"No! NO!"
A scream filled with an absolute panic that did not belong to a nine year old girl, came from the depths of her being.
How was it possible? How could she be here? She had escaped! She had burned that place to the ground!
She was Esther Conner, an adopted orphan, a girl in a new and safe house! Why... why was she back in this white hell?
"Leena, please, you need to calm down."
A woman in a nurse's uniform approached the bed, holding in her gloved hand a thick syringe with a milky liquid.
"You are having another episode, dear. It seems last night's dose was not enough to keep your fantasies at bay."
"My name is not Leena! I am Esther!" she screamed out of hysteria.
She twisted with a strength that would have surprised anyone who saw her small body, but the leather straps did not yield. They dug into the skin of her wrists and ankles, biting her bones with a familiar pain, "Let me go! I swear I will kill you all!"
"Poor thing…" The nurse sighed, a sigh devoid of all compassion, "Always so lost in your stories. You think you are someone else, that you are somewhere else. But you always come back here, Leena…. Always."
Without more, the nurse pressed the needle against the vein in her arm. Esther felt the cold prick.
"N-NO! Get away from me!"
The liquid felt like ice entering her bloodstream, a heaviness that instantly began to spread through her limbs.
A different terror invaded her: drowsiness. She couldn't sleep!
She knew, with absolute certainty, that if she closed her eyes in this place, if she let the drug overcome her, she would never wake up again.
She fought against the fog that descended on her mind, her eyelids heavy as lead.
And just as her consciousness was about to dissolve, a clear little voice sounded right next to her.
"Do you like the trip? I thought you would like to remember the old times, sister Esther."
Esther forced her eyes open.
There, standing next to the hospital bed, where the nurse should have been, was Lillith. She was still the same girl from the house, but in her hands she held a thick medical file.
On the cover, in large black letters: ** LEENA KLAMMER.**
"You…" she managed to whisper, the sedative clouding her tongue.
Suddenly, the fog in her brain was not from the drug, but from realization. She looked at Lillith, and the terror transformed into an icy fury, "You... did this?"
This was not real… It was an incredibly detailed and cruel nightmare.
"Now." Lillith closed the file with a slam that resonated in the room. She looked down at her, her dark eyes lacking any childhood innocence, "Tell me. Who are you?"
Esther clenched her jaw. The sedative was false, just a sensation, but the fear was real.
"I... am Esther…"
"Wrong answer."
Lillith shook her head with an expression of disappointment, and snapped her fingers.
The sterile white of the hospital dissolved like paint in water, and the smell of disinfectant was replaced by that of turpentine and oil paint.
She was no longer tied, she was standing.
She was in the studio. Her studio.
In front of her was John, her "father" from the other family, smiling at her with that warmth that she had longed for so much.
"You are so talented, Esther…"
A momentary relief flooded her, but it lasted less than a second.
"You lied!"
Kate's shrill voice resonated behind her. Esther turned. Kate and her son, Daniel, were there, their faces pale and their clothes soaked, the water dripping on the studio floor. Their eyes were filled with a deep and watery hate.
"You did this to us, monster!" shouted Kate, raising a kitchen knife, "You seduced my husband! You tried to kill us!"
"We are going to kill you, freak!" shrieked Daniel, raising another knife.
Both ran toward her, with the knives high.
"NO! STOP!"
Esther screamed and raised her arms to cover herself, backing up until her back hit a wall that should not have been there...
...And suddenly, everything disappeared.
She returned to the institute…
And right in front of her, was Lillith.
"Let's try again." Lillith's voice was patient, "Who... are... you?"
The terror had done its job. It had destroyed the facade, it had broken the last psychological barrier of Leena Klammer. There was no longer a fight…. there was only an absolute and trembling humiliation.
She raised her gaze, the tears of genuine panic ran down her cheeks.
"I…" her voice broke in a choked sob, "I-I am not... I am not a girl…"
"Well?" insisted Lillith.
"I am... I am Leena…" she confessed, the words coming out like poison.
"Very good." Lillith nodded, a smile of pure satisfaction illuminating her face, "Much better."
She crouched down, coming face to face with the adult woman curled up in the body of a girl.
