Chapter 184 – The Life, Long Since Lived
Without flair, the night passed smoothly, and the new day began.
After a long morning of preparing herself, she was ready to explore.
Lilly walked the streets that she once called ho... Feelings that had been dormant sprang into life at the familiar sights. A decade wasn’t enough to change this city, the country. Though the people had certainly shifted.
A girl with brown hair and brown eyes, she was ordinary. This form bore a resemblance to her original life, but with enough changes that no one would confuse her. It was almost instinctual, an effort to return to a ti long since passed. It took so effort to co out alone and change without being spotted.
She watched as the emotion was rife in the air. Far eclipsing the atmosphere it used to have, she wouldn’t say her previous view of the city was down or depressing. People were excited to learn and experint with what they had, but now, there was a demand for truth beyond what was found through science.
People wanted to know about people, about families, about history.
She grabbed the newspaper that sat on the stand, paying a few coins for it, like how anyone else would on their weekly routine. Lilly rarely bought these; she never had the disposable inco, so she settled for reading the covers or picking up discarded copies.
There were groups of teens and young adults in groups chatting away. It was the weekend, which ant many people weren’t working today. There were still jobs that worked today in Eletscoep, but their breaks were on other days, or they only worked during certain parts of the day. Compared to other countries, Eletscoep was more advanced in that its citizens were extrely self-sufficient and made enough goods to sustain its whole population. It was also a lot smaller than many nearby countries with equally smaller populations.
Lilly had always been proud of that fact. She had read about the state of other countries… though that was still t with its own bias that she never really existed. When it ca to their work, it was always important to remove such bias from any part, as it could infect the outco.
It wasn’t out of malicious intent. Rembering those lessons now, it was simply a matter of pride; people of Eletscoep believed their country to be superior, and in many areas it was. The trio could all admit that there were areas where it was simply better for a person’s life if they were born then elsewhere.
However, despite only being a small aspect, Lilly had seen more of the world and learned that other places had advances that made them shine, and more importantly, weren’t as bad as so of the teachings had indicated. She was a little embarrassed looking back, but a good kind, it was nice to see how far she had grown.
Wow…
Despite being in the city for the third day now, only by going on this walk by herself did she really digest everything she was seeing.
Her heart yearned for the past that has ceased to be. She loved the current her, but the mories of the past haunted her as loving spectres, aning no harm but causing grief. The pains that life had caused her weren’t gone, but she learned to no longer look towards them; if Lilly ever did, she was ready to stand up to those bad mories.
It took a long rest, healing, and new realisations for Lilly to reach her current state.
She knew that, without all the support she received in those first nine years of her new life, when tragedy struck, she wouldn’t have survived.
The appreciation, gratitude, and love for George and Jen, who raised her with so much love, and for her Syrus and Luna… The two who had to, unfortunately, feel her pain constantly and still chose to drag her out of the pit she had been trapped in. There was no way of knowing it was possible for one of them to be kicked out or destroyed in the body, but Eva knew they would have never looked for such an option.
Lilly blinked to reset her thoughts.
As with their first trip around the city, there was a strangeness, the differences from what she rembered and how things were now. It was never a bad strangeness, but it did cause her heart to shake that so much could change. She wasn’t upset at being left out, but there was a feeling she couldn’t quite describe. So many hidden truths about her world were left hidden, kept away from her, that were now publicly displayed. The intensity in people's joy and anger was sothing she only saw rarely during a rare event or a bad fight.
The city had changed, and perhaps she would’ve preferred to have lived to see it.
Eventually, she walked past the building where she spent the second half of her schooling.
It was the sa large building as it was before. The large building contained education facilities to teach people over multiple years and rooms for more practical lessons to take place.
In the corner of a window, teaching a class, was a man with a slight greyish tinge to his beard. It was hard to see due to the angle and glare of the light, but it appeared to be a blue-haired man who didn’t look particularly aged despite the colours of his beard.
[Soone you recognise?] (Luna)
[...Possibly…] Eva didn’t continue from there.
