Lies & Harmony Trilogy

Chapter Six: Realization (Part 2)

     “It’s not my name,” I whisper, the truth almost in my grasp but yet still so far away. “I’m not Seven Young.” I pause. “Who am I?”

     Tabitha points at the screen like the words there will tell her every little thing she needs to know about me. “Your name is definitely not Seven,” she says, sounding a little more than smug but also happy that I’ve realized this at the same time. “In fact, your name is—”

     I don’t even give her time to finish because I know what it is. My name has always been there, lingering at the back of my mind and just waiting for me to reclaim it, but I couldn’t because the pills kept pushing them back. Now that the pills are gone, I can hear my own thoughts again and tidbits of me come flowing back easily like they must have once. The only hard part is admitting that they are true and not just false figments of my mind.

     “My name is Hope,” I say. Unlike Seven, the name manages to be even a little familiar to my lips. The sound of the word is so comforting and reminds me of the times that I used to live in. Before the hospital. A life before the hospital is a dream, a paradise; something that I never thought existed and never strived through my forgotten memories for.

     I still cannot believe that I ever lived outside the hospital. That phrase is still coated in foggy darkness and even that mist may never lift. I’m not sure if I want the mist to lift or not.

     “Yes,” Tabitha says, looking surprised that I know the answer. “That’s true.”

     I want to cry.

     I can’t cry.

     I won’t cry.

     It’s a sign of weakness. I won’t show any signs of weaknesses here. I don’t like the way that Tabitha looks at me with so much pity like I am just a fragile toy that she accidentally broke.

     I’m not just a fragile toy. I’m stronger than that. Stronger.

     “Your family consisted of your mother and father,” Tabitha continues, looking away from me, giving me time away from her scrutiny. “Your mother, sadly, was caught and terminated.” She winces and gives me a worried look, but I don’t feel anything stir inside of me. Maybe it’s because I’ve never met my mother or maybe because the memories haven’t come back in full yet.

     “Your father, on the other hand, is still alive.”

     “I don’t have a father,” I say, but this denial is weak, and she completely ignores it.

     “This is where we found out about the twenty-third sector. It’s a prison for the grand traitors and anyone who displeases the governor.” Her face scrunches up in a scowl. “They’re keeping your father there and according to the information we have, he was not executed—for his technological skills. He’s making use while he rots in his prison,” she says bitterly.

     Prison. My father is in prison. The phrase is so odd that I almost laugh out loud, but I stop myself from it. I’ve never known my father or at least that is true according to my memory. When I think about that word, nothing comes up except for the father in the storybook my friend owned. He abandoned Cinders. Just like my father abandoned me. Do I even want to see him again?

     “What we are to do now is find him,” she informs us. “Your father was an important figure a long time ago.” Her eyes get a faraway look, but they disappear sooner than they have come. “And his skills will be useful for us.”

     “Useful how?” I ask her, wanting to know the answer. I want to see my father but the larger part of me does not. I don’t know him and seeing him will just cut open wounds that I never knew I had. It would be like throwing me at a stranger and telling me that he is related to me in every way possible.