Controlling the rising urge to cheer in joy, Annie scrunched her brows.
"Mother? What are you talking about? You can’t leave us! What about my brother? He still needs your blood!"
Annie’s mother regretted the mont those words left her mouth; however, seeing Annie’s worried gaze and flickering panic, her heart skipped a beat.
Right decision. Can’t stay with this deadbeat!
Suddenly, a thought popped into her mind, and she froze. Her eyes narrowed as she observed every mont of Annie before announcing,
"Alright. Since you want so much, I won’t leave."
The steadiness in her voice made Annie’s body freeze.
Why the sudden change? Did her mother catch on to sothing?
Yet, Annie rembered Ivy’s advice and controlled the panic rising in her heart.
’Must have recognised my overacting...’
Her mother was an observant person. If her mother were not observant, she would not have been able to conceive Annie and her brother or receive child support from their absent father.
Analyzing what mind has attracted her attention, Annie’s heart skipped a beat. Annie realized she was displaying too many emotions.
Usually... the only emotions she ever showed to her mother were disappointnt and anger.
Panic... there were many tis Annie was anxious, and yet she never showcased it. But today...
Stupid decision.
The spiraling thoughts hardly made any dent in Annie’s face. Instead, she quickly ca up with a solution.
"Good." Her eyes carried joy, while her face remained expressionless.
Under the suspicious stare of the older woman, Annie walked toward the sofa and sat down. The creaking sound of the sofa broke the tension in the atmosphere.
With her shoulders slumping, Annie covered her burning face with her cold hands. The hot and cold sensation jolted her out of her spiraling thoughts.
"Mom... I was worried you would leave. I may have never shown it... But I am vulnerable too. Today, I encountered a life-threatening situation. My heart almost stopped beating for a mont.... At that mont, I regretted... I regretted never expressing myself. I regretted not trying to quickly manage my brother’s dical condition. What if I died and my brother had no one to look after him? Hence... I proposed this solution. Thank you, Mom, for not leaving us. I feel the weight on my shoulder lifting."
A carefully crafted lie. A backstory for her emotional outburst. And the impending future.
If her mother was truly testing the water... then...
"I... I want so ti." Annie’s mother’s hesitant voice rekindled the dwindling hope in her heart. However, Annie resisted the urge to look up and show any extra emotions; instead, she gave out a disappointed sigh and left the room.
Her action aligned with how the old Annie would have reacted.
Annie’s mother stared at Annie’s back with a complicated gaze. A hint of sha welled up in her heart, and she lowered her head, and a glint flashed in her eyes.
.........
Annie closed the door with extra force, the sound of the door creaking echoing in her cramped room. A faint rusty sll assailed her nose, and the turmoil within her heart slowly quieted down.
’Mom... please do a favor... and this ti... let your greed talk.’
..........
"Baby? Baby? Wake up! Why aren’t you all talking? We have almost reached your uncle’s house!" Alana patted her twin’s face, which was deathly pale, and her heart skipped a beat.
The familiar car... the familiar scene. She realized she was dreaming about the mont when she and Felix were trying to reach Joseph.
But it wasn’t supposed to go like this, was it?
Feeling the coldness emitted by her own children, a premonition hit her heart.
They were dead. Dead? How?
"Felix! How long?" Alana found herself speaking, but the sensation of the fear of losing her children was entirely new.
No... they were supposed to be alive.
"Just two hours..." The panicked words did help ease her unease.
"They won’t be able to hold on!"
Suddenly, Alana checked the pulse, and a wave of dread passed over. She broke out in cold sweat and muttered under her breath,
"They... they are not breathing..."
"What? No... No... My children!" Felix’s agonized voice made Alana go into a daze.
They died? But... they were supposed to be saved by soone... who?
An image of a beautiful woman with cascading pink hair flooded her vision.
The next scene shifted, and Alana watched a movie.
To be precise... it was her life... albeit a different one.
Alana, who suffered the loss of her children, broke down and awakened a rare S-rank healing power. She never conceived any child after her two children’s deaths.
Her husband tried to help her through the depression, but he wasn’t any better. Both of them lived a prosperous life.
They enjoyed fa, money, and just enough food to eat. Her powers were like a boon to humanity, but only she felt like it was a curse.
Every ti she used it, she rembered how her children died. Gradually, the emptiness caught up with her, and she lost the will to live.
After committing suicide, she watched her husband break down and transform into a ntally ill patient.
What an ironic life. An S-rank healer lost her children because she awakened her power too late, and even after awakening, she couldn’t prevent her husband from dying from illness.
The scene depicted her husband rushing toward the zombie horde.
"No!" Alana jolted from her bed. Sweat dripped from her forehead, while her feet and hands turned cold.
At the sa ti, her husband woke up too.
The next second, he hugged Alana and asked in a trembling voice,
"You saw... saw it too?"
Alana’s heart skipped a beat. A conjoined dream.
At this point, Alana had a suspicion in her mind...
"Was it your superpower, Felix?"
Felix stiffened, his expression slowly morphing into disbelief.
"You an... I have the power to see a parallel world?"
"No." Alana shook her head, her eyes carrying a hint of certainty. "The dream wasn’t a parallel world... it was our past life."
"So... I have the power to see past lives?"
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