Czarina
My eyes flew open.
Dang it, I'm still alive, I thought as I found myself staring at a familiar ceiling, trying to process where I was.
HQ? No, it didn't seem like it.
My apartment? It could have been, if the room wasn't so big.
And it surely wasn't the hospital, considering how dim the lights were.
I sat up straight, oddly feeling very small as I checked my body for any signs of bruises and wounds.
Surprisingly, I didn't find any, which was weird considering how much I expected to be covered with several wounds, especially on my arms and legs. But other than the fact I felt smaller and thinner, my entire body seemed fine. Looking about myself, the room where I was became even more familiar as I caught eye of the neatly arranged desk at the corner, with bookshelves lined with countless books, most I came to recognize, and the expensive looking lamp settled on the night table.
All of this weren't just familiar anymore — I've been here before.
Just as I was about to get out of the bed, I happened to catch my reflection in the mirror and I was shocked the moment I saw my face— or rather what used to be mine.
Gone were the fading streaks of purple dyed hair, and now went back the original brown, wavy hair I used to have. My face was completely rid of any pimples, my cheeks weren't rough in texture anymore, and instead were rosy and smooth, and my thin lips that were just as pink, were no longer dried and cracked from all the all nighters I pulled.
But what remained entirely the same were my eyes: the same deep blue I always found myself fascinated with. The way my deepset sockets contoured my nose, making my features look even more defined. I looked exactly like I did when I was young.
But those thoughts were quickly replaced by my worries the moment I stood up and got up to my full height. I was…short?!
This wasn't right. What the heck is going on? I started pacing back and forth across the room, deep in thought, when I suddenly noticed the picture frame on the desk and came to a halt as I realized I knew where I was: My childhood home, somewhere I had vowed to never return to.
But why?
How come I was here?
My mind flooded with questions I couldn't find answers to.
But the weirdest part was how I failed to recognize the place I was both born and raised in— which should've been something left somewhere in my core memory, shouldn't it?
But looking back on my childhood, mostly made up of the awful memories I had growing up, it would make sense why I've forgotten what should've been considered something "important".
Those memories weren't even worth remembering.
Looking at our family picture, I eyed myself smiling happily as my father carried me in his arms with my mother standing cheerfully on his side and my twin brother and sister standing on the other, joyful expressions plastered on their almost identical faces.
As disgusted I was at the idea, I admit we perfectly portrayed the facade of such a wonderful, happy and loving family. I scoffed, annoyed at the thought, and flipped the frame upside down. But just as I started to notice the sizzling, crackling sounds somewhere from outside of the room, I caught sight of a familiar notebook, the kind they used as diaries, spread open on the desk, alongside a few crumpled pieces of paper.
It was a diary—my diary! I instantly recognized it, what with my legible, consistent handwriting scribbled all over it.
But something just wasn't right.
Everything did.
I remember burning that notebook out of frustration the week before my supposed junior year in high school. I was frustrated at the fact my parents wouldn't let me attend an actual school even after being homeschooled my whole life for years on end.
Although I was still young, I felt greatly depressed at the time, what with being stuck at home and having to deal with the loneliness surrounding me. My siblings, who were 10 years older than me, was barely around, including my parents.
Working for the same secret agency had them going on missions from across the nation, and, often times, across the world. But that didn't make me completely alone, though.
I grew up in a duplex house, which composed of to two families: mine and the Preston's. They also worked for the same agency as my parents, particularly the CIA, making their lives just as busy as my family's.
Whenever our parents were away, it would be just me and their two sons, Kade, who was my age, and his older brother Kevin, who was a few years older than us. So technically, I wasn't entirely alone. But being the only one who couldn't go to school made me feel very left out. Since both Kade and Kevin would be out to school, the one thing I did to keep myself company was writing.
