Fifth floor

really wanted u to c this one :)

I had always been worried about tie

I had always care if I’m on time

I never cared about the world turning around

I never checked sunlight other than right outside my window

I only cared about my way

I never cared about distances

I always wanted to go outside

But in reality, in the present, 21000 kilometers have been my limit

Here I am counting differences,

Here I am thinking about day and night somewhere away

A thousand and nighty five days, twelve hours, the minute that just passed…

It all got together and shouted me to open my eyes to another world

I’m missing a warmth I’ve never felt

But that is real, often much more real than the ones next to me

One more day… I wonder what you´re doing

I wonder following your words, somewhere where I can’t see

Things that I´ll never know,

Time that we´ll never share

A cliff, a gap that right now feels huge…

At the fifth floor I see the sun hiding behind the never ending mountains

I see gray skies as I turn my swiveling chair just once

I wonder, are you busy now?

Are you looking at the sky just like I’m doing now?

Double Life: Who am I?

A/N: Im quite busy these days but I felt like updating so here it is... as always mostly and mainly unedited... 

Ah, that a character´s name´s not writen with the first letter in capital letters is not my laziness and lack of proper writing...my  stupid keyboard has two letters that dont work...so.... :/

***

I feel this pix is perfect for this one

Nichole closed her eyes tightly. Everyone that she had touched to kill had been someone´s beloved one that she didn’t know who they were didn’t make it less worse, she´d always known this, she had known it shouldn’t be but she hadn´t stopped. She felt her heart heavy. She continued looking at the contents in the journal, there were pictures. There was Miriam, Karl and Miriam smiling together, Miriam pregnant, Miriam with a baby, the unfocused picture of a baby with Miriam’s signature she´d seen before, a little girl that apparently was her, the same little girl in a white tutu. She´d seen that picture in Alexander Arlington´s home, it was on the chimney. “This is aunt Angela” josh had said but Mary Ann said it was her.

When Nichole passed the next picture, a drop fell on it, she realized she was crying as she focused on the picture of a boy of green eyes with a lost stare, she knew who he was, she´d seen that in the Arlington´s house. The next picture was one of the same child with the little girl side by side on a hospital bed, iv tubes on their arms, both pale. When she saw the last two pictures she dropped them all, from the floor the two pictures faced her showing her two sides of the same scene.

She closed her eyes but in her mind the picture was engraved, in one of them the boy´s back was pictured, his hand on a glass, on the other side a little girl, her hand on the glass too, she had a tiny smile, red-rimmed eyes. On the other picture, it was the same, but instead of his back, her back, instead of her face, his face. It was like the picture she had painted from josh’s dream but it seemed he was right, it was not a dream, it was real and according to Ibsen she didn’t know it because of josh but because she had been there too.

She screamed and crouched down picking the pictures, looking at the dates and names on the back as she raked her brain trying to find those memories, none came to her. The woman had to be lying but then, she knew too much, things that only Karl and Natasha knew.

“Natasha –Nichole whispered- Natasha knows” she had to find out if Ibsen’s story was true. She had to find a way to finally make Nat speak; she knew it all, the journal had said that Nat had been there all along, even as an assistant whatever that was. Had Nat lost a baby there? Was that what they did? It sounded like she had been the usual type of assistant but then Ibsen also seemed to call assistants to the women that had gotten pregnant and Nat had said she didn´t know where the place was, that she was taken there…that she barely knew… no matter what she had been or how she knew Nichole had to make her talk.

***

Nichole turned on her phone. It had been over three weeks since she had left, as requested josh hadn’t try to reach her again but she had a lot of missed calls from Nat. she listened to the voice mails. Angry, worried, desperate even pleading tones were in them. Nat spoke of Karl, of how mad he´d be, she also spoke of money, on how she thought Nic didn´t have any, she talked of school, on how she was wasting her education, she talked of josh, josh, josh, of josh missing her, of josh and her having fought, of how sad he seemed when she saw him. Josh, josh again, the boy seemed to be everywhere and then, again, josh, his name on Nat´s threatening tone of voice.

“Josh” she murmured. Mary Ann had thought he was one to blame. Nat had always seemed so ready to threaten him; maybe Nat also blamed him for shattering their project. “josh” she whispered again wondering if he was next, if he would´ve been one of her missions, probably the easiest, he´d come to her with all the trust, with his green honest eyes, not knowing death awaited him, it´d be so easy yet it´d be the hardest. How could she ever overlook all that he had done, his smiles, his persistence, his trust... Nat had to know this; probably it had been the reason why she tried to scare him away. Would she harm him now?

