The luxury car, despite its cavernous interior, became a battleground of personal space. Everly and Sylas, perched on opposite ends of the plush back seat, clung to their respective corners as if the other were a highly contagious pathogen. Zack, observing his twin niece and nephew, merely shook his head, a faint smile playing on his lips. Their shared stubbornness and fiery temperaments were undeniable; it was no wonder they'd been at each other's throats since their reunion barely an hour ago.
Everly watched through the tinted window as the orphanage faded into the distance, a sea of waving hands bidding her farewell. All except Olivia. Instead of waving from the Everly's side of the car, Olivia had sprinted alongside the car as it began to pull away, heading straight for Sylas's window.
Just before the car cleared the gates, she rapped sharply on the glass, leaving Sylas utterly bewildered by her sudden, frantic appearance. He lowered the window, a flicker of annoyance crossing his handsome features. That flicker turned into a full-blown inferno as Olivia, with a triumphant smirk, raised both middle fingers directly at him before turning tail and sprinting away, a blur of righteous indignation. It was her artistic interpretation of payback for his earlier verbal assault and the swift, brutal demolition of her one-second crush.
Sylas roared, his head snapping out the window, straining to catch a glimpse of the fleeing girl, but the car was already picking up speed, leaving the orphanage and its rebellious residents far behind. He slammed the window shut, turning to Everly with a face contorted in fury.
"Your friend is just as unhinged as you are!" he snarled, his voice tight with indignation. "Utterly insolent and completely devoid of ethics! What kind of barbarian flips off someone they don't even know? No wonder you turned out this way!"
Everly snorted, then let out a genuine, booming laugh, a sound that surprised even herself. Olivia's audacious middle-finger salute had been a masterpiece, a symphony of spite. Though Everly suspected there was a deeper, more personal sting in Olivia's gesture, beyond just defending Everly's honor, she savored the moment. She simply rolled her eyes at Sylas's outrage.
"Don't you think you deserved that?" she quipped, a mischievous glint in her eyes.
Sylas recoiled as if struck. "You shameless girl! When we get back, I'll have Dad enroll you in some serious etiquette classes. Though, honestly, I doubt it'll do any good. You're clearly a barbarian, utterly devoid of manners... but then, what can one expect without proper parental upbringing?"
"SYLAS, ENOUGH!!!"
Zack's voice, a thunderclap in the confined space of the luxury car, made the driver visibly flinch, nearly sending them into a ditch. Everly, who had been seconds away from delivering well-deserved punch to Sylas's smug face, froze. Zack's unexpected outburst managed to douse some of her fiery temper, though her hands remained clenched, itching for a fight.
"Apologize to your sister! This situation is not her fault! You should understand that!"
Zack's glare was sharp enough to cut glass, but Sylas merely scoffed, turning his head to stare out the back window, feigning disinterest. Knowing his nephew's legendary stubbornness, Zack decided to shift his focus to comforting his newly found niece.
"Everly... I'm so sorry... I shouldn't have brought him along... I genuinely thought you'd appreciate having at least one of your siblings here to welcome you..."
"I wouldn't be here either if Uncle hadn't dragged me away!" Sylas practically shrieked, his eyes narrowing into furious slits as he shot a quick, venomous glance at Everly before snapping his head back to the passing scenery.
Everly, deciding Sylas wasn't worth the breath, turned her attention to Zack, finally voicing the question that had been gnawing at her.
"Uncle... is there a reason my parents didn't come to pick me up? I mean, I'm thrilled you're taking me home, but... my parents, my other siblings? Why are they just waiting at the house? Is there something preventing them from collecting their daughter who's been missing for almost eighteen years?"
Sylas, poised to interject with some undoubtedly unhelpful commentary, abruptly clamped his mouth shut. Zack's glare, coupled with a silent, mouthed command, had effectively muzzled him. Zack sighed, his gaze meeting Everly's in the rearview mirror, his expression softening as he carefully began to explain.
"Everly, what Director June mentioned earlier about the kidnapping... it wasn't the full story. The woman who left you at the orphanage... she actually swapped you with her own baby at the hospital, hoping her daughter would grow up in a wealthy family. We only uncovered this truth a few months ago, when that woman's daughter suffered an injury and required a blood transfusion. It was the discrepancy in blood types that finally made your parents realize what had happened."
