Dissonance - Book One

seven

The tunnel. Winding down deeper and deeper into the earth. And the girl. The girl I couldn't catch. The one who was always just out of my reach. The girl whose face I couldn't see. It was Aveline. My nightmares were bringing me back to this place, back to her. But how is this possible?

I must be losing my mind or maybe the effects of the anesthesia haven't fully worn off or maybe, like she said, my brain is so scrambled that I think I see Aveline standing before me. This can't be real. Can it?

I rise slowly from the wheelchair, unsure of how steady I'll be on my feet, but also unsure of who this person is that stands before me. She looks like Aveline, only an older, more mature, version of the one I remember. On the surface, she appears to be the older sister whom I idolized and admired, but is it only a facade? Is the sister I loved and lost actually this person?

"Is it really you?" I stammer.

"Yes," she says simply and waits for me to react, but I don't know how to react. Despite all the craziness that has happened over the last week, this is more than my brain can handle. This is impossible. This is a ghost who has come back from the dead.

She takes a few steps towards me and I recoil, as if she's some sort of monster hiding behind my sister's face. I'm waiting for her to rip off her mask and reveal her true identity. I don't know if I should trust this person. Maybe this is a trick by Environettix. Maybe this is their way of gaining my trust and cooperation.

"It's me Ever. This is real. It's not an illusion. This isn't one of your nightmares," she says, as if reading my thoughts.

"How do you know about my nightmares?"

"Because I have them too."

Her statement perplexes me. Why would she have them too? All these years I thought something was wrong with me. No one else I knew had such vivid nightmares. What is it that has caused us both to be terrorized at night? Or maybe she's lying. Maybe this is just a tactic to get me to believe this is Aveline.

"How do I know it's really you?"

"Because I was there with you when the accident happened and not even Environettix could steal those last moments away. The memory re-imaging may have altered some of the details of your past and blocked others out, but it can't completely erase what happened. It's still there. You just have to search your brain."

"The last time I saw you...what was I doing?"

"What you always did, watching me and trying unsuccessfully to imitate me," she lets out a melodic laugh. The sound of her laugh. I remember it. That was the sound of the girl from my dreams, laughing in a playful tone. There's no way they could input something as intimate as that into someone else's body. Could they? I want so desperately to believe it's her, but something inside of me is trying to protect me, to block it out and keep a safe distance from the tragedy that rocked my family all those years ago. I can't get hurt again. I'm shaking. I try to hide my feelings so that this person, whoever she is, won't see my vulnerability, but the tears that are about to roll down my face, threaten to expose my pain. My entire family was stolen from me, and now one of them has been returned.

"What else?" I push back tears, trying to determine whether or not she is real.

"You were sitting in the middle seat, as usual. You felt safer that way. Mom and dad were holding hands, the way they always did. They were such hopeless romantics." She rolls her eyes. She was never one for all that sappy stuff, but I found their tenderness sweet and comforting.

"And then everything stopped, as if someone hit the pause button and the world began to spin in slow motion. I looked out the window, just as the vehicle slammed into us. We were hit broadside. There was no time for dad to react. That's the last thing I remember before I was thrown from the truck."

She's right, about all of it, only I've never heard the story from someone else's point of view. My parents never wanted to talk about it. It was too painful. So I was forced to relive the accident over and over again, trying by myself, to make sense of what had happened. But it turns out, all this time, I wasn't alone in my suffering. For so long my identity centered around being the sole child to survive that tragic accident. But in seconds, the past I thought I lived, has been wiped clean, because my sister stands before me: alive.

"It's me Ever. It's me." She steps closer and this time I don't pull away. I allow her to move towards me, to wrap her arms around me. I allow myself to embrace her and release the pain that I've carried on my shoulders for so long. Tears stream down my face and onto my sister's shoulder.

"But you were dead. You died. I saw you," I say, needing to know the truth. I pull away from our embrace and wipe the tears from my cheeks with the palm of my hand.

"What you saw, and what you were told, are two different things," she replies, taking a few steps back. And just like that, the warmth I felt moments ago, is gone. The sister I remember was always hot and cold like this, that's something Environettix would never have known, just another reason why I know this person to be her. But underneath Aveline's sometimes fluctuating emotions, there was love. I knew that she loved me. I was her little sister and she always took care of me, always looked out for me, always put my needs ahead of her own. But it has been many years since all of that, and so much has happened, so much has changed. If my life has been shaped and defined by loss, then hers has as well, only more so. All this time I pitied myself for losing my siblings, when it turns out, she was the child who lost everyone.

"What do you mean?" I ask in regards to her cryptic comment about my memory of her dying.

"What did they tell you?"

"Mom and dad?"

"No, I'm aware that they kept the truth hidden. I want to know what Ivanov and his people told you."

"Basically that mom and dad discovered the horrible things that Environettix was doing and that they tried to escape with us."

"They might have tried to escape with us Ever, but it was only you who got away. They left me behind. Uncle Ben and Aunt Mabel helped them to escape and they never returned to save me. They altered your memory to make you think I was dead so that you wouldn't try to find me and they started a new life as if I never existed."

"No, they didn't. They would never do that."

"Are you sure about that?"

"Their love for us is about the only thing I am sure of."

"They lied to you about your past, about who you are."

"To protect me."

"Yes, I know, to protect their precious little perfect Mod."

"What are you talking about?"

"I'm not just an Unwanted to Environettix. I was unwanted by mom and dad. That's why they never looked back once they escaped."

I don't understand the disdain she has towards my parents and then I have to remind myself that they were her parents too, parents that she grew up without. Maybe hating them was her way of dealing with the pain, or maybe it was Environettix's way of controlling her and getting her to do what they wanted.

"You don't understand the anguish they experienced every day, mourning the loss of their children."

"Someone in that much agony wouldn't abandon their child."

"They didn't abandon you. They thought you were dead! You know how much mom and dad loved us, all of us." I can tell by the expression on her face that she's torn between what she feels and what she's been told, just as I am. I know that deep down she understands that our parents would never abandon her, but she's been living with the enemy for far too long. Lord only knows what they've told her.

"Environettix has been filling your head with lies to turn you against our parents and I'm guessing it's for their own benefit in some way. What have they made you do?"

She turns away. She's keeping something from me.

"Aveline, what have they done? What have you done?"

"Come with me and I'll show you."