“No, she wouldn´t” Nichole answered her own question as she left from the place she was. According to Mary Ann, Karl sent her always for the eldest child of the family, and josh was that, the eldest one of Alexander´s eldest. It´d be her job to take him, not Nat´s and she was not with them anymore even though Karl didn’t seem to have realized this. What would he do when he found out, surely look for her, use everything that he had to get to her but she wouldn’t let him find her….but if he did, if he and Nat found her what would they do? Make her finish this, send her in missions again, she her to Maggie or Erick but perhaps it´d be Eleanor… How could she carry out that order? They had all welcomed her…

“Josh” she murmured as her mind showed him to her. He was still safe, a few targets were missing to get to him, she´d refuse to finish the lives of the others, and she would stop being Karl´s puppet. Josh was safe but maybe if she refused Karl would take things in his own hand and then no one would be safe but then… did she really want to keep him safe?

She wondered… He was a boy that with his death ended her life. Did he know? Did he know who she was? Was that the reason why he kept getting close to do some kind of atonement for that, it´d be so like him to do so. Had that been the reason why he had accepted the incredible information about his abilities and kept highlighting she´d saved him?

“No” she said out loud as she walked in an empty dark street. She remembered the expression of surprise, his eyes filled with fear when he learned about it, the horror of being next to a freak and then the compassion as his brain wrapped around it. He wouldn’t have invited her to his home if he´d known…he wouldn´t have put his family in danger like that… maybe it had been for Alexander´s sake, maybe he wanted to see her but then, that night, he hadn’t paid her much attention, he hadn´t recognize her, he wouldn´t have let her go if he had recognized her specially with how protective he seemed to be, moreover, josh had been led to believe that the little girl, that she was a product of his imagination. Alexander had made sure everybody thought so and that was what they all believed. And he believed she was dead as Karl and Nat had planned it.

Alexander´s family couldn’t know anything about her, therefore they were all innocent, they hadn’t been aware of the horrors that josh’s accident had meant for her but then if they had known, if they had had the option, the choice to save their son to the risk of destroying her life, would they have done it? Would Maggie with her sweet motherly ways have condemned a little girl to a monster´s life? Would Erick with his quiet countenance have agreed to it? Obviously for Alexander and many of the dead crew it hadn’t mean a thing, her life had been nothing, she’d been just part of a project, the only successful try, a lab rat, an asset.

Nichole had been walking for hours in the dark town when she saw a distant lit advertisement, a small inn. She had to rest, she was tired, her head hurt, her heart felt wounded. She walked to the lights, trying in vain to ignore the flood of thoughts that she had in her mind.

“An asset, an asset” every drop of water that sprayed onto her seemed to echo those words. She’d gotten a room in the small inn, fake name, the payment in cash. It had been years since she had been planning to run away, steadily she had saved money, cash, she had more than enough to live decently for at least a year without the need for more or without the need to do anything to get more however she had never planned her going away would be this way.

That Sunday when Natasha had broken her promise shed been mad but she was going to go back to school and stay, she had promised josh to finish school with him if she could. “Josh” the droplets said now. That Sunday she had needed to calm down, she had climbed that tree in the park, taken out her drawing pad and once again the black journal had fallen, she´d been annoyed to got down but another picture had fallen out of it, so she had gone down, she’d observed the picture, it was her coming out of a car, a scowl on her face, Nat in front of her leading the way. She remembered that day, they had been out of the country, Nat had accompanied her in a mission, they had arrived that day and they were registering at some hotel. The picture was from years ago. Something was written in the back. “This was the first time I saw you after a long time. I knew you had not died in that accident Nicky, you are a lot like Miriam”

All the words from the journal came rushing back to her… when she left Burgeoys the day after Nat broke her promise she hadn’t known who she was and how she´d came to be… when she left she hadn’t even read the whole journal only the part about Nat… when she left she hadn’t known josh had anything to do with her before Burgeoys, not even when she called him she´d known to whom she was talking.

“Monster”

“Monster”

“Monster”

The droplets fell against her bare skin.

Double Life: Double Life

A/N: at the end

***

Another fight started, if you were found out, if someone figured you out we would lose it all, our license and money, we had already lost you, we had to do something and that had to be fast. Take you by force was something none of us was willing to do so Alex´s brilliant idea was to get rid of you. Half of our group was against it, you were the work of over twenty years of our lives, he said we could start over, it was only a s mall step back, with the data we had on you and your process we could start again. In the days of that debate Nati disappeared, she stole some data among other very important things.

Alexander´s shark lawyers and investigators looked for her but Nathalie Stirling had disappeared, later I knew she is now Natasha Strasberg, quite similar don´t you think? Through her I found you. She sold herself to the next better cause: Karl´s hate.  She´d have a lot of profit there I doubt Karl´s company could be so successful out of the blue like it was. I told Alexander of my suspicions but he silenced me reminding me you had died on a car accident with your aunt and uncle.

