Lockdown Memory

Chapter Ten, Part Two: Lockdown Memory (Final Chapter)

His vision stops swimming and now he stands in a dark room by the window, but he doesn’t see his own shadow against the moonlight. Of course. He is but a translucent body wandering through Eva’s past memories which are only in the guise of a dream.

His eyes scan the room and he finds Eva curled up in her thick quilt, weeping silently. He stares at her in pity, helplessness filling him up again. She shifts in her bed and he notices she wasn’t clad under that cover. He steps back instinctively, for he wasn’t particularly expecting to end up in a place where there is an undressed girl with him in the same room. He notices scars and bruises marring her neck and arms too, and it makes him feel rage towards her abusive parents again.

“Eva…” Arthur blinks in surprise, not realizing there was someone else present. He glances at the end of the bed to see Evancene looking solemnly towards her counterpart. She continues, “Please look at me.”

Eva doesn’t. She stays still in her position on the bed and Evancene sighs dejectedly.

“I’ve been seeing what’s happening lately,” She walks to the side of the bed nearest to Arthur and sits, placing her hand on Eva’s trembling shoulder. “Eva, please let me help you.”

Eva turns to her and she wraps her arms around the other’s neck in a fierce hug, sobs wracking her chest loudly accompanied with winded gasps. Evancene brushes her hands through Eva’s hair, soothing her with hushed assurances and melodic lullabies, her message sent firm and clear.

I’m here, no one will hurt you. Not anymore, I promise.

Both of them flinch and also Arthur when the door swings open and bangs against the wall. Her father lounges at Eva and grabs her in the arm forcefully, which surely will add to the bruises she has already. Evancene looks in horror and Arthur does as well, because this is the only time he ever saw Evancene have an expression like this. Just like Arthur did earlier, Evancene tries to stop the man from abusing her daughter any further, but to no avail. Eva screams and struggles against the body atop hers and stops when he threatens, “hold still or I’ll kill you.” At this, Evancene breathes in mouthfuls of air and whispers in Eva’s mind, close your eyes and let the darkness protect you, let me take care of this- let me take care of you.

Arthur knows what Evancene means, and he continues to watch as she finally takes over Eva’s mind and body. Evancene grabs the vase on top of the side table beside Eva’s bed and smashes it against the man’s head, effectively knocking him out. She rushes over to the telephone to call the police, shielding her naked body with any available cover she finds. She goes out of the room with a stumble, and she finds her mother standing behind the door with another man. Her mother sees her husband’s limp body on Eva’s bed and looks at her daughter in rage.

“What the hell did you do?!”, she shouts, and Evancene backpedals back into the room fast, as her mother raises a hand to slap her face, but she digs a knife into her that was lying beside the bed. The loud siren of the police freezes all people present in the vicinity and Evancene sucks in a breath in relief- and alarm.

Eva’s parents are gone and in time, she ends up getting taken in by an organization for her dissociative disorder and apparent violence. Nobody understood everything that had been going on in Eva’s life, so she had always been trapped in the organization’s hands with the belief that she is dangerous for most of her late teenage life.

Not until Arthur.

And he is speechless, his mouth occasionally opening and closing at the huge fatality that passed Eva’s life at such an early age. Evancene fills in his silence. “I never meant to keep Eva from the dark,”

She lowers her head. “I also didn’t mean the hurtful words and deeds I have done to her. Please tell her I’m sorry, I really am.”

Arthur nods at her, regarding her with a stare silently.

“W-Why did you have to keep her memories from her if it was this way?”

“She hated me for killing her parents,” Evancene glances at him and sighs. “She loved them even though they treated her like-…like an animal.” Red grows in her eyes with hate. “I wanted to erase it, everything, but it will affect her other memories,” Her eyes turn back into its usual violet color. “Her memories with me.”

“I showed you all these memories that she will also remember in time. Until then,” Evancene walks toward Arthur and gazes into his eyes. “Please take care of her, in my place.”

Arthur says his confirmation with a firm yes, and that he would. “Will I- will we see you again?”

Evancene smiles at him and walks away, fading into the whitewashed atmosphere of Eva’s mind.

Maybe, maybe not.

“Arthur…?” Eva wakes up in a haze, eyes looking for him and Evancene. Arthur comes to her aid and rests her upper body on his lap, in his arms. “Where is she? Where’s Evancene…?”

“Don’t worry, Eva. She’s fine,” He smiles at her gently as he brings his face closer to Eva’s. Their foreheads touch and their forms slowly fade with small, white flakes.

“Evancene says sorry for everything she’d done, and I wanted to say that I… I love you.”

Eva smiles back at him, her eyes forming crescents. “I forgave her a long time ago,” Tears slip from the corner of her eyes.

“And, I love you too.”