It was four am, three more hours before light breaks the dark. In the quiet of the morning, Rebecca woke up from a restless, dreamless sleep. She found it funny to wake with no recollection of anything; no memories to anchor her first few thoughts as she opened her eyes and glared at the ceiling.
For a long while, she laid still; listening to her own breathing, feeling her steady heart beat as she tried to figure out what was going on. She started remembering things that happened last night; waking up in a swamp, the agony of her body coming back to life, the scary man behind the weird bonfire, the lady with superpowers, and passing out. That was all of it.
Except another thing crawled up from the back of her mind. She somehow knew she was Rebecca, and not Lilian, like what the strange people called her. Who is Lilian? She wondered. More importantly, who am I, really?
She moved her body in gentle motions, afraid it might hurt so powerfully like it did before. While her back was still lying flat on the mattress, she raised her hands in front of her face and observed them. They were small and smooth and fair, and they were shaking a little. They looked alright, but something was amiss. Convinced she wouldn't hurt anymore, she gently pushed her elbows against the bed and lifted her torso to better see the rest of her body. The thick robes covered her completely, though, and only her toes peeked from beyond the hem. Mud and dirt stuck to them, soiling the white linen bed sheet as she wriggled her feet.
In the dim of the wee hours, the apartment seemed more spacious to her than it really is. Its simple, humble furniture layout, bearing only the essentials, made her feel calm and welcomed. She cant quite put a finger as to why this place gave her feelings of comfort and safety; two things she seemed to have not felt in a long time. She wondered how that could be.
"Hmm..." a gentle sigh came from beside the bed. Curious, Rebecca quietly rolled to one side and peeked over the edge. She saw the lady from last night, lying on her side, in deep slumber. Sometime through the night, Lucille decided her bed was too small to fit both of them, so she just took a pillow and made herself comfortable on the floor. As Rebecca stared at her, she thought about how beautiful this lady was. With her long, flowing locks spread on the pillow and her hands tucked close to her chest, she looked quite serene. Rebecca almost reached out to see if her skin was as soft as it seemed.
Who exactly was this woman was and why did she rescue her? Rebecca recalled the man calling her Lucille and that she referred to herself as her mother. Or was it that she was Lilian's mother? It hurt Rebecca's head to think.
Slowly, she rose to her feet, careful not to wake Lucille up with her movements. She wasn't afraid of disturbing her sleep. She found herself more frightened that Lucille would talk to her and she would not know what, or how to answer. From across the room, she saw a door that looked like it lead to a bathroom. With the gaping blanks in her mind, it made absolutely no sense how she knew what a bathroom door looked like or what bathrooms are used for, but her gut told her she could clean herself up in there.
She let her legs take her to it, small pieces of caked earth drizzled to the floor and trailed behind her every step. Inside the bathroom, she reluctantly dropped the robes to the cold, tiled floor and felt the necklace looped around her neck with her fingers. She didn't want to take it off so she kept it strapped as she stepped inside the shower. She wondered if she ever saw a shower before and surprised herself when her hands knew exactly how to turn the water on.
The first splash of water hit her senses with the intensity of an ocean's wave. She closed her eyes and let the cool flow of water run all over her. I am Rebecca, her inner voice told her. I am sixteen and I can do this, the voice continued.
She stepped back a little so she could breathe. The cool water gradually warmed up until it became uncomfortably hot, Rebecca had to adjust it to the cold side a bit. Beneath her, the muddy brown water circled the drain and for a moment, Rebecca got fixated on its steady spiral. When the waste water cleared, she took the soap from the dish and went on to scrub herself clean.
As the dirt and debris washed off of her, a sense of identity unclogged from her mind as well. She ran her hands along her narrow shoulders, so unlike the broader frame she had been used to. She cupped her breasts with both palms and noted how small and flat they were. It was like they were still growing and haven't filled up to their potential yet. Her hips were similarly small and immature and her skinny legs stretched smooth and long towards a slender pair of feet.
She was certain this was Lilian's body, not hers and she felt a bit scandalized at the thought that she was seeing and touching it. Then she felt a little crazy, because what if she was wrong? What if she really was Lilian and this was just an extreme schizophrenic episode? She must be going insane.
If she was indeed going mad, that would perfectly justify the things that happened, because how else can anyone explain flying balls of electricity, or an exploding man turning into something skeletal and not die? She shuddered with the memory of the terrifying man and forced herself to forget it. She turned off the water and wrapped herself with a towel she found hanging on the rack. Her long, brown hair clung to her back as she stepped out of the shower.
Rebecca stood in front of the mirror, taking time not to wipe the moisture obscuring her reflection. She was apprehensive, unsure if she wanted to see how Lilian looked like. She still doesn't have a clear sense of what she looked like as Rebecca, but what if the girl who owned the body she was now trapped in looked horrible? She shook the silly thought from her head and felt shameful for judging a girl she hasn't even seen yet. Heaving a sigh, Rebecca swept the back of her hand against the smooth surface of the glass, revealing a beautiful girl staring back at her.
She was young, perhaps thirteen or fourteen, which explains why her body felt and looked juvenile. Rebecca touched her forehead, stretched her lips and pinched her cheeks. This face is definitely not hers. Her jaws fell sharp, coming together in a small chin. Her cheekbones were high and pronounced, and for a moment, it reminded her of the man from last night. Could he really be her father? And then Rebecca took notice of her eyes.
They were hazel, in the hue almost similar to Lucille's. But they didn't look tired, not like they have cried an ocean of tears, not like they have seen a mountain of terror. Lilian's eyes had innocence. It had whim and curiosity akin to a playful fawn. And somewhere in there, Rebecca found wisdom.