 What a coincidence that their little girl, about your age, Nichole Elizabeth Cristales, whose identity you now have, had been the only survivor when our girl died with her aunt and uncle… Do you know about that? I have always doubt that it was an accident.  Poor man and woman that had to die and that poor girl, if there was any but for Alexander that was enough, the forensic proof was enough for him, a burnt car, the survivor’s broken ribs as she got out of the window when the car crashed. Did they break your ribs, baby? I bet Nati did that too. It didn´t convince me, Alex said I was paranoid, all the rest thought so too… It was another mistake for Alex.

Whenever I could I followed Karl in his trips, he seemed normal, always, he´s good at keeping it that way though I think that´s Nat´s ability. I was quitting, it all, with the family I had to take care of and my work I didn´t have time to think of Karl and his perfectly normal life, his gold-digger wife and adopted daughters until I met Sarah on a visit to a psychiatric ward where my hubby had volunteered me.

She was scared to death, she was convinced “the little girl” had come from the dead and had killed her husband. It had happened years ago from when I found her. Her husband had gone for a run and had been found dead of a heart attack hours later. She didn´t make anything of it back then but it was something you did when you were nine. For them you were dead but many years later, her eldest son died the same way and what made her insane was the death of her beloved grandchild, she was convinced she´d seen you. “Nati brought her” she told me. Her other son had taken her to the hospital where they declared her crazy, delusional, schizophrenic, she´d been there for years.

 When I went to see her again she had died of a heart attack. It alerted me. I went back to see Karl more attentively. He’s so rich and important now, isn´t he? But he keeps a low profile, nothing much of his family is known and of his niece, Nichole Elizabeth there is nothing, not even I have enough influences to find her but where the lion is there had to be the cubs and they were.

I first saw Nati. I followed her for a long time before I saw something of importance, one day a car picked her up. I followed them, they stopped at a hotel, she got out and then a lean tall girl of long black hair on a braid with a bad attitude and black gloves got off after her, so much like Miriam except for the scowl on your face. I had found you and this time I wouldn´t tell Alex. I contacted our group, all the assistants were dead, back then it was only six of the crew without Nati of course. Most of the m thought I was crazy… but one of them shot you, didn´t he? I thought you´d died there…

I couldn´t let you get to me or to my family though I knew by then how poetically Karl carried his vengeance, the spouse first, then the eldest child, followed by the youngest and the other if there were any and last the one who had any contact with our project. Don’t worry I know you didn´t kill that many, only the scientists crew, the assistants and the children if they were old enough… I tried to warn them all but, like I said, most of the m wouldn´t listen. I had no proof and by the time I got some of them to listen, I had lost you, it was as if you´d disappeared, I didn´t see you again. I lived in fear for my children and grandchildren as I told you; you took my eldest son and his wife and my husband. I was devastated I had to protect the rest of my family.

Years later I found someone to help me, I made contact with a driver, he wanted money, more, your father and Nati pay well for your protection, he wouldn’t tell me where you live but I managed to convince him of taking your life, he was reluctant, he´d seen what you could do, you’re so feared among those who know you, Nicky, but greed can overpower fear. I convinced him I knew how to do it and you know I did it. Did you get stabbed by some man?  Did you get sick?  I thought it´d kill you, venom, a snake venom, it would kill a normal person in a few minutes, it wouldn´t let you heal quick enough for your body to shut down without bleeding out, I guess he was stupid and couldn´t follow orders, I had told him to do it when you weren´t close to Nati, who else could make you better? I thought I had destroyed you until in my daughter´s birthday.

We were celebrating in our country house, I saw Nati, she purposely let me see her, she walked by me, she was in the catering crew, she dropped a basket, something bit me, in the mess she disappeared. What bit me was the same kind of snake, the same venom I got in you she brought to me.  A coincidence happened; I’m sure her doing or you father´s: an ambulance was going by, with the right amount of antidote enough to let me live, not enough to prevent it from paralyzing half of my body. She let me live to see the worse… a while later my daughter was killed, she suffered a heart attack as she was at a party. Her boyfriend saw a redhead talking to her about the time she died; he saw it all from the stage: the girl talking to my daughter, my daughter suddenly falling to the ground in the middle of the crowd… a commotion in which the redhead disappeared… I’m sure it was you… I haven’t seen him since he let me know of that… Have you seen him? Have you touched him? My two other children died in mysterious accidents. Who do you think arranged that? It´s all Nati.  It’s all Karl. It´s all you, you, my perfect child became a death angel, the puppet, a murderer.

