"What happened Amy?" Rebecca asked while erecting a barrier around them to block the curious gazes of strangers from disturbing them.
"Who hurt you? Did someone say something?" Seeing her sobbing in silence, Becca asked again. "Did you have another fight with aunt Artemis?"
"..."
Seeing Amy dodge her eyes and cry harder, Becca knew that her guess was right. So she could just sigh and hand her bestie another tissue.
"Look, Ames, how many times have I told you that you donât need to pressure her. Sheâll let go, when sheâs ready. You poking that mama bear part is not helpful at all."
"..."
"I know that you want them to forget about Rio and laugh again, so you donât have to see their tears and feel guilty for it. But this _ this isnât the way."
"Thatâs not what I want." Amy, who was slowly leaning towards calming down, suddenly lost her control when she heard her bffâs fimal words.
"Really?" But her words caused Rebeccaâs sincere expression to disappear and turn into a sneer.
"The best lie is the one we tell ourselves. _ your brother told me that line." Rebecca spoke calmly, "It suits you. Youâve built this picture in your head that your acts arenât selfish. That youâre doing everything you do, so those around you can be happy. But thatâs not the truth."
"The truth is, youâre trying way too hard to take his place, knowing, you never can._ And thatâs making you anxious."
"Iâm not." Amy shouted.
"Really? Then prove it." Rebecca replied calmly, "Prove me wrong. Prove that you arenât selfish."
"I will. Is it selfish to hope that my parents can be happy? Theyâre trapped in misery of his memories. Father is hellbent on revenge. He hasnât been home for months, and whenever he comes, heâs covered in blood and bones. Iâve seen him getting more injuries in the past year than in the past decade combined."
"As for my mom, sheâs even more crazy. Her love had made her blind and sheâs still refusing to accept the truth. Sheâs picking fights against the academy, the avatars, even the gods _ and each of them can get her killed."
"So forgive me if Iâm trying too hard to please them, cause I canât sit back and just watch them die. Iâve lost one family member already, I donât wanna loose another."
Amy finished her speech, her tone resonating with the determination she felt in their favor. Yet her high sounding words only caused a sneer in Rebeccaâs lips.
"Itâs funny. How you talked for so long, for so many things, yet you never mentioned your own mistakes. It was your foolishness that got him killed."
"And that guilt is mine to bear for life." Amy replied, stopping her mid-sentence.
"Lot of good that would do." Rebecca sneered mockingly, "You know there was a time when I was jealous of you. About how he treated you. How no matter what I do, or how I behave, heâll always choose you over me. He taught you, trained you, helped you_ the same way he did to me. But the matter in which he reacted to our failures was different.
When Iâd make a mistake, heâd sigh in disappointment. Shake his head and wonder if he should just give up. But not on you. Never.
Even when you made such a big blunder as to force him against a goddess and his own primordial, he still had the heart to smile."
"Iâm sure if he lived a little bit longer, he wouldâve forgave you easily. But you killed him." Rebecca spoke, her tone leaving the calmness behind and fuming in anger. "It wasnât Nyx, or Warzy, or his classmates and friends, or my brother and the Belmont heir _ it was you. His dear sister."n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
Hearing the same words which were forcing her to accept the guilt and sin, Amy couldnât help but feel tremors in her heart. But unlike when facing her mother, this time she didnât lose her cool.
The voice in her head earlier which was telling her that she was in an illusion and that her dream was the reality, seemed to become clear again. And together with it became clear another bunch of new memories.
"Youâre just like her. youâre not real. None of you are real." Amy shouted after analysing everything and stood up from her seat. Even if she didnât hear the voice, she would refuse to believe this was her best friend speaking.
"Mother said the same words, and now you too. _ Itâs Apate, I remember now. I was facing her followers, and then he marked my forehead. Iâm still at the abandoned warehouse. Itâs all in my head."
"Hmm, is it though?" Rebecca spoke calmly after seeing her outburst. "God, I never realized that you can be this delusional. Why canât you just accept your sin and get it over with. Living in pain is also considered living right. Thatâs better than that dead bastard."
