Chapter 10: First Stop (2)

The flat itself was not something big or spacious, barely enough for maybe two people to live in. By now there was no furniture remaining inside, only the bare walls and the age old marks on the floor, where cabinets stood for decades and the empty pipes sticking out where they used to connect to the radiators. Everything looked derelict and the whole place had the aura of anything else but a home. 

 

“Nothing remains in the end… huh?” walked Hiyori in first after Everlong nodded at her to go. 

 

“Not really.” agreed the man, following her steps, watching her back without blinking “Time is merciless and grinds down everything. 10 years? 100? 100 000? Or a 1 000 000? Does not matter, sooner or later it is going to get you. We say our existence is finite but it is also true for anything else, only the scale of their time allocated to them is what is different!”

 

“That… is… reassuring!” said, stopping in one of the bigger, empty rooms that, by her vague memories, used to be the living room. 

 

“Oh?” stopped with her, leaning against the naked doorframe, still watching her. 

 

“Knowing things will end is calming for me. When I couldn’t sleep and only laid there, immobile, looking out from my own skull, hopeless… I just prayed this kind of existence won’t last forever! That would have broken me much earlier if it would never end! So… If I know there is an end to it, I feel much better now!” let out a long sigh, even holding a small smile on her face, turning towards him.

 

“Interesting!” whispered, his eyes flashing in a light that showed interest towards Hiyori, that was missing from his look so far.

 

“So… um… What should I do? Hold some kind of seance? Did we bring an ouija board? Pray for my deceased grandparents, burn incense?”

 

“Neither!” chuckled at her little quips, finding it funny as it was clear to him it was her own way of calming down her nervous mind. “Can you think back to some of the times you came here? When your grandparents were still alive.”

 

“Not really…” shook her head “I was really small, 4 or 5 years old. I only have vague flashes of the place in my mind!” looked around, pointing at a wall, where dark markings could be seen on both the floor and the wall “There was a bookshelf, with a TV inside of it. But it usually only spewed the news, they never turned it to other channels. Huh… weird… Now that I think about it, I once wanted to watch cartoons while we were visiting… they hit my hand when I reached for the remote. After that, there was a very loud argument and we left.”

 

“Anything else?” asked with a voice that was almost hypnotic while he never moved his eyes away from Hiyori’s body. 

 

“Mm…” turned her eyes to other spots of the room “We had a dinner maybe… or lunch here. I don’t remember why it happened or what sparked it but it ended up with the table flipped and food thrown on the floor… The soup stained the carpet.” pointed at where, on the old and dirty carpet a really dark patch still could be seen as she pointed her flashlight at it. “Back then it was an off-white colored carpet… not this gray, nasty looking shade.”

 

“Do you see yourself in these memories or do you see them happening from your point of view?”

 

“My point of view.” blinked, coming out from the strange trance she found herself in. “Why?”

 

“Anything else?” asked, ignoring her question.

 

“Not really.” shook her head, walking out, going to different rooms and when she stepped into the one that used to be the bathroom, she suddenly faltered, needing to lean against the walls, holding her head. “My head…!” 

 

“A memory?” stood behind her but he just watched, not interfering at all.

 

“Yeah…” nodded, gulping as her breathing picked up speed. “It is hazy… but it is like… seeing my grandparents… killing something in the bathtub… letting out… blood?” murmured, finding it hard to breathe and for her the air was filled with the stench of fresh blood, as if she was chewing on iron bars, every sense of hers were washed with its strong smell, making her nauseous.

 

“Human or animal?”

 

“Huh?” looked at him with eyes, clearly shocked and with one toe already in the pool of desperation and panic. 

 

“The thing you see in that memory. Human, or animal. In the bathtub.”

 

“I… I don’t know…” replied with trembling lips.

 

“Where are you in your memories?”

 

“I… I…” stuttered.

 

“Are you standing behind your grandparents?” asked and his voice firm, stable and also commanding voice was compelling her to answer without the chance of backing out or hiding anything before him.

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“Behind,” said, licking her dried up lips. “I… look over them as they cut… it… up. It's just a clump of meat… not resembling anything by now! Maybe a human baby? Or a dog? Cat? I… I can’t tell!” said, already fighting with her tears but it was too much in the end and she just leaned forward, hands on her knees, vomiting out everything she ate before, splattering loudly on the floor.

 

“Easy! Don’t fight it, just let it out!” stepped there Everlong, rubbing her back as she threw up everything, listening to her moaning and the desperate effort at first, trying to hold it in, without success.

 

“Damn…” wiped her mouth after nothing else came up from her throat. She felt it burn her gullet, the smell of it invading her nostrils but at least it washed away the smell of blood. “I just ate these good sandwiches, now they are back out…” joked, the only way she ever knew how to deal with her nervousness.

 

“I’ll give you more, don’t worry about it!” smiled, giving her a handkerchief to wipe her mouth.

 

“So it was my grandparents doing, huh? Fucking demon worshippers or something!”

 

“Nope.” shook his head.

 

“But-!” blinked rapidly, looking up at him, her face still stained, stopping in mid-wipe “I saw them doing it!”

 

“How old were you when you last came here?” asked back, instead of answering her directly, leading her on. 

 

“6… 7 at max!”

 

“How tall are you now?”

 

“Huh?” shook, not really understanding why this was so important for what she just saw in her memories! “Around 140 cm?”

 

“How tall were you back then? 100 cm? 110? Were you taller than your grandparents? Were you that tall, that you TOWERED over them? Watching them butcher whatever it was they were cutting up in the bathtub?” 

 

“Ah… no… I wouldn’t be that tall even now!” struck a realization Hiyori, listening to his words. 

 

“Exactly! Also, there are no stains remaining that would indicate that a blood sacrifice took place here at any time.” explained looking around, for the first time, moving his eyes off of her. “And I do not mean stains of blood. But spiritual ones. So the answer is very simple!”

 

“Not… my memories?”

 

“Yep. Not real memories to be exact!” nodded “The thing attached to you forcefed your mind to imagine those ‘memories’. They are not real.”

 

“It can… do that?” gulped, once again feeling her stomach acid rising upwards. 

 

“They can do a lot of things. Their most potent weapon against us is manipulation. It has been attached to you for a very long time, for it to alter and mess with your memories is easy. In a heightened mood, like you were in just now, you wouldn’t even spot the inconsistencies and mistakes in it! A common thing that most people fall into!” 

 

“Thankfully I have an expert with me…” took deep breaths, patting her own chest, forcing her heart to slow down. Or at least she was attempting to do that. 

 

“Exactly!” let out a small laugh, leading her out from the room that was now filled with the stench of her vomit “At least now I have evidence your grandparents were not involved in it at all. They were an ass, for sure, but not the ones responsible for your forced soulmate!”

 

“Great…?” asked, smiling weakly, holding onto his hand by reflex, feeling her legs getting weak, exhausted from all of just what happened. 

 

“Come, let’s go!” held her hand, patting it, leading her out from the empty building “I’ll explain more if you want to know more but in the meanwhile let’s go, grab something for that empty stomach of yours, you look whiter than a ghost!” 

 

“I feel like one too…” joked back as they left. Hiyori did not even look back, easily throwing out her memories of her grandparents from her mind. If they never ever loved her, as some of her real memories proved it just now, feeling their cold eyes whenever she met with them, she would not bother keeping their memories in her mind. Fake ones? True ones? It does not matter now, everything they ever occupied in her head was now gone, buried forever, never to be revisited, just like their bodies, in the city’s cemetery.

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