****

Now you see why I hold a grudge against my so called friend, why I hate Alexander, his dead boy killed us all. I wonder why you´ve been so merciful with him, with his kind, with his kids. Only his hidden son has died, burned eyes. Nicky? What was that? He didn´t know, he didn´t see his son, I did. He thinks I’m still with him and that´s why I was at that funeral. No one ever knew of the poor guy not even in his death his father saw him. Why did you burn his eyes? Did you know who he was? You´re too methodical, you deaths lack passion, yes, I have studied the m, the ones that you made me suffer and the ones that Sarah got to narrate to me before you killed her.

Your methodical, clean kills tell me you know nothing but his eyes… what you did show me emotion, did he hurt you? Do you know of Alexander? I´ll tell you something interesting, all his children have green eyes, most of his grandkids too. The little boy’s, his grandson´s eyes are just like his.

Oh, before I forget, one that I think was quite clever was Angie´s death, it hurt him a lot, even though he´d divorced her a very long time ago he mourned her for months, way more than his hidden son, of course it hurt Erick and Angela a lot and his new by then also ex-wife was mad, it was hilarious, really.

If I had a saying in how you´ll proceed… I don’t doubt you´re experiencing anger, sadness and self-loathing right now. You know no one, everybody´s kept secrets from you, you didn´t even know yourself well – you couldn´t know, if you knew I know things would be different… Well, half of your vengeance had been done but it had been Karl´s it´s time to make it yours, get back at Alexander, let him know you´re coming, that with the burnt eyes could be a good way. You could start with Cassie´s kids, Eleanor and Alan, Ely is single but you could take Alan´s wife too, then go to Angela and her kids, her hubby, both of them; then Maggie, Erick’s wife, she´s like a daughter to Alexander and Erick adores her, if she dies first both her children will suffer a lot, then take Aaron, the youngest twin, yeah, the dead boy who made you a monster has a twin, it´s not his fault so be merciful with him, then go to Erik. The dead boy, Joshua, he should be last only before his grandpa after all it was him who ruined it all for all of us. But it´s your vengeance, I’m only suggesting what you could do, you can´t deny that it´s a good idea, after all, by this time, I’m sure I’m six feet under but as long as they go through the same, as long as they get their share, I´d even rise from the death to aid you in this.

Instinctively, Nichole banged her head against the wall, so hard it hurt. She´d recognized the names, she´d know who Ibsen had been talked about since the part about the little girl but she´d clung to the hope that it was a coincidence but she knew it was not and now all the names were there, it was too overwhelming. She felt that state of “shutting off” that Mary Ann had been describing, she felt like she was about to pass out but she had to push through it. Tilly had trained her to beat it in situations like this one. It´s only emotions, your body´s fine, she told herself. Tilly had always made her go through hardships so that she overcome it, you can do this, she told herself but it felt like this was too much.

Nichole turned the page, she saw an address, Burgeoys address with josh’s room number and building, a list of the places he hung out with Aaron and his friends at night, the address of the place he´d gone to dance the last time she saw him. There was his home address, the place where she´d spent a week, the family´s schedule, when they might be alone and at the end of the page another address with Alexander Arlington´s name, she guessed it was the huge house where she´d spent the end of the year, there was also the addresses of the other family members she´d mentioned, a small description of their habits. Nichole banged her head against the wall again, Mary Ann was right, she was angry, she felt betrayed, she didn´t know what to think, she´d always wondered about how she came to be but this was like a nightmare from which she couldn’t wake up.

In case you still don’t believe me, I’ll give you more proof, here´s a list of the crew of researchers and family that I know you´ve taken with name and the dates on the back cover, I´ll leave you some photos, I’m sure you´ve seen some before in different places.

Though she didn´t recognize all the names, the times of dead dated from when she was nine, when she had started to kill for her father, for Tilly for Nat, she recognized many of those date, the recent ones, the ones whose faces haunted her nightmares, now she understood why some seemed to look at her as if they knew her. That she now knew some were the spouses or children of others felt like a punch in the gut, she closed her eyes tightly, both wanting to stay alert and to pass out.