"On another note, maybe I should thank you. After all, in a way Iâm considered lucky that the boy I liked died before we got engaged, and I saved myself from being labeled as an unlucky widow or a second hand leftover." Rebecca said with some gloating, but then her expression flip changed 180° and a tear fell from her eyes. "But then again, because of you Iâve never even gotten the chance to tell him that.. There were so many things and so many dreams that died alongside him, _ all because of you. So why are you still alive? Why canât you die and disappear forever too."
Rebecca kept shouting in a heartbreaking tone, asking her to die and accompany him in afterlife, but Amy ignored her and rushed out of the barrier without looking back. She raised her head to look at the clear blue sky and floating white clouds, and then shouted at the top of her lungs.
"Apate.. I know youâre behind this. And I know youâre watching me right now._ Stop this game this instant or I swear once I break out of it myself, my slaughter wonât just stop with Gyandelâs death."
"I swear on my chaos that I will wipe out your entire church and kill every last one of your believer." A crown made out of chaotic mist appeared on her forehead, with a blood red jewel shining bright under the sunlight in middle.
The world around Amy started to crash and crumble, bloody lightning streaked like serpents in the sky, and her surroundings broke here and there like pieces of mirror, showing the world behind the curtains. Giving people a glimpse of the abandoned warehouse.
But Amy wasnât focused enough to track those traces which healed almost instantaneously. She was still staring at the sky, hoping to anger the goddess of deceit and prove her dream.
"Youâre forcing me to accept my sins, but Iâm telling you to let go of yours. Do not tempt my anger. Or the armies of Blakeâs, and the assassins of Ravenâs will hunt your hunters."
"The fate of warzy months ago will be the future of your entire religion, Apate. Rats hiding in the holes underground, waiting to be crushed when they poke their heads out."
Amy was still going on with her threats amid the belaspered gazes of the crowd, when a voice echoed from the sky, as the world froze around her.
[Big words for someone so small.] A feminine voice came from the clouds which started moving at rapid speed, gathering to form the figure of a goddess, shroded in fog.
[Your brother said something similar to me two years ago, and look where that got him.] Apate spoke calmly, yet the cold tone of hers caused the temperature all over the streets to drop till a freezing point. Amy could feel the mist bellowing out with her breath, yet she refused to back down,
[I was going easy on you, hoping youâd learn your lesson and leave me alone. But youâve taken my pity and mistook it for cowardice.
An ant crawls on an elephant and seeing him silent, it thinks heâs afraid of her. But thatâs not the truth, is it?
Your constant ignorance has really annoyed me, antâ¦So let me give you a taste of what really happens to those who forgets their place.]
As Apateâs words finished, everything around Amy disappeared in dust. Amy raised her hands, trying to rip the space apart with her own mana, forcing her element to expand the cracks forming under Apateâs anger.
She just had to get out of this illusion, and then sheâll have a hundred ways to handle this goddess. If nothing else, sheâll just crush her token and call her father.
But how could her thoughts avoid the eyes of Apate.
Apate looked at the ant gaining hope of escape and then raised the corners of her mouth in an evil grin.
[You want to go back. To see your brother so bad? _ here, let me give you a hand.]
As her voice finished, she waved her hand. The clouds rolled, the pressure crushing whatever gateway Amy had formed. Burying it, alongside her in the heavy sheet of white fog.
Sparks of red flew in the clouds as Amy tried her level best to channel the chaos and get out of it, but by the time she stepped out of the fog, the world around her had completely changed.
There in the skies was no goddess, or clear clouds of blue, _there was but a red moon hanging overhead and the clouds churned in hues in red. Like someone soaked the fog and mixed it with blood.
Rain fell from the skies, but it wasnât water, but something akin to blood. And when it touched her skin, it made a sizzling sound and melted a piece of her armor in seconds.
Amy looked around in confusion at the apocalyptic world with no sign of life and covered in ruins and doomsday aura of death, destruction, and dread. _ and a guess came to her mind.
She finally realized what Apateâs final words meant. She knew where she was._ And as if to confirm her thoughts with reality she was now trapped in, tremors rose in the ground. And as Amy turned her eyes around, she saw the murderous gazes of a monstrous tsunami of undead creatures, all rushing towards her like an unstoppable tidal wave.
When youâre in a world with no sign of life, your heartbeat becomes the beacon which will attract the most attention. _ and safe to say, after seeing this horrific sight, her heart, was beating pretty fast.