I was too shocked to even stand up. I couldn’t believe what I had seen. Ninety years worth of memories passing by in such a short time.

For a moment, those horrific memories made me forget I had mendivi instead of my eye, so I jumped back once I touched my face. Why? Why did all of that have to happen and why must I be involved?

Soon, Amy ran into the main hall and saw me in a pool of blood, so she ran toward me.

“Are you alright?” she asked.

“No, I’m not. It’s horrible!” I turned around while starting to cry.

“Your eye!” she exclaimed. It was the first time that I heard a hint of surprise in her voice.

“It’s fine!” I quickly covered mendivi with an illusion.

“You took mendivi. But why?”

“It wasn’t by choice. Rose stabbed me with it just before she died.”

“Huh? Why?”

“She did it to ‘live on’ in a way. Mendivi stores the user’s memories. I can remember the lives of my grandfather, Gabriella and Rose from the moment they obtained mendivi to the moment they lost it. I shot her in the stomach and then, Dante threw his dagger toward me, so I doubt that she expected to survive the ordeal.”

“Are you fucking with me? How does that device even work?”

“I don’t know. From the memories, Alfred found the parts with the blueprints inside this mansion, but when that happened, the mansion had already been abandoned.”

“Freaky. But honestly, I can’t even act surprised. The ideas in my head were equally, if not more bizarre than that. Either way, are we leaving? We’ll call the cops and they’ll clear the mess.”

Amy reached her hand out as I was still on the ground and I stood up with her help before taking off my bloody coat.

“So, is this finally it?” Amy asked. “We can just leave?”

“We should get Dante and Evelyn first and I think it’s best we identify Leon’s body.”

“Leon’s dead?”

“Oh God, I forgot to mention that! I saw it in Rose’s memories, she killed him while looking for us. How could I forget such a thing?”

“Calm down, it’s fine. Just look at yourself, do you realize what just happened to you? Leon’s death is the least of your worries, and as much as I don’t want to say it, I think it’s for the best that he’s dead. You probably think the same.”

“I’d never wish death upon someone!”

“Oh come on, we both know that’s a lie. Either way, you go check where Evelyn is and confirm that Leon’s gone, I’ll get our phones and other belongings and find Dante. I’d assume he ran into the right wing of the mansion. We’ll be fine, the worst part has passed.”

“Yeah, you’re right.”

I headed to the storage room because that was where Leon’s body was supposed to be. I didn’t hesitate at all, I felt like I was suddenly, yet fully desensitized. However, the hallways of the mansion still haunted me in some way, I could never rid myself of that fear, Rose had simply ingrained it into me.

When I entered the storage room, I noticed the bag Leon had over his head in the distance, so I slowly approached it. Once the whole body was in view, something felt really weird about it. Apart from the regular feeling of disgust and fear that I felt to a lesser extent, something was off about Leon’s body itself. Cautiously, I approached it. Truly a conclusion if I’ve ever seen one.

Suddenly, I felt something grab both of my shoulders and I was pushed forward hard enough that I fell.

“Hilarious!”, I heard Leon’s voice, “I can’t believe you fell for this shit!”

I turned around and saw Leon standing over me, laughing. When he pushed me, my foot moved the trash bag that was over the corpse’s head and that revealed the horrific truth to me, or more directly, it revealed Evelyn’s head. There’s no way! Come on, he didn’t do this!

“You bastard!” I screamed.

“Oh come on, it wasn’t that bad. You have to admit that it was at least a little bit funny.”

I quickly stood up and tried to punch him, but he dodged without any effort.

“Really?”, he asked, “I might not be as strong as you, buff bitch, but that doesn’t mean I’m not fast.”

“Shut up!”

“Stop being dramatic. We both have things way more important than this.”

“How did you even put your outfit on her when you’re still wearing it?”

“The clothes aren’t illusions, dumbass! When you left the ball pit, I snuck into it, I was hiding in the tiny useless room across until then. Since the artist bitch didn’t want to make comotion, she stayed quiet while I swapped our outfits, and the rest was soon finished. Quite a brilliant plan, innit? I went and got dressed into my own clothes after the commotion ended, and that was it.”

I didn’t know how to respond, so I simply left the room and went back into the main hall. Leon followed me there, but I tried not to look at him. I genuinely wanted to kill him.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

Dante and Amy arrived shortly after and were shocked when they saw Leon.

“Wait, didn’t you say he was dead?” Amy asked.

“You wish!” Leon shouted at her.

“Shut up, pest.”

“Oh come, don’t be like that. We should at least breathe in some fresh air before more people die.”

For the first time in a while, everyone agreed with Leon. Amy handed me my phone and a bag stuffed with copies of my clothes and we walked out through the giant door in the main hall. The sunshine blinded me, but I was never so glad to see it. Freedom!

“And with this calamity past, we may engage in liberty! Dear Gods, we thank you!” Dante started praying.

“Amy?” I turned to her.

“Huh?”

“Didn’t Dante want to bring Eden’s body with him?”

“He did, but I told him that it’s best to leave that for when authorities arrive since it would be easier then.”

“Makes sense. For now, I just want to feel the warmth of the Sun and I want to bathe in my own triumph. Petra Wolf, Amy Sharp, Dante Divinitas and Leon Voss, the survivors of horrors still unknown to mankind!”

“You sound different, Petra.”

“I do?”

“Yeah, you might often be energetic, but events like these would usually make you feel like shit for hours if not days. You seem to have gotten over it immediately.”

“Should I consider that as an improvement?”

“That’s up to you, though I’d be careful since the memories from mendivi might have changed your personality a bit. Your change seems a bit more instant than gradual.”