***

A/N: I wanted to named this one "Arlington" but I guess it´s not exactly all about them or about my boy lol 
This is the last one of the post I had done and ready to be published... right now Im about to start working in the awful amount of paper work I have... wish me luck

Double Life: monster

A/N: it´s Nov 30 and I have two posts ready to be published, never in this blog´s history that has happened!!! I wonder what´s going on with this, now... perhaps because for the next month I wont be doing much due to paperwork I have to complete for work.... sigh... I wanted to have finished this story by December 10th... I guess Iwont make it... 

ah, more mysteries solved... hahaha I consider this one to be the peak of this story -I imagine stories like some kind of mountain/summit hahaha
oh! Saku, you were asking the other day -quite in a passionate way, I think (which was great)- what was certain character doing in this story if he was being treated a certain way -that you seemed to dislike a lot-... well, here it is, what I didn´t say then, I hope this one answers that question

***

I hope I hadnt used this one before... I think it´s perfect for this one. Saku, thank you for showing it to me ^^

Alexander and I had a little theory that proved to be correct, you only got sick if the cause was inserted in your blood stream by some kind of wound that stayed exposed, but you wouldn´t die of that, you seemed on the verge of it but after careful study we saw your body sort of shut off as if to focus all its energy in getting rid of the illness, of course, you were and I suspect are vulnerable in the times you are about to shut off but we knew with training you wouldn´t get to that.

I bet you´re wondering if we made you sick, well, yes, we did, guess who did the punctures. Nati, she made them and then she tended them, you were so naïve, always forgave her. This little information, how to make you sick, besides helping us with the vaccine issue, helped us to convince your mom to give us another child, she said “when Nicky turns five”. We took care of her, she was our great hope and it seemed that we were on our way to success again, another baby and a little girl who was the culmination of our dream, it was great until tragedy happened.  

Nichole was thinking once again in the book, on what she´d read, she´d known since she got it that it couldn´t be good but it was worse than what she thought. She´d had the black notebook for a while and she´d carried it but she knew she´d been scared to find out, something inside had told her not to read it, to keep that double life, to be the monster a little bit more for the sake of the girl, the student, the friend, the artist but that day in the park, when another promise had been broken her anger had taken over her, it felt almost like it had a life of its own, wanting to be read.

A lot had happened since then, a lot and not much, she´d been running away, she´d been angry at Nat, she´d been worried about josh, she´d been let the monster take all her worries away. It had been hard to get the courage to read Ibsen´s story, her own story but once this was done, once she´d read the first part, she´d read all the way, over and over, the same, not finding courage enough to finish reading the part about the tragedy. She´d gone away again and again but she´d hid the notebook from herself, she´d been scared of it but she had to, she had to finish it, she had to know.

Did you notice how I´ve mentioned a couple of names here and there? Besides Nati and your puppeteer father you should pay attention to Alexander. By the time you read this I´ll be dead by your hand but he´ll be well and alive. If you were to look at our relationship from the outside, we´re in good terms, all his family thinks of me as a friend but that is not true. I have a grudge against him. I´ll even tell you later where to find him but don´t worry he thinks we´re fine, he and I, I needed to be close to him to be able to inform you, to tell you more about him, or at least what matters. Now, my once perfect child, I will tell you why, me, his most loyal friend is against him.

It was a sunny afternoon when Alexander received a phone call, you were being trained. We had agreed that some ballet would benefit you; you danced so beautifully, he and I were watching you when he answered the phone. His face lost all its color; he was pale so suddenly that I was worried.

He´d received the news that his little grandson had an accident. You see, Alexander has four children, the ones that he calls his, two of his first wife, that he adored, his pride and eldest: Erick and Angela and two of his second wife: Eleanor and Alan. He´s like a lion protecting his kids and he adores his grandchildren specially Erick´s.

Alexander was shocked by the news that Erick´s son had fallen into the pool… long story short, the boy had practically died; his heart was failing, stopping. Alex urged them to bring him to Redwood Larch hospital, our hospital, in the meantime he started to pace our lab, his face contorted, and his eyes focused somewhere far. In the time it took the ambulance to get to the hospital, not even five minutes, he had made a plan that would destroy our project, our perfect child and in the end our lives.

He had planned to use you, he was convinced it would work, if he could only make the little boy´s heart beat again, he was convinced your ability to heal, the larger flow of oxygen in your blood and your amazing immune system would fix the boy´s brain and possible damaged organs. I tried to convince him that we had no way of knowing that, that we hadn´t done that big advance in the vaccines or other experiments related to regenerate organs. I told him that we had never tried anything so big, that he could compromise your life, that the boy was already dead but he was determined, he barked his orders to Nati and the rest. As the boy was rushed downstairs to our safe lab you were being hastily prepared.

It was such a sad scene, the man was desperate. If the water hadn´t hurt the boy´s heart and lungs, Alexander would have fried his little heart with how he tried to make his heart beat, he tried until I though he was going to give up, he didn’t and in a frenzy he made you take all the strain. You had to be the boy, you had to heal and revive the boy. I could say that at some point you had two beating hearts, both your chests cut open. Nati was in charge to make up an excuse so that your parents were calm, they saw you through a camera or so they thought, Nati was a computer genius. She made a great job.

