times, “I can still remember everything,” he muttered innocently.

            “Well, cause it only happens when you bump your head like really hard,” I clarified to him when he suddenly grabbed Paulo’s head again ready to bump it with his own.

            “No! no,” I shouted at him. “Don’t do that,” I took his hands off of Paulo’s head and pulled him to sit at my other side.

            Lea snickered.

            “Look, you two, this amnesia is not a good thing okay? You don’t want to have it,” I looked at them both with stern eyes.

            “If I get amnesia, I want to be a race car driver!” Paulo enthusiastically said.

            “It doesn’t work that way,” I disagreed with him.

            “Yes it does!” they started running around the house again making car noises.

            All week long I was inside the house. I didn’t want to come out and meet sympathetic strangers with their pep talk. Most of the time I was either in my room or at the living room with the boys or Lea. Marissa, on the other hand, goes out early in the morning and comes home near 8. When Marissa takes off, Diana, one of Marissa’s friends, comes over at the house and takes care of the children. Diana is a middle-aged woman who introduced herself as “children-lover but children-less”. She told me that she still hadn’t found “the one” for her, as I try my best to stifle a laugh at her dilemma.

            With this messed-up world, the last problem you will ever going to think of is finding “the one”.

 

Author's Note

Hey guys! So, what do you think of chapter 2? The story's still building up btw, so please keep up with me. And I just want to say thank you to those who made reviews for my story, it really helps. Leave more reviews! Subscribe! :) Thaanks

Reviews

I am intrigued... I love the description of your main character Amethyst. You have gained my interest in this particular ongoing story. I love the characters you have developed and introduced me to. I really enjoyed this and hope to check back and see where it takes me.