Amy called the police and everyone else called their parents. Rivers of tears flowed, words of unimaginable happiness came out of our mouths. It was over, that’s all we were sure of and all we were happy about.

“Well, that was one hell of a journey,” Leon said, “but I’m going home by myself. However, if I hope to see one thing from you guys, it’s that this taught you about the value of freedom.”

“And you’re not going to mention your ‘freedom’ costing multiple lives?” Amy replied.

“Is that supposed to be an argument? Of course some people won’t be free, this is not a perfect world. However, I am stronger and smarter than most, so my freedom will overtake theirs. If that wasn’t the case, I wouldn’t have found the traitor, figured out a way to combat Rose and last but not least, this journey would’ve been a dull show of Rose’s powers if I wasn’t there to make things interesting.”

“Listen here, you piece of shit!” I pretended like I was going to punch him and when he went to dodge, I swept his leg, knocking him down.

“Hey, nice one! You’re actually improving!”

“Just shut up for once!”

“Alrighty then, buff bitch. As I already said, I’m taking my leave. Nobody’s picking me up either way. But who knows, some other unfortunate circumstances might bring you to me somewhere in the unknown mist that is the future.”

I sighed.

Leon walked off, leaving only the three of us together. We talked for a bit until the cops and parents came and then we had to go to the police station to answer some questions. All of us kept quiet about the existence of mendivi, as we knew we wouldn’t be taken seriously. It was written down as a case of kidnapping and, of course, we had to go do a bunch of different things at the police department. Apart from that, nothing major happened, though I barely got to spend time at home.

I had one problem. I couldn’t erase the horrific images from my head and mendivi kept reminding me of everything I had gone through. And not only did I have to hold all of my trauma, I also had to hold Alfred’s, Gabriella’s and Rose’s trauma. Without any convincing, I managed to get my parents to pay for my psychotherapy, but even if I was to recover mentally, it was going to take a while.

I decided to start writing a new diary, as a sort of beginning to the new part of my life. Everything in front of me was a completely new experience and I became a legal adult without realizing it, so I thought that it was a good idea.

Day 1

This is a new start to everything. I will write down anything interesting that might occur in the future and I will attempt to keep this updated daily. Today was, of course, a big day, possibly the biggest day in my life. I got out of the mansion alive and physically healthy. Along with me, Dante, Amy and Leon survived, but nobody else was fortunate enough. I finally reunited with my parents and I’ve been crying the whole day, mostly tears of happiness.

At last, I felt something that I had practically forgotten, a sense of safety and a peaceful atmosphere. I feel like nothing can hurt me, nothing can get to me now. My main issue right now is just mendivi, as I’ve lost the device that can get it out. I have to keep hiding it and I’ll probably have to hide it for the rest of my life. It’s probably a stupid idea to even write it down, but my parents were never nosy, so I doubt I’ll have any problems related to that. Truth be told, even if I had the tools to remove mendivi, I have a lingering feeling that I wouldn’t be able to let myself do it.

This evening, just before I started writing this, I got a text message from Dante. He told me that his family was going back to Dallas in around two weeks, as they took Eden’s death and the entire mansion ordeal as a sign from the Gods to stop pushing their message around the world. I replied saying that if he was ever going to come back to Nidengate, that we were going to meet up, but that it’s probably the best option for him to stay away from this town. Honestly, when I met Dante, I thought that he was a freak, but as time passed, I grew to like him despite our differences in belief.

One issue I forgot about until I got home was the time. While the killing itself lasted less than a month, I was missing for over two years, meaning I turned eighteen. It’s still hard to get used to the fact that I completely lost two years of my life like that and that I’m now technically an adult. I’ll talk to my future therapist about that more in detail because I have no clue how to deal with such things.

To end today’s entry, I’ll just say that I am completely lost. I don’t know what’s going to happen next, I don’t know if everything’s over or this is just a break from all the danger. If it comes down to it, I can at least defend myself with mendivi, although I really don’t want to use it for anything except giving everyone the illusion that I have both my eyes. It’s been a long and troubling day and I cannot think or feel emotions normally, so it might be better to leave my thoughts for tomorrow. I don’t know if I’ll be able to sleep properly tonight, but considering what I went through, that is the least of my problems and I'll stop being whiney, nothing good will come from that either way. I’ll probably text Amy the first thing in the morning to see if she’s any better. I hope she’s alright.

After I finished writing the entry on that first day, I drank some tea to warm myself a bit and I went to bed. I didn’t have that much trouble falling asleep since the whole day tired me out. I shouldn’t be worrying so much. It’s over, I know that.

During the following days, funerals were the biggest events. We made an agreement to have the funerals organized on different days, so that Amy, Dante and I could attend each one. At first, we were told that there was no need for us to come and that it would be too much for us, but each of us insisted. I felt that it was my responsibility to come, to be there for them until the very end. Obviously, it was depressing and the feeling of sadness only grew worse after each grave. Leon made a brief appearance at Maya’s and Naomi’s funeral, though he didn’t say anything and instead watched from afar. After that, I didn’t see him and I also made no effort to contact him. Once the funerals were over, we decided not to see each other for a bit, simply to get away from what had happened.

And that was it. Nothing interesting happened for a while. I was able to return to a somewhat regular life, I reunited with my old friends and with the rest of my family. I attempted to catch up with my regular routine, but I couldn’t, so I followed a calmer version. I managed not to reveal mendivi and I helped everyone around me think about the tragedy less. I never talked about it much with friends and family. No amount of talking would bring back the friends and sanity that I lost, the only things I could retrieve were bad memories.

Denique, ego sum libera.