A few hours later after the boy was connected to you, what we knew happened, your body shut off but it was like never before. You barely had brain activity. I was so angry; I was convinced Alexander had killed our perfect child for a dead body. Twenty four hours later we noticed the boy had started to have some brain activity, another twenty four hours later it was in synchrony with yours. It was lower than a living person when you were shut down like that, it made me worried but this made Alexander relieved, I was skeptic, Sarah hoped and Nati prayed with your parents in the chapel, many stories above our lab.

It took over a week for your body to go back to somewhat normalcy and for it to make the boy from dead to comatose. After over two weeks, his heart could beat on its own, you were truly one with him back then, like one body, your blood went in your organs and then to him and back to you, like some sort of cleansing machine. On the third week after this you opened your eyes, you looked so pale, but I was relieved and eager for the boy to be taken away from you but Alexander barked again that we should observe how much you could do, you were more than perfect he said and he got me there though I knew he Just wished his comatose kid to wake up and he did, you did that, my perfect Nicky.

After about eight weeks the boy woke up, he opened his eyes and after a couple of weeks he breathed on his own, you were free from him then but still kept close. You were the first person he saw, next to him, all pale, crying to be let out, you missed your parents. I think you were scared of him too, he had been so cold all the time, he had looked dead because he was until you brought him back.

A week later, you were fine, you were left alone to go to your family, they were happy and so were the rest of us. You, our project, our precious child had almost literally beat death, only Alexander was worried, his little boy was broken, his body, most of his functions were fine but he´d been reduced to something less than a baby, no memories, no control over his limbs, mouth, nothing. He didn´t talk, his eyes didn´t seem completely lost but most of the times they were focused on nothing. The boy was no longer a boy.

Alexander had another one of his ideas:  if you could beat death you could teach his brain, it was crazy but somehow less dangerous. I won’t get into detail, computers were filled with data on that, for this small notebook to make it justice or for you to completely get it in one go, even with your impressive brain but I´ll tell you that the information on your brain made up his new information too, all that you knew, how to talk, how to smile, how to move, how to recognize sounds and places…everything.

You had to go over all that you had learned so that his brain made that connection too, of course your body and mind were superior so that he couldn´t exactly solve a second grader problem with just you doing it but he soon recovered his speech, the ability to gain more words, to make sense of them, poor boy though, that made him recognize what nightmares were and because you were attached you had them too. I wonder if you ever remember them, it´s likely that you don’t, your brain would protect itself from that, you probably don’t remember how painful to bring him back was and how to make him function was, how his nightmares frightened you at first. The boy would wake up and cry in pain as he had these nightmares, he woke you up. After a while you did recognize they were not real and how perfect you were that you found out how to calm him without words. “I only tell him he´s next to me now” you explained Sarah when she asked you how you did it “I think good thought” you smiled proudly.

This new part, you teaching his brain, started with a week, a full week of you two attached to the other, then we let you rest and him practice, he was so weak and you kept being his cleansing machine so many times in the next months. Alexander was right, you did make him better. After a while you both left yet you both came back, Alexander was determined that you made the kid back to how he was but when the boy started to talk of “the little girl” to his family Alexander decided to put you two in different rooms, a glass and a blind between you. You were so fond of him “The little boy is crying” you´d say to Nati, she calmed you but when she left you moved the blinds and touched your little hand to the glass, your face tear-stained for him.

Almost a year went by, you turned six and by that time I noticed you were not learning as fast as before, I blamed and still blame the boy. This time I was firm and didn’t let Alexander keep using you, you had made the kid quite well already so he agreed, besides, the boy kept asking for the little girl that no one saw or so his grandpa made his parents and the boy believe.

Time went by, I was stupid to think the boy wouldn´t have a toll on you, you´d been too long with him, you´d done too much. I never had time to study the small changes it caused on your DNA, it was too big of a search… it  all crashed against us when you started to get sick  out of nowhere, you were weak and we didn’t know what was wrong. Alex and I argued all the time because of you always getting sick. That year was a long year, it was either Miriam or you that were inexplicably sick, every test negative and then the other assistants kept losing the babies or did something stupid to compromise them and then the final blow: something strange happened, your nurse fell as she draw blood from you, a heart attack.

 We didn’t know back then but that was the first person you killed, one of us died that way too, an assistant and one of the almost ready to be born babies too. Back then Sarah, Nati and myself didn´t die. It was some intermittent thing you had, you touch seemed to transfers too much electricity that hearts couldn´t handle or you took the energy and the same happened. There was no way to stop it. Alexander seemed at a loss too, no brilliant ideas this time, we fought so very loudly about this. You were healthy but wouldn’t let anyone live and we couldn´t keep you for long in the lab, your parents were picking you up, I didn’t want that if we lost Miriam, we lost our chance. Karl´s birthday was in a month, the news of another child already in her was going to be his birthday present.

