The girl felt her stomach turning onwards and backwards, an indescribable sense of vertigo taking over her.
There was an actual human face in her trembling hands, shaking between her fingers, due to the intense trembling. Becca didn’t know what to think, what to feel, how to anything.
She ended up vomiting on the floor, but kept herself conscious, even though her whole body wanted to pass out.
She was a good person, but it didn’t mean she was fragile. She spent a few good years training with Don and watching him dealing with nasty stuff, after all.
She didn’t allow herself to break.
The problem was what she was going to do now.
There was an invitation to that Rosenbaum’s place, and he ended up turning to be a monster.
A murderer.
Her mind blurred, and her senses felt like fading, but she hung on to reality, trying to think about anything that felt real. And a memory floated on her mind, real as a memory could ever be.
***
She was little, and there was a torn page in her hand. The material that composed that particular page didn’t seem to be paper, but some kind of parchment, or something very similar to skin. Leather perhaps.
It was full of black words, written all over. But she remembered that what drew her attention the most, was a distinctive red stain at the bottom of the page.
Becca knew what that red mark was.
She knew what that red mark meant.
The little girl thought that there was something wrong with her home ever since she saw the fatherly figure, dressed in a ceremonial robe, crossing a black portal.
The black portal.
But how could that be? That portal only existed in a very particular and singular place. She didn’t seem to remember what place it was, but she knew that it was basically impossible for her fatherly figure, to ever be able to cross to there.
No, it wasn’t only impossible.
It was forbidden.
But by whom?
Who made those rules? She asked herself, knowing that she had the answer, deep within, somehow.
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That was the reason she had to leave. Home was wrong. Home was...
***
She didn’t have the words to define all the feelings and emotions that revolved in the back of her head. But at least, now she had something real to hang on to.
A piece of her own reality, long forgotten, and soon to be put back together.
Becca didn’t want to do it, but it was the right thing.
She wandered though her house, regaining the lost balance, carefully observing all of her rooms. As if to perfectly fix each and every piece of that fake life she'd been liveing up until then, in her mind.
When she was found by Donnovan, she became Becca. Daughter of Grace and Don’s niece.
The girl went to school, graduated, went to college, spent time with her mom and trained hard with her uncle, to become someone who wouldn’t be looked down by bullies or anyone who chose to take her peace away.
It all was good while it lasted, because the young girl lived a happy life. Or as happy a life as it could ever be lived by a person.
Give me the page, ...Riel. She remembered her twin sister telling her.
Something Riel. That was part of her name, her real name.
The girl looked at her bedroom, with all the old anime posters and action figures she loved to collect, all around her book shelves. Her bed, a bit messed up, as if she was still a unorganized teenager.
Old habits die hard, the saying went.
Then she looked around her laundry, her clothes still ready to be hung. Classy, a bit laid-back, but pretty clothes, because that was her style, after all.
She went through all of the rooms, as if drunk on her fake reality. Recollecting all of the fake memories she made there, with mom, with uncle Don, with the few school friends she made, but didn’t last till college.
The only girl she ever dated, the only person she ever got to date at all.
I WON’T! I CAN’T! DON’T YOU KNOW WHAT THIS MEANS? The girl asked to her twin. Tears burning in her child’s eyes.
How could it be that a girl so young, was capable of understanding the implications of what was going on behind the curtains of those majestic halls and training fields and council rooms?
But also, how could her own sister, her very half, be so set in stone, to end up betraying her own blood, because of a God fucking damn page of that dirty book?
***
And then, she got to Don’s spare workshop.
He never dealt with anything illegal at her place. On the contrary, he always taught her useful things, like woodcraft, survival skills, anything she would ever get to need in any impossible scenario that went on in her uncle’s head.
Only that, for the very first time in her entire little fake life with them, something shone specially out to her eyes, as if calling out to her.
Becca pulled out her phone from her pocket, dialled Don’s number, and waited as the call went in.
“Hello...” she heard the voice on the other side of the line, but as she got ready to tell him what she had to, the voice continued on. “You reached my voicemail, meaning I’m probably busy, or just don’t want to pick it up. Leave your message at the tone, and if it’s something really important, I’ll get back at you.”
Son of a bitch! She thought to herself, but started speaking all the same.
“Well... I guess that’s for the best. So... Something went on, and I have to go, uncle. If we meet next time, either I’ll be my real, old self, or I’ll be something neither of us know of. Then... Don’t try to come looking for me, even though you know where I’ll be, if you get this message in time. Anyway, I guess it means goodbye uncle Donnovan. Or maybe, luckily, until we meet again. Thank you, for everything.”
She hung up before tears could break her spirit. Before she could change her mind.
Becca looked inside the room, and over the old desk, as if God, or something as mighty was showing her what providence was all about, a crowbar stared right back at her.