It became a habit I did no matter what I was feeling, especially when I was alone. And as someone who couldn't do much, what I usually wrote about was stories of how I'd want to live my life if I were allowed to live my childish fantasies growing up. It was like creating my own world from just the tip of my pen, making reality feel nothing more than a distant nightmare.
But that everyday routine of mine ended nearing the end of summer when I was 12. My parents suddenly came home without notice one day to find me so absorbed in my writing that they could tell right away I wasn't doing my summer class homework.
Kade and Kevin weren't around at the time, so it was just me and my parents when they started scolding me for getting "distracted" from my studies, which later on turned into a huge argument I expected to lose.
No matter how much I convinced them that I wasn't distracted, that it was just something I did to keep myself entertained, they'd always cut me off, claiming writing all my nonsense wouldn't be of any help to my future and so many other things I couldn't bring myself to care about.
Our fight briefly ended, leaving me full of frustration and anger as they told me to quit focusing on my useless hobbies, and try to focus on the more important things, which really shattered my pride, because I actually considered writing as important.
But as the controlling parents were, they refused to listen to my side, since their minds were already set on the future they had planned out for me— the future I had no say in, the future that they wanted. I hated how my life didn't at all seem to be mine.
But there was nothing much I could do about it. I had no choice. So as a way of accepting it all, I burnt everything I had written, including my diary where I wrote the story I worked so hard to start and was already halfway finished with. But as I watched each page dissolve into ashes, I realized how pointless all my efforts were. I was able to move on from that incident, sooner or later. My dreams of being a successful writer were easily forgotten as the years passed.
I started working on the career my parents chose for me and which I had no choice but to accept, as I always had.
No complaints.
No more arguments. And fast-forward to a few years of non-stop training and dozens of classes, I became one of the youngest hackers in the CIA at the age of 19. And of course, my parents were more than proud as I reached another milestone in their plans.
But as for what I felt? I wasn't at all sure, knowing each step I took on this journey called life, my direction remained uncertain. My past was a trail of unfulfilled dreams and broken promises and looking back, I admit there have been many regretful decisions I have made before.
One of which would always include the time I destroyed my diary. That's why seeing it again right now makes me feel somehow overwhelmed as I reminisce about the memories of the past. And as I did, a thought slowly fought its way inside my head: how? I flipped through the pages of the book and to my surprise, it looked exactly like it did before I burned it. Nothing had changed. What the heck is actually happening? I suddenly looked more than a decade younger, I was back in my childhood hometown, and now I find something that shouldn't even exist anymore.
As I searched my thoughts for possible explanations—answers!— that would suffice my panic as countless questions filled my head, I suddenly heard footsteps from outside the door. And within seconds, the door flew open and in came my mom! She was still in her apron, with both her gloves on, holding a spatula. She folded her arms, piercing me a stern look with the same pair of blue I had.
"Your early," she said, trying to hide the surprise in her voice. Her eyes shifted to my open diary and then back at me.
I felt my heart beat faster. Horror surged through my veins as I thought of the terrible ways of how she might react. But to my disbelief, she took the book and calmly examined it.
"Mo—" I began.
"You've written a lot since you've started," she said, flipping through the pages with unsaid satisfaction.
I was speechless for a moment.
Was I hearing her right?
I carefully watched her for any signs of anger, dissatisfaction or disappointment I could find in her voice. Luckily, I unexpectedly found none as she placed the notebook back on the desk and walked out of the door, her voice trailing behind her as she said, "Come down and help me with the table, will you?"
Still trying to recover from my shock, I obediently walked behind her with doubts about whether this was all just a dream surging through my thoughts. I followed her through the familiar hallways, the exact same doors and corridors and the very same staircase that curved down the first floor, where the dining room was. If I was happy about anything, it would be about the fact that not much had changed since I last came here.
Once I reached the dining room, I found my father already seated on the table. He was going through a bunch of papers as he stole a glance at me before clearing his throat, a gesture of his I knew too well: he was on the verge of wanting to say something important to me but was trying to find the right timing to do so.