“Nicky´s stressed, let her go home” Alex said, he theorized that had been why me, Sarah and Nati hadn´t suffered the destiny of the nurse, assistant and Paul. You went and came back; Miriam was fine after that week. Alex wore a smirk that I wanted to slap off of his face. We hadn’t figured out how to keep you from touching and killing people. We sent you home again convinced it´d help you not to be stressed in the lab. I was reluctant of it. I should´ve listened to my heart. That week we lost Miriam and the perfect little one she carried and after that we lost it all. Karl moved you out of the town. We tried to convince him to come back or to give you to us but he wouldn´t come back or give you up “she´s so much like Miriam” he repeated over and over.

Double Life: Nicky

A/N: wow, it´s taken DL so long to get to this....hahaha some light´s thrown into the mysteries that have been building in these years of writing this story. Since I had never used this type of time I feel like I should explain when this part happened in DL´s timeline: it happened after Nat didn´t show up with mii and the time in which Nat went to Burgeoys... 

Saku, your comment in the last post made me feel quite accomplished, specially the last part of it, what you said there, wow, perfect! haha -n the story you made for Nat/Ibsen was funny but great!

Also... I´ll miss you today >_<  b/c of that I think I´ll make it a double post... mmmm

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All the time since she´d been given the journal she´d been afraid to read it, she´d found out through the letter in it that she´d been an experiment gone wrong, it had hurt, she´d almost wished that she´d never gone to Ibsen´s home that night but she couldn’t take time back, however she´d been putting off the reading, only carrying the journal, it had been a heavy constant weight but it was scarier to think it might say more, it might say what Nat didn’t want to say, what she said she didn´t know and Nichole had been a coward, she hadn’t mustered the courage to read it, not a line, not a page, then, that Sunday, she´d been angry. What else could the woman said that she didn’t know, a broken experiment is all there is, that was the summary of who she was and so she had read and she had found out about Nat and it had been bad... she almost didn´t want to continue, she´d let a few days go by, trying to read the next but only managing to read the first paragraph, then the first two... she closed the notebook until after another few days she found the courage to read again.

You were my perfect child, the culmination of a life time work; you were more mine than you were your mother´s. You´re only seventeen but you´re really a dream that started in my youth, over fifteen years before you were even born.

I was in college, a young student doctor, my field: genetics, I was filled with great ideas, some very new and innovative, one of them not so acceptable by the standards and that’s why you were only a dream and then, lucky me, a young handsome man took notice of me, smart, clever, his friends were my friends, don´t imagine a romantic picture, please, when you´re in med school there´s no time for that but for long sleepless nights and in the lack of sleep comes the frenzy of having less and less filter in what you say, lucky us, we had much more in common than what we thought.

His dream was also my dream and it was our dream together through our school life. Towards the end of this, a few more joined in and his enthusiasm made our dream a project, one in which we started to work. We were five at that time, of them you´ve only left two: me and Alexander, pretty soon it´ll be only one of us.

Time flew by, Alexander was to inherit a whole lot of money and resources, a hospital, it was perfect, and our project grew. I won´t attempt to tell you all the many failures and difficulties we had in those fifteen and more years but I will tell you how our success came to be.

After fifteen years, a few of the original five were tired, convinced we were losing our time, and a lot of money was spent. We managed to convince them to stay but for one… he wasn´t spared in your trial, though, serves him well. But that was not the only major problem we  had, you see, we were basically playing God, trying to make a perfect child, stronger, better, with a better ability to heal, to learn and that is taboo, no woman would let us play with her baby like that and no woman would like to carry that child. We were smart, the most brilliant of our classes, we had managed to do convince them not that they knew the full extent of what they were doing, still, we had so many failures in that stage, there were miscarriages, blind kids, deaf kids, unfit for life and our volunteers were less and less… and then, a little luck for us, Miriam and Karl Duchenne came into the picture, they were perfect, so desperate for a kid.

 I wonder if they´ve told you that, your father had told your mom to adopt a kid but no, she wanted his kid, but she couldn´t make it and out of a coincidence he heard of us. He wouldn´t know who we really were, what we did but it was a lucky thing that he went to our hospital and not any other, their situation could be fixed but it was very expensive for him, an in-vitro baby is too expensive and for the poor Duchenne family it was impossible but Alexander had an idea, they could pay in kind, we were always in need for follicles, eggs, and your mom besides her difficulty of having children, was one of the healthiest donors. I wonder if Karl or Nati ever told you this and if they did, was it the right story? Well, I hope they told you how precious you were for all of us, fifteen by then, counting the most important assistants.

