Revealed

Chapter 3 -- Ophelia [End.. or so I think?]

“Why, thank you, Miss Lolita,” I grinned at her.

Her lips pulled back in irritation and she raised her arm to whip me again. I glared at her, waiting for the pain. Showing her that I’m not afraid.

“Marionette, stop that.”

My head snapped at the direction of the window and I saw Orfeo coming down from the sill. He was all bloody but I have this intuition that the blood wasn’t his. I silently searched for wounds but I didn’t see any. I started to feel relieved but when my gaze landed on his eyes, I took an involuntary gulp. They were void again. And so… menacing.

“Hi brother!” Marionette smiled up at him, but I noticed that she hasn’t let go of her whip and it was dangling freely behind her.

Orfeo glanced at me then back at Marionette. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Oh, I was planning on helping you finish your job. You know? The crazy one? So here, I’m going to dispatch this distraction.”

“Did I ask you to do that?”

“Well… no, but it’s nice for me to take the initiative, right?” As she stated that, she walked towards me –still smiling—and raised her arm to whip me. From the delight in her face, I can tell that this is going to be the last whipping I’ll get.

The next thing that happened surprised me—no, it awed me. Orfeo slashed Marionette’s whip so it wouldn’t land on me. I watched as Marionette shed that childish façade and her face became expressionless.

“Just as I thought,” she said then produced another whip and flung it to Orfeo. At first I thought she was aiming for his face but she jerked the whip at the last moment so it took hold of his scythe and then she jerked it again and the scythe tumbled on my other side and the whip went back to Orfeo, catching him in the face. Orfeo stumbled to the floor and I realized in horror that the whip contained poison. The blood from his face and his clothes is so visible to me now. The stink was so strong that I have to force myself not to gag and puke.

Red. All I can see is Red.

“You’re not as sharp as you were before, Brother.” Marionette started to walk towards me as she stretched her whip. “As for you…”

Out of nowhere, I giggle escaped my mouth and then to a laugh. The pitch went higher and higher until it was eerily close to something hysterical.

“What’s so funny?”

I had to calm myself before I can answer. “You’re all so dumb!” After I said that, the laughter continued again. I started to cut the ties that bounded me with Orfeo’s scythe that lay beside me. After a minute, I’m finally free. I stood up shakily, grasping Orfeo’s scythe in my hand.

“Dumb?” Marionette asked, amused.

“Yes…”

Suddenly, anger spread throughout my body. I can feel myself shaking; with the hysterics and the anger. It was like I am me yet I am not. The anger wasn’t mine, the hysterics weren’t mine. But… it is mine. Unconsciously, I – No. Ophelia smiled and looked at Marionette with drunk eyes.

Ophelia giggled again but this time it sounded like I—she—was in a trance.

“How so?” Marionette asked again.

Giggling, Ophelia took a shaky step towards Marionette.

“I was right here all along.”

“I can’t stand it!” A voice is saying. It’s that woman’s voice again. I really like it. But why does she sound so angry? I look up at her and smile. She smiles back. She pats my head and rocks me. I like it.

“I won’t let anyone order you like that again, okay?” She says to me. “I love you, honey.”

“I love you too… Mommy.” I reply.

I wake up. No, I’m not yet awake. I’m still on the verge of my consciousness, aware but not awake. Mommy? Who was that? I don’t even recognize her face!

I was still trying to remember every details but a memory came to me again.

It was a rainy night, and there was a person in the house, a burglar? A robber?

My father tried to talk to him. The person raised his arm and brought it down forcefully, he was holding something very long. Something deadly.

My mother’s face was filled with tears. She tried to talk to the person too. The person did the same with her.

The person was laughing as he continued to swing his arms, along with the deadly item.

Then the person looked at me.

The person raised his arms and in his hands, he held a long thin pole with a curved blade in the end.

There was a flash of lightning.

I watched as the blade gleamed and how that gleam immediately disappeared when he brought down his arm.

There was another flash of lightning and I saw the face of the killer.

Oh my God. This is not true.

The shock brought me all the way to my full senses. The first thing I felt was uncontrollable trembles. I looked down my hands, still gripping the scythe, and a terrible nausea went through me. I was covered in blood. First, I thought I was dying but when I glanced at Orfeo –who was looking at me wide-eyed and, for the first time since I saw him, trembling– and finally in front of me, I found that I was dead wrong. There lay, covered in blood, the lifeless body of Marionette. The hands and feet dismembered from her body, one of her eyes was plucked out, leaving a bloody socket in its place. Her chest has a long slash, from her left shoulder to her right waist.

A second later, I realized in horror that I was laughing.

Right there, on that realization, every hazy memory came back clear to me.

The person wasn’t a he; the person was a she.

And that person, the very one who killed my own parents—my foster parents-- , was me.