Chapter 58 Past
The early part of my life was very normal. Well, for me it was. My brother, Clio, and I got along really well. Despite being fraternal twins, as kids, we looked the same. We would wear the same clothes, have the same short hair, and liked the same things.
My mother always seemed a little stressed but my father seemed proud.
We were pretty well off, lived in a good neighborhood, we even had a maid who came in the morning to clean the house and help Mom in the kitchen.
Everything was wonderful, till one fine day there was a commotion on the streets.
My brother and I were playing in the front yard when it all happened.
Men in black came out running to the house to thrash the place while another car pulled up from the opposite side. Some other men came out of that car and we both were scared out of our wits till the time we noticed our Dad.
"Don't you dare," Dad yelled as he came running towards us while the other men came to grab us as well.
It was all hazy and frantic. I can't even recall what happened in detail.
There was so much commotion. I remember running towards Dad with Clio's hand in mine. From somewhere far I heard Mom's scream and turned my head to look back at her.
"NO!!!" She was screaming at the top of her lungs and I only got to turn my head halfway when it all happened.
A loud reverberating sound of a bang that made my hearing go deaf for a moment.
The view of red blood droplets in the air as the bullet tore through my brother's skin and organs, all in slow motion, as if my brain had all the time in the world to see the details.
A pull that I felt as Clio fell to the floor and I was dragged along with him, followed by loud screaming and yelling mixed with confusion and terror.
The next moment, Clio and I were both on the ground but I had only scraped my knees a little while Clio, who lay face down, started to bleed.
His clothes started to dye red and the same thing was happening under him. The green grass around us began to turn red.
My eyes went wide and my heart started to pound in fear and I yanked my hand away as I crawled a step back.
"NO!!!" Dad came, sliding on the grass as he yanked Clio's lethargic body delicately in his arms, "No..." The commotion died for a moment. I stared at them as Dad stared at his son with wide eyes, "No..." A tear dropped down his cheek and for a few seconds, there was nothing else but silence. Then he shot his head towards the man with the gun, "What have you done!!!" Dad screamed as he hugged Clio's body, "You murdered my daughter!!"
It took me a moment
??
Wait, what?
That's not his daughter. I'm his daughter. Why is he saying that?
"Oh my God!!" My mother came running towards me and took me into her embrace before I could say anything. She buried my face in her breast and ran onto the footpath.
She didn't let me peek, or even try to look another way as she firmly kept my head on her chest. I could hear loud yelling, screaming, and arguments fading into the distance but Mom didn't stop till we both reached a hospital.
It was a turning point.
Mom and Dad got along very well before that day but after Clio's death, everything changed. There was this weird tension all around them.
Dad refused to believe his son was dead but accepting the death of his daughter wasn't that hard on him. Which was strange because I wasn't dead. I was alive, my brother was the one who died but I was told to go along with it.
The memory is still vivid in my mind.
It was my funeral day. There were many people there to attend the sad day I had passed away but it was very confusing for me.
I was ten. And I know at that age kids start making sense of things but I was a very slow kid. Maybe that's why my parents weren't exactly as proud of me like they were of Clio.
I stood in front of the casket my brother lay in and kept staring at it. It didn't make sense. Why was Clio in that long black box? Mom and Dad said he had died. I didn't understand what death meant then. I mean I knew people died, but that was it.
It was my very first contact with it.
My Dad was greeting the guests and I stood by my mother's side staring at the casket while the others paid their respects.
"Mom?" I looked at her, "Is Clio not going to wake up?"
A few of the guests turned their heads to look at me suspiciously and that's when my mother suddenly dragged me away from the funeral hall.
She took me to a dark room away from the funeral hall. It was a big empty room with the only light in it coming from the window. The door was closed behind us and she let my wrist go only to grab me by my arms.
"Listen to me," Her eyes were red, her face tear-stained as the water was welling up in her eyes, "From this day on, your name is Clio and you're a boy,"
???
I was genuinely confused.
"But I'm not Clio," I replied, "And I'm a girl."
"NO!" She shook me, scaring the shit out of me with the way she yelled at me, "You're Clio, get it?"
"Why?" I asked feeling scared, "Clio's in that black box,"
"He's dead!" Tears jumped out of her eyes as she yelled at me.
"What does that mean?" I felt my eyes sting as well,
"It means he will never be waking up again." Her grip on me tightened.
"What?" I frowned, "Why?" I didn't understand anything but I knew I was going to cry at any moment, "Why won't he wake up?"
My mother gritted her teeth, trying to hold herself back, "We'll never be seeing him again..." Her voice was breaking as it turned soft, "Never... That's what it means to die," Her voice broke, "He's gone... forever,"
The news came to me as a shock. A tremor of fear crept into the corners of my heart, a fear born from the unknown. How could it be? Why does it have to be?
Gone....?
Forever...?
"No," I tried to shake her off but she held me even more tightly, making me groan in pain, "Mom," Tears started streaming down my face, "Why? I don't get it."
"You'll have to accept it," She said, "You'll be living as Clio now."
I started crying, "But I'm not him," And tears streamed down my Mom's face as well. Seeing my cry, her grip on me loosened.
She bit her lip and closed her eyes in defeat, "I know you're just a child..." She took a ragged breath, "But you'll have to do it for your father."
I sniffled, "W-why?"
She stared at me as I continued to cry, "Looks like I'll have to leave you here." She straightened up as she let me go, "I'll come pick you up once the funeral ends." And she began to walk away, "Can't have you messing it all up."
"Mama?" I watched her leave me, and I walked behind her. What else was I supposed to do? I was a child. I would follow my mother no matter what. There was a sense of doom swirling inside my head, a sort of sorrow I could not describe.
"Mama, is Clio really never going to wake up?" I hiccuped, "I won't get to play with him anymore?" I sniffled, "Never? I'll never see him again?" It was hard to accept that. Clio and I had always been together.
We were born on the same day
Named the same day
Celebrate the same day
We were in the same big cradle
We held hands every single day, from the time we barely had any strength in our tiny little hands till yesterday while we were running together hand in hand.
So What does it mean that he won't be here anymore... Is that what it meant to die?
To be gone forever? Wouldn't he miss us too?
My Mom paused for a second but she didn't turn around to look at me.
"Mom?" I was far behind her and stopped when she did.
And then she opened the door, letting the light come out from the hallway, illuminating my front side.
"Be a good boy now," She said, "Wait here for me."
"Mama?" I felt a sense of dread go through my entire being. It was like getting a punishment but the kind one never forgets.
She closed the door behind her and I ran up to the door but couldn't reach it before it was shut.
"Mom!?" I slammed my hand on the door, "Mommy?" The place was dark but my feelings were turning darker. I didn't understand it then, but she left me there so that I wouldn't expose myself in front of other people.
"Mama?" But it was terrifying. Being stuck in a dark hollow room without any proper understanding of anything, right after knowing you'll never be seeing your brother again.
It was like losing a part of myself.
It made me scared. I thought I wouldn't be seeing my Mom or my Dad again either.
"Mom! Come back," My heart pounded in my chest in fear, "Don't leave me alone!!" My hand began to hurt as I kept banging it on the door but the fear of being alone made me continue.
"Mommy?" I glanced back at the room, it got darker the further it spread from the window, "Mom!" I started crying bitterly, "Mama, please, don't leave me here."
"I want to see Clio!"
"Dad?" My hand began to throb, so I stopped banging on the door and crouched on the ground.
I balled myself as I couldn't stop myself from crying. There were so many things to try and grasp but all my focus was on how I had lost my brother and for some reason, I had to take his place for my father.
It was my first experience with death and I could never have imagined how lonely it felt.