Twin Moon - Chapter 249 - Memory Walk
Zelena.
This must be another Drakos vision. Only it feels different somehow.
“Aurora” I whispered softly. I don’t even know if she can hear me, but it was worth a shot. She rolled onto her stomach and curled into a ball. Her back was littered with fresh wounds, lashings. The same kind of markings once lived on my back. I knelt down beside her ratty bed and reached for her. A soft and gentle hand wrapped around my wrist, stopping me from comforting her. I looked at the person that the hand belonged to, and was surprised to see Selene.
“Mother?” I whispered,
“Hello, daughter of mine” she said back. Her gentle ethereal voice echoed around the room. Even in the darkness, her skin glowed. The silk of her white dress fluttered in the non-existent breeze, and her pure white hair hung in a straight curtain down her back.
“Is this the Ethereal Plane?” I asked her and looked back down at Aurora’s broken body.
“No” she answered,
“A dream then?” I questioned,
“Not a dream, child, a memory” she sung quietly,
“Who’s memory?” I asked, looking up to her beautiful face.
“Mine” she answered sadly. She’s showing me her memories, but why. But if she was here, with Aurora, that means she was visiting her too. Just like she did with me when I was this age. If I’m right, why didn’t she say anything, why didn’t she tell me about her.
“I don’t understand” I admitted with furrowed brows,
“Why are you showing me this now, why didn’t you tell me about her sooner?”.
“This was the last time I was able to visit her” Selene whispered. Even through the musical bells that was her voice, I could hear the sadness.
“Able? Why would you not be able? You’re the Goddess of the Moon” I asked perplexed,
“She stopped allowing me in. It was on this day that she closed me off indefinitely”
“I’m sorry, I just don’t understand. She shut you off, how does that happen?”
“You are a creation of me, my blood is your blood, as is hers. I have a great many powers, but even I have limitations. For me to visit with you, with anyone, you must be open to it. If you deny me, I cannot come” she explained. I didn’t expect such openness from her. I didn’t think she would give me the answers, any answers, so easily. Everything is always so cryptic with Selene, why be straight with me now?
“She denied you?” I asked a little shocked. Why would she do that? I remember my time with Selene growing up, I wouldn’t have survived without her visits. How could Aurora deny her.
“She did” Selene confirmed,
“But why?”
“Because I could not free her, and she would not accept that”.
Oh. My poor sister. I can't pretend to know exactly what she suffered. Our upbringings could have been the same in many ways, but vastly different in others. I remember crying constantly for Selene to take me with her. I remember wishing she’d come back sooner, and just begging her to stay. But I could never imagine living without her. Even though I didn’t remember her at the time, each time my memory came back, every time I saw her face again, I never wanted to let her go.
“Why didn’t you tell me about her?” I asked,
“You were not ready to hear it” she answered and gracefully stood up. I watched Aurora for another moment. She whimpered and tucked her head into her chest but didn’t wake.
“Isn’t that up to me to decide?” I said sternly as I stood up and faced my surrogate mother.
“No, child” she answered with a kind smile,
“Is it because of the prophecy? That's why you didn’t tell me about her?”.
I stood waiting for an answer, but she didn’t respond. I opened my mouth to push her for answers, when the door opened. A tall, brooding looking man walked in and went straight to the mattress on the floor. We watched silently as he kicked her in the lower back. Aurora cried out in pain and spun around, she scampered back until her small body was pressed into the corner of the two concrete walls.
“Get up bitch” he snorted down at her angrily. When she didn’t move fast enough, he grabbed her by her skinny little arms and dragged her to her feet. When I saw how rough he was with her, it infuriated me. My blood was boiling and I was ready to kill him. I stepped toward him, not even sure what I was going to do, if anything. But Selene’s long thin fingers wrapped around my wrist. I turned to glare at her, and she shook her head and held up her hand, telling me to wait.
The brutish man dragged Aurora from the room and Selene and I followed closely behind. As we walked down the empty hall, the subzero temperature was evident. And yet they had her dressed in flimsy rags. I took my best guess as to where we were. It looked like some kind of military bunker or something. Floor to ceiling, and everything in between, was all made of concrete. Pipes and wires ran along the roof, with air vents and fluorescent lights spread out along the way. I think perhaps we are underground. The sound of marching feet echoed through the many hallways, that splintered off in all directions.
“Can anyone see us?” I whispered to Selene.
“No child, we are not really here. This is just a memory, one I walk through regularly” she answered. She didn’t whisper or try to talk quietly, so I guess they can’t hear us either.
We walked for a little further until the man knocked on a large steel door. After a second the door buzzed open and the man threw Aurora through it. He strode in behind her, holding himself tall and proud, like he was a tough guy or something for beating on a child. Once in the new room, I saw that it was separated by thick metal bars. On the other side of the bars was a chair, all decked out with restraints, wires and electrical looking stuff. A matching chair sat on this side too, one that the man got to work strapping Aurora into.
“What’s going on?” I asked Selene as I looked between Aurora and the other chair.
“Wait” she told me. Wait for what? What is all this? After a minute, a door on the other side of the bars opened and another man walked in, dragging someone behind him. It was a man, tall but thin, his long scruffy black hair covered his face. His clothes were in tatters and his pale skin was black and blue with bruises. The guard dropped him into the chair and began with all the straps at his legs, hands and chest. Once he finished with those, he moved behind the chair and lifted the man’s head so that he could clip the strap across his forehead. The guard moved the man’s hair away from his eyes and I could see his face.
I gasped and covered my hand over my mouth. He looked over at Aurora, fear and sorrow filled his lifeless golden eyes. He looked different than the smiling proud man I gazed at in the photo Lunaya had given me, but there was no denying it. It's my father, our father. It was Micha.
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