FrAcTuReD (Part One) (Completed continued in Part Two)

Chapter. 15

Charla didn't speak, instead she stood up and turned around and lifted her hair away from the back of her neck to reveal a jagged looking scare. It looked to start right were her head and neck connected and seemed to almost spread out like a star or gnarled old tree roots; it even affected some of her hairline as well. It looked gruesome to say the least.

"It's a miracle she's alive." Alex frowned as Charla kept her back to her with her hands still holding up her hair. "That's the first thing I can really remember after it happened. It was a doctor I believe who said those words to my father. But by then I was in the hospital and my brother..." her head turned to look at the photo of her and her brother smiling happily. "He was long since dead. I don't remember much when the accident happened, doctors accumulated it too amnesia from shock, they said I most likely wouldn't remember it ether." Her hands fell to her sides like they were dead. "I'm not sure what was worse, not being able to remember my brother's final moments, or recall that horrible moment of impending death, trapped in a car with no sign of escape..."

Charla turned to look at Alex who seemed to be sitting in mute shock.

"My brother saved my life that day," she continued. "If it wasn't for him, I think both of us would be dead. But he couldn't stop this." she said pointing to her neck. "After constantly looking me over they say I would make a clean bill of health, that other than leaving a scare I would be okay." She scoffed. "As if that were even true..."

"So the blackouts..."

"Started two years after, blood had pooled in my skull from the incident. It was slow, causing pressure along the back of my brain, the doctors had surgery done to fix it, and said that I shouldn't have it happen again but... they kept happening. I rarely get blackouts as you know, mainly due to stress but I would start wandering around at night. My father was worried. Doctors upon doctors looked at me but couldn't really accumulate an answer, even after studying me when I had one of those blackouts nothing changed. I was normal to them, but even then I knew something was wrong, wrong with me. Even with everyone saying otherwise..."

Then Alex saw something, the look on Charla's face looked dead, mainly that of her eyes, it was as if the light was completely gone from them like a candle that had burned out.

"She'll be fine, she's okay now, nothing will be wrong everything is okay. It's okay, everything is okay, you'll be okay... you are okay. Over and over that was all I heard from those doctors, like an endless record. So I did the only real logical choice in that moment, I gave up and moved on from it since I knew I would never get the answers I sought. But then who would listen to a child who was only twelve?"

Charla looked to Alex and the woman actually flinched, but Charla merely closed her eyes and sighed, when her eyes opened again the light returned to her eyes as she sat back down on the edge of the bed.

"I'm sorry; I think we're getting off topic, what else did you want to ask?"

Alex slowly relaxed and only then realized the grip that she suddenly had on the loveseat, her nails had dug into the leather, that feeling that Charla had mere moments ago had truly scared her, anger and rage that seemed to go on forever in an endless black void. Compared to the loss of her mother, Alex felt like her experiences with doctors were rather small in comparison.

"Well, when you say it like that... so," Alex looked at her with slight narrow eyes. "Who was it that I spoke to on that night?"

Charla visibly stilled.

"It's not just you is it?"

She shook her head slowly.

"So it's true then, you... you have another personality inside of you."