Rebecca shut her eyes and willed herself to remember. If she was certain she was not the girl now staring back in the mirror, who was she? What did she really look like?
In her mind's eye she saw herself as Rebecca. She was a bit older than Lilian, sixteen, like her inner voice suggested earlier. Her face was round and her smile was warm and welcoming. Strokes delineated the sides of her mouth, laughlines that enclosed her lovely puckers in a gentle parenthesis. Her eyes were rounder and in a darker shade of brown. She had freckles but she hid them from the world with make-up, the same way she hid her insecurities with jokes and sarcasm. She had a small scar on the left side of her forehead, brought about when she kicked a soccer ball too hard and fell on her face in 6th grade. They won that match so she considered it a battle scar instead, a permanent mark of victory. She never had to hide that one imperfection to the world.
Rebecca opened her eyes and searched for this particular scar, but there wasn't any. She rested her hands on the glass and almost pressed her face against the glass. All she saw was Lilian's silky skin and the fine, almost invisible, hairs that covered it. She gazed at her reflection too intently that both her palms were now exerting pressure, numbing her palms. She pulled her hands back, leaving prints on opposite ends of the mirror. Palm sized disturbances to the evenly spread moisture fogging up the glass.
Without thinking, she started to write over the right palm print with her forefinger.
L I L -, she managed to write. But she was unsure if Lilian's name was spelled with a single or a double "L" halfway through. She tossed the idea and went to write on the other palm print.
R E B E C C A
She wrote legibly and without skipping a heartbeat.
"Who are you?" She muttered under her breath.
She hovered a hand over the name, gradually closing in on it until the skin on her palms brushed against the glass' surface. That's when she discovered Lilian was clairvoyant.
It was like being in a dream without being asleep. She found herself sitting on the driver side of their family car. She remembered. She was driving along a wide road on a gloomy afternoon. The sky was gray and it told her it would start raining hard anytime soon. Rebecca wanted to look around her, to see her surroundings and learn more about herself but she had no control over the events unfolding around her. She seemed to be just an observer.
The traffic light ahead went yellow and then red. She halted just before the pedestrian line and the rain started to unleash its wrath to the dry, thirsty ground. Rebecca tried to control her movements in the vision again and when her fingers twitched at her command, she quickly willed it to reach for the rearview mirror and adjusted it to show her face.
She recognized herself. She had the cheeks, the lips, the eyes that she knew was hers. The mirror showed her brown curls framing her round face. It also showed the scar on her forehead and it sealed the deal for her. She truly wasn't Lilian. She was Rebecca.
Becoming too preoccupied with her reflection, she haplessly stepped on the accelerator even though the lights haven't changed yet. She sent the car forward through the rain and when she realized her mistake, it was too late. A huge cargo truck was rapidly approaching, its angry horn thundering and deafening her ears. She heard its breaks screeching against the drenched pavement but it didn't halt. All Rebecca saw next was it's blinding headlight filling her vision and taking her back to the present.
"Aaahhh!" Her blood curling scream echoed in the tiled walls of the bathroom.
"Aaahhh!" she let out another scream as her legs gave way, making her crash miserably to the floor. A trickle of blood dripped from her nostrils, making her freak out even more. "No! Oh my god, no!" she cried as she furiously tried to wipe the blood off with her bare hands.
"Lilian!"
Rebecca looked up to see Lucille crashing through the door with a powerful blow of light.
"Goddess! What happened!?" She immediately crouched and reached out to wrap the helpless girl in her arms but Rebecca jerked back.
"No! I'm not Lilian!" Rebecca screamed and swatted Lucille away. "I'm not your daughter, I don't know who you are!" Now she was crying.
"What are you talking about? It's me!" Lucille tried to reach out again but the hurt and anger, and terror, in the girl's face made it clear that she didn't want to be approached.
"Go away! I don't know you! Don't come near me!" Rebecca shouted.
Lucille almost panicked with the things she was hearing and the bloody mess she was seeing, but despite of this, she kept herself calm and collected. There were threats much worse than this so she shouldn't lose her head. She took two hand towels from the cupboard under the sink and let cold water run over them. She wrung them and held them out to Rebecca.
"Here," she kept her distance, like a lion tamer approaching a wild beast, "Put one towel over your face to cool yourself down, it will stop the bleeding. Use the other one to clean yourself up." Slowly, she made her way to close the distance between them.
Rebecca just stared back sobbing, not screaming this time. The sight and feel of blood gushing from her nose made her feel sick, almost enough to make her pass out. She held Lucille's gaze with unfounded indignation as the woman came closer. When the cool, damp towel touched her face, the sensation of the blood flow halting was instantaneous and so relieving, she didn't resist. She closed her eyes and let Lucille wipe off the blood from her skin.
She felt suddenly light, like she was being carried by the wind. She opened her eyes and saw that she was hovering a few inches from the floor, the edges of her bloodied bath towel dangling beneath her. She froze up and was about to freak out again when Lucille spoke.
"Relax." Lucille outstretched her arms, levitating Rebecca gently up and out of the bathroom. "You might not remember me, but I beg you to trust me. I'm just gonna take you outside to get dressed, okay? I'm not going to hurt you."
A/N
Apologies for the late update. Last weekend was halloween and two of my godchildren were in town. We went to Universal Studios and SG's Garden Conservatories!
If you're ever in Singapore, you should definitely add that to your places to go to. Also send me a PM if you wanna hang, I'd be thrilled to show you around! :)
xoxo
-bentham