***

Days passed with him canceling all his plans, spending his days in his room simply training while losing himself in the process.

His mind turned colder due to the hatred he felt towards Lyra's organization running deep in his bones.

It disregarded anything else, as his thought process changed entirely.

Although these changes were not the result the organization wanted, they still benefited them.

And while Emir still felt unimaginable rage towards them, he was also thankful.

Yes, it was a stark contradiction, yet he still felt that way.

Since he didn't want to keep living a lie, a life filled with dishonesty, and they at the least helped him with that.

So even though everything was now ruined, this was his first step at being true to himself, even if it meant losing everything else.

And for that, he felt...

Grateful.

During that time when he trained, his family didn't speak to him, and he didn't speak to them.

He and Laura just ate in silence when Lily wasn't around.

It was like they were all walking on eggshells, afraid of what might transpire if they talked about what had happened.

But one day while training, he heard a knock on the door.

It was Lily, standing outside his room with a hesitant look on her face.

"Can we talk?" She asked softly, and Emir nodded, silently inviting her in.

She sat down next to him on the bed, and they remained silent for a few moments.

Minutes later, she began to speak.

"I don't know what to do," she said, her emotions raw.

"I don't know how to process all of this."

"How to come to terms with the fact that my brother is not my brother but a man who died and was brought back to life in his body."

Lily chuckled softly.

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

"Even saying it makes me feel like it's a long-winded and stupid joke, it all just sounds too surreal."

Her words hung in the air, heavy with sorrow, confusion, and disbelief.

The weight of the situation was evident in her trembling voice and tear-filled eyes.

Emir saw the turmoil within her, grappling with the enormity of the revelation he had shared.

He reached out to her, wanting to offer comfort, but was unsure of what to say or do.

"I'm sorry."

Emir said simply.

"I know that this is hard for you to take in, and I wish that I could make it go away but I'm stumped as much as you are."

"I know that," she said, looking at him with a mix of sadness and anger.

"But sorry doesn't fix everything. It doesn't fix the fact that you kept lying to us, that you pretended to be someone that you're not."

Emir sighed.

"I get that, but you must understand..."

"I knew that me telling you both all of this would result in this mess, but I still did so, I was forced to do so."

"They wanted to put a wrench between me and both of you, but I'm still thankful, otherwise we would've simply stayed in limbo, never moving forward."

"I wish that this never happened and that I could have prevented it from happening, but I can't."

"I was just caught in the crossfire of things that I have yet to fathom."

"So now, all I can do is try to make things right, to be honest..."

"To be there for you and Laura, to show you that I am still the same person that you knew."

"They? Are they at fault? But what they did doesn't matter now, all of it doesn't matter, you're not the same person, that can't change," Lily said, her voice shaking.

"To us, you're Asher now, not Emir."

"You have memories and experiences that Emir would have never had."

"How can we ever trust that you won't lie to us again?"

"I get that it was out of your control, but it still hurts to know that my brother has kept lying to me since the day he was born."

"I don't know," Emir admitted, feeling a sense of hopelessness.

"But I want to try."

"I'm down to do whatever it takes to earn back your trust, to show you that I am still the same person that you've always known."

There was a long moment of silence as they both sat there, lost in their thoughts.

Then Lily spoke up again:

"I don't know how we can move on from this, but I do know that I want to try."

"I want to understand what happened to you, and figure out how we can move forward."

"I want that too," Emir said, feeling a glimmer of hope in his heart.

Interrupting them, Laura, who had been standing near the door, walked into the room.

"I heard you guys talk."

"And I've been thinking," she continued, sitting down on the bed next to Emir and Lily.

"About what you told us, about being someone else, I have to admit, it's hard to believe, and I still can't wrap my head around it."

"I always felt that there was something off about you, your eyes always held signs of unnatural intelligence..."

"The way you talked wasn't how a child would speak, no matter how intelligent that child is, even taking the nanobot enhancement into account."

"But I just chalked it up to you being a genius of sorts."

"However, in the back of my mind, I knew there was something more to it..."

"Though never in my life would I have expected this."

Emir looked at her, unsure of what to say.

"I'll understand if you don't want to have anything to do with me anymore."

"It's not that simple," she said, shaking her head.

"You may not be the Emir that would've been today, but you're still a part of our lives, whether we like it or not."

"And I want to know more about you, about who you were before, about what happened to you."

He felt that glimmer of hope rise.

Maybe, just maybe, he could rebuild the trust that he had broken.

"I'll tell you everything I can remember," Emir said, taking a deep breath.

"But it's not much."