Your mother gave us great hopes. A boy was the first success or so we thought, the boy´s heart failed, how sad we all were but it produced an improvement, the next time not only you mother passed the first five months but two other assistants too, no heart problems and guess what? We were all thrilled to know that the second time Miriam was expecting twins, I bet you´re smart enough to know in vitro increases the chances of that, sad news on the fifth month again, one of the babies died spontaneously, she was perfect but for unknown reasons she didn´t make it. Miriam was so sad but so strong, for a month she was in bed rest, she was an active woman, it was such an endurance she had to go through. However, our perfect baby didn´t want to be born, not from her, not from other.

The twin, the one that survived was delivered in the seventh month, a couple of hours later he was gone, his lungs failed, blood had rushed there and they were not enough to take it, once again our improvement had gone wrong… we lost so many babies, so much time, so much money but we knew we´d make it, you see, in succeeding there´s a lot of tries, you only have to keep trying until you make it. We lived by that.  After a long wait, Miriam was ready to try again and so were the other assistants. There were a lot of hardships during that time but, finally, we had a baby to give to Miriam. We knew that time we had to make it, it was her last try, we couldn´t lose her like that.

Do you remember your real name?  Sarah Nichole.  Sarah was one of the doctors, one of us. Did you know that? That was why we started to call you Nicky, I wonder if they still call you that. Back to my tale, you, Nicky were the only one that survived, it was sad but one was enough, we had our perfect child, all of us happy and with new hopes, you were the key.

Did you know your parents were going to move out after you were born? Your mother liked this little town surrounded by woods but we couldn´t lose you like that. Alexander being the smart man he is convinced your parents of staying, of keeping you close under the pretense of you being in some program related to improving the way kids learn, your education would be paid, it is paid if you were who you were, but I’m getting ahead of myself, as I said, education, you were educated, trained from young age to see better, to hear better, to learn faster. We had given you the potential, we had to develop it and we did. You spoke so young, you achieved so much in your first year, your mother was delighted, we all were… No, not really, I guess you didn´t like it when Nati had to measure you or test you and you specially didn´t like needles.

We had a big party when you turned one, you and us. Your family didn’t have enough money to do something like that, do you remember that party? On that day, the crew talked about the possibility that your mother had to do with you being our only success, so we tried to convince her of having another kid but she wanted only you, and we let it rest for a while, we had time, and we had you.

 We tried to convince her for about three years, but our plans continued despite her negatives that every time were less strong.  You opened so many possibilities, you wouldn´t get sick. As a little girl you loved rain, do you still like it? You got out and came back soaked wet, we were worried, it was really cold but nothing happened, we let it happen again, you were always so keen on going on your own when something bored you or when needles time was near, you never got sick, believe me, we tried until you gave us a clue.

You were running away from Nati, Sarah was walking with petri dishes with viruses, we were trying to produce vaccines with that amazing immune system of yours, you and Sarah bumped, you fell and so did the dishes, you punctured your little arm with one of them, it got in about half inch in your flesh.. You got sick, really sick and then one day, you woke up fine, as if it hadn´t been more than a mere cold, and I assure you it was not.

At this point Nichole shut closed the journal, she was angry, this time she did kicked the wall of the place where she was. It was worse than what she had thought. It hurt her how everything had happened, how Ibsen spoke of her as a thing, as an experiment and of her mother as a mere vessel for their purposes.

She´d been hiding, moving from place to place since she left Burgeoys, she couldn´t stay still, she had to go, she´d always run to the woods when she felt trapped, conflicted, then she had ran to Ashley even though he never knew of her double life and lately, she knew, she´d been running to josh, doing her best to keep herself from hurting him yet making him the place to hide…

“You stopped being worried?” she raised an eyebrow at the sight of only two texts from him, all the while knowing full well that it had been her who had alienated hi m from her life. She saw his second text, the most recent one, she knew it was impossible but her chest tightened the way it felt when she touched her victims that familiar pain shot through her… She shook her head, her mind already working ways to reach him… to reach him without having to see people.

“Good bye, josh” she ended the call in which she had allowed the monster to speak. She knew she´d crumble otherwise, like she´d done in the woods at midnight when camping with his family, or at Ashley´s tomb or in so many other occasions. She tightly closed her eyes and then scrubbed a hand over her face, massaged her neck.

“I’m sorry I still hurt you” she whispered as she packed her laptop, grabbed her bag and left the place in which she´d been that day. “I never meant it” she said without a sound, only her lips moving; her figure just a ghostly shadow in the night.