She walked around the building, trying not to look suspicious as she examined the buildings through the windows. Only students and staff were allowed to enter without additional permission. Her mories compared the experience of her formal education to her ti being taught by Jen.
There were certainly benefits to both approaches, and in a normal environnt, Jen’s lessons would’ve been the standard parent teaching a child how the world works, while sothing like the schools Lilly went to would be the places where the major lessons were held. Though Jen was a big exception, a woman who knew so much and was all too willing to teach it all to a child who might not understand it all. Syrus was always ready to admit there was a lot that went over her head during those lessons.
In the end, it was impossible to deny which one was more fun, but Lilly’s eyes glazed over the building as she rembered her ti there fondly… the good monts.
After more wandering down mory lane, she paused at the junction and chose to move in the opposite direction from where her parents once lived.
Eventually, they had reached the place where she used to live.
Her old ho looked completely different. It had been bought by soone else, unsurprisingly, and perhaps had swapped hands nurous tis. The windows were in the sa location, but the curtains weren’t kept closed as they had been in the past. The building appeared to be soone’s normal house, with papers on a desk. They could be a researcher or student, but the key point for Lilly was that it was soone else's house now. Not a touch of her remained; every cupboard and table had been removed and replaced with sothing else.
[...] Lilly turned around and retraced her steps back to the place she spent the first half of her schooling. Unlike the other building, this one was much smaller, and Lilly herself didn’t hold many mories of this place, but she rembered sothing else.
She rembered the path she used to always walk when going to and from school every day; the stone had been replaced in so areas, and the muck had been washed in others. Her eyes seed attracted to the ground as she walked.
Stumbling forward, Lilly’s eyes finally looked up to an old house near the middle of the street. It was nothing special compared to the houses next to it, but it looked to be a fine place to live.
Lilly stood off in the distance with no plans to move even a centitre closer. How long was she planning on waiting? Honestly, she wasn’t even sure. Saying 'not all day' was true but felt like a cop-out, so she stayed silent.
However, eventually she did get her wish.
Two people walked out of the building. It was near lunchti on the sixth day of the week, and they usually like to eat out on this day.
Leaving the door first were two aged individuals. The couple looked ordinary and perhaps only at most a decade older than Mary, but compared to the mories, they seed to have aged twenty in ten years. The man’s hair had gone fully grey, but that was already close to happening by the ti Eva left the house. The woman’s hair was still mostly brown, but it had lost its lustre.
[Do you want to interact with them?] (Syrus)
[No.] (Eva)
[You don’t need to lie.] (Luna)
[It is best that I do.] Lilly swallowed the emotions bubbling. [I don’t know if I could control myself otherwise.]
Lilly held everything back. What would she do if she ca into contact with them… At best, the eting would likely destroy so much they had built.
Following the two was a third. A small boy with brown hair and blue eyes appeared to be around at least ten years old based on the trio’s judgent. It was a silent acknowledgent between the three of them. There was enough resemblance between the two and the child that what happened while Eva was gone seed indisputable. Eva noted the clothes the child wore for school; there was a ribbon for children above ten.
She knew it wasn’t a replacent, and based on the clues, it was likely he was being readied during her last year of life, which made Eva sad that she never even noticed her mother was pregnant, that she was going to have a sibling.
She wasn’t upset.
Not about that.
It was just…
[Ten years have really passed…] Lilly swallowed as she felt the years of the city rewind in front of her, and even as the hands turned to reach the past, she still wasn’t there. Only existing as a corpse on the other end of the city with no one around.
The loneliness never hurt so much before.
Lilly stumbled around and walked away, burying everything deep within.
…
Far from the house.
Lilly crouched on the ground as they sat in the clean alley.
[Are you okay, Lilly?] (Luna)
The words were stuck in her mouth for a mont, but Eva breathed in and replied, [As much as I can be… I…]
Luna and Syrus took a step back as they were ready to hear Eva speak, as they felt the mountain of her emotions wishing to speak.
User Comments
0 comments from readers