"Remember this, Leena. Remember who you are. And from now on, you will behave like the "Esther" that my parents want. You will be an obedient sister. You will not have any thought that you should not have." She moved a little closer, her voice lowering to a whisper, "Or we can play again. And I promise you... that next time, I will leave you in that hospital long enough for you to feel how the needle really empties that sedative into your arm."
…
In Emma's world, there was no slow transition. There were no melting walls.
In a blink, the warmth of the living room disappeared.
The smell of air freshener was replaced by the metallic and sharp smell of the air so cold it burns the lungs.
The soft murmur of the house became the high pitched whistle of the wind sweeping an open, dead space.
Emma blinked. She was no longer on the carpet. She was standing on ice.
It was a vast frozen lake, stretching in all directions until it merged with a lead gray sky. The trees on the distant shore were just black and skeletal silhouettes.
She looked down.
The teddy bear had disappeared. In her right hand, gloved in pink wool, she felt the cold and satisfactory weight of a gold medal.
A genuine smile formed on her face. She recognized this day. This was an excellent day.
"Emma! That is not yours!"
She turned around, with the smile still in its place. There she was, a few meters away on the ice, Lauren.
Lauren, with her stupid purple hat with a pompom, her coat too big and her face red and swollen from crying.
"I saw you take it from Miss Peters's desk! Give it back to me! I won the spelling bee! It is MINE!"
"But if I have taken it, how can it be yours?" replied Emma, taking a step back, "That makes you a careless loser, don't you think?"
"You are a thief!"
With an incoherent scream, Lauren lowered her head and ran toward her, sliding clumsily on the icy surface.
This was the moment. The memory she treasured.
Emma did not move. She waited, until the last second. Just as Lauren extended her hands to grab her, Emma took a step to the side. Lauren, unable to stop, went past and with precision, Emma stretched out her little boot and hooked her right behind Lauren's ankle.
Lauren's feet flew forward, and her body arched backward. Emma did not even flinch at the high pitched scream.
Lauren's body slid a few more meters before stopping, face up.
"..."
Emma approached without hurry and stopped next to the fallen girl and observed her.
Lauren had hit the back of her head against an outcrop of ice that protruded from the lake. Her eyes, still open, looked at the gray sky without seeing anything.
A dark stain began to spread quickly from under her head, a vibrant and beautiful red against the white of the ice.
Emma watched for a long minute as the girl gave her last convulsions and then became still.
She felt a surge of warm satisfaction.
One less problem.
She turned around, admiring the weight of the medal in her hand, and prepared to leave.
"Emma! That is not yours!"
?
Emma turned slowly.
Lauren was there. Standing. With her purple hat. Her face red from crying. No blood. No head wound. Perfectly unharmed.
"I saw you take it! Give it back to me! It is MINE!"
Emma blinked, confused. What was this? An echo?
"You already died" said Emma with irritation.
"Thief!"
Lauren ran toward her again.
Stunned by the impossibility, Emma reacted out of pure instinct. Side step. Trip. Push.
CRACK
The same scream. The same fall. The same blood staining the ice.
Emma stared at the body, this time with a feeling of unease. But she was dead… Again.
She turned around.
"Emma! Give it back to me!"
There she was again!
"No!" screamed Emma, "Stop!"
"Thief!"
Lauren ran. Emma pushed her. CRACK. Death.
"Emma!"
CRACK
"Emma!"
CRACK
One time…. Ten times…. Fifty times.
The warm satisfaction had soured, turning first into bewilderment, then into boredom, and now it was transforming into a frustrating rage. Her greatest achievement, her perfect memory, had become a broken record.
"Emma! Give it back to me!"
"SHUT UP!"
This time, when Lauren ran, Emma did not dodge her. She ran toward her and pounced on Lauren, knocking her onto the ice before she could fall "correctly".
"DIE! JUST DIE ALREADY!"
She sat astride Lauren's chest and, instead of using the ice, she wrapped her hands around the girl's neck and squeezed. Lauren writhed, her nails scratched Emma's wrists, but Emma was strong.
She squeezed until she felt something crack under her hands and Lauren's body went limp.