"Uncle, I know you've never been Sylvia's biggest fan, but don't you dare talk like she isn't part of this family!" Sylas practically snarled, his gaze skewering Everly as if she were a fire-breathing dragon about to devour the Sylvia Everly didn't even know existed. "I only recognize Sylvia as my twin! My only sister!"
Everly's brain short-circuited. Amazement, horror, wonder—a whole cocktail of emotions swirled, leaving her utterly speechless.
First, Zack and Sylas show up at the orphanage, claiming she's a kidnapped heiress, a plot straight out of a melodramatic novel. Now, they're layering on the ultimate cliché: a greedy mother, a swapped baby, and a 'fake' daughter who's apparently so beloved, her supposed twin brother is ready to go to war over her! And Sylas's remark? Pure, unadulterated "I-love-the-fake-daughter-more-than-the-real-one" trope!
Any minute now, the fake will shed a single, glistening tear, and Everly will be banished to the scullery! Was she, Everly, the unsuspecting protagonist of a clichéd fake heiress story? This was simultaneously thrilling and terrifying.
A part of her was giddy with the sheer meta-narrative of it all, finally experiencing the kind of dramatic plot twists she'd only ever read about. But another, more pragmatic part of her, the part that usually solved problems with a well-aimed punch, felt a cold dread. She wasn't exactly known for her strategic prowess; what if she lost to a few well-timed tears? Her internal monologue was abruptly cut short by Zack's booming voice.
"Sylas!!! No matter what, your real sister is Everly!"
"Uncle!!! You—"
"Sylas, can you be more—"
Zack and Sylas launched into a full-blown argument, their voices escalating in the confined space, but Everly was having none of it. Their explanations were perpetually incomplete, and Zack seemed to be tap-dancing around the very question that had her brain doing mental gymnastics. She cut them off with a sharp, clear voice.
"So, the reason they didn't pick me up... is because of this Sylvia?"
Before Zack could even open his mouth, Sylas, ever the eager antagonist, practically spat out his answer. "Of course! Everyone at home is terrified that Sylvia will get sad and think we're going to toss her out because of someone like you! They stayed home with Sylvia to prove she'll always be a Tang family daughter! See? You don't even matter to our parents, even though you're their biological daughter."
Everly nearly choked on air. The sheer, unadulterated cliché of it all! Sylas's words were ripped straight from the pages of every 'fake heiress' novel she'd ever devoured. Was she truly about to face a 'green tea' fake daughter whose strategic tears could turn an entire family into blithering idiots?
The horror!
The delightful, dramatic horror!
"Everly, don't listen to him! Your parents have far deeper reasons than anything Sylas just spewed!" Zack roared, clearly at his wit's end with his nephew. Sylas's fierce loyalty to Sylvia, while understandable to a degree, was now bordering on the absurd, making him utterly blind to Everly's feelings.
"But that's the truth! Uncle, only you are waiting for this barbarian to return!" Sylas declared, jabbing a finger accusingly at Everly, who was still strategically occupying the opposite corner of the seat. As he spoke, the car smoothly transitioned from the quaint, narrow streets of the orphanage's small town to the bustling, multi-lane arteries of the sprawling city.
ZINNGGG—
Suddenly, Everly's head was assaulted by a sharp, piercing pain, her ears filled with a cacophony of metallic buzzing, like a thousand tiny robots arguing inside her skull. Her vision swam, and her head lolled forward, her body slumping sideways. Without warning, she pitched directly into Sylas, who, caught completely off guard, yelped and instinctively threw out an arm to catch her.
"What the—! Hey, barbarian girl! What's wrong with you?! Uncle, she just suddenly fainted!!!" Sylas shrieked, now awkwardly cradling Everly's unconscious form, a mixture of disgust and genuine panic on his face.
While Zack and Sylas descended into a chaotic spiral of panic over her sudden collapse, Everly's own consciousness, strangely, felt clearer than ever. She found herself in a vast, inky blackness, a void populated by strange, shimmering symbols and incomprehensible data streams, like the inside of a supercomputer. As she floated, utterly bewildered, a translucent blue box materialized before her, adorned with a cheerfully grinning emoticon ( ´ ▽ ` ). A voice, calm and surprisingly chipper, echoed through the void.
[Hello, host. I'm system 006.]