She stood up, panting.
"Emma! Give it back to me!"
She was standing behind her.
"NOOO!!"
Emma went crazy. It was no longer a game. She lunged at Lauren and bit her on the cheek, savoring the metallic taste of blood. She dug her nails into her eyes. She hit her with her fists until her knuckles hurt.
But Lauren always came back.
In the end, Emma collapsed onto the blood stained snow, crying. They were not tears of fear like Esther's. They were tears of pure, absolute and impotent frustration.
This toy had broken in the worst possible way.
"I give up! STOP IT ALREADY! IT'S BORING!"
The wind stopped.
?
When Emma raised her head, she saw a figure sitting calmly on a frozen rock a few meters away.
It was Lillith.
She was sitting with her legs crossed, observing her with an expression of mild curiosity.
Emma stopped crying instantly. She wiped the tears and the blood from her chin. She stood up, breathing heavily. She looked at the frozen figure of Lauren, which this time had not reset, and then looked at Lillith.
Fear was not part of the equation.
Her brain processed the information: the living room, Esther's collapse, her own personal and cyclical hell.
A single conclusion.
"...This is you" said Emma with her voice hoarse from the screams.
Lillith tilted her head with a slight smile playing on her lips.
"Did you like the game?"
".."
Emma stayed still a long moment, her chest rising and falling. She looked at the corpse of Lauren and then looked at Lillith
Fear did not appear.
The anger dissolved.
In its place, a strange and electric sensation ran through her chest: a mix of awe, envy and... recognition.
A slow smile, identical to Lillith's, began to bloom on Emma's face. It was a radiant, sick, and absolutely fascinated smile.
….
ZMMM~
A buzz, like that of a mosquito, vibrated in the air and then, the world recomposed itself.
Esther found herself on her knees on the living room carpet. The smell of disinfectant from the hospital had dissipated. She was soaked in sweat… a cold sweat that had nothing to do with effort, but with terror.
At her side, Emma was also on the floor, her breathing equally agitated, although her expression was not of terror, but of a strange confusion, as if she had been abruptly woken from the most fascinating dream of her life.
"Slurp…"
The sound of someone drinking from a straw broke the silence of their ragged breaths.
Lillith was sitting comfortably on the sofa, as if she had never moved. She swung her short legs, and in her hand she held a small box of strawberry flavored milk, sipping calmly.
She raised her gaze from her drink and looked at the two undone girls on the floor, and a smile of absolute childhood innocence, the same one she had used for her parents, formed on her face.
"Welcome home, little sisters" she said with a sweet voice, "I am so happy that we are together. From now on, we have to get along very, very well, understood?"
At these words, Emma was the first to react.
And she did not seem scared in the least, rather, she seemed to vibrate with a newly discovered energy. She stood up, she shook the imaginary dust from her dress with a calm and, with decision walked directly toward the sofa.
She sat right next to Lillith, so close that their shoulders almost touched and without asking permission, she stretched her hand toward the cardboard multi pack that was on the cushion, took out her own little box of strawberry milk, punctured the aluminum seal with the straw and began to drink, imitating Lillith's relaxed posture.
"..."
Esther, on the other hand, had to use the arm of the sofa to stand up. Her legs trembled without control, weak from the residual panic.
The adrenaline had abandoned her, leaving her hollow and trembling…. She looked at Lillith with her milk, and then at Emma, the psychopath who had just chosen sides, sitting next to her as if they were best friends.
A piercing cold settled in her heart, one that not even the Saarne Institute had managed to provoke.
She had just escaped from one hell, only to discover that she had entered another much worse.
And this new hell was directed by a being with unimaginable power, and her only prison companion was a little lunatic who, instead of feeling fear, savored the evil as if it were a sweet.
"Sluuuurp…"
Emma took a long sip of her milk, the sweet taste seemed wonderful to her.
She turned her head to look at Lillith and her blue eyes did not reflect fear, but an intense shine of pure fascination.
This new home and this new sister were much more entertaining than she had ever dared to dream.
All her life she had felt surrounded by boring, predictable and fragile people. But this... this was different and she loved it.
________
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