Three years after Lucinda's confrontation with the mastermind behind the infection, she is forced to risk everything to save Lucella once and for all.
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Fifteen-year-old Lucinda Emerson was well aware of the fact that she didn't take TIO down...
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"Wait for me!"
"We've been waiting for the past ten minutes!"
I chuckled nervously at Zuzy's harsh words as I entered the twins' room. "Sorry about that," I apologized. "I completely lost track of time." I could tell that Zee and Georgie tried their best to contain my laughter from the other side. The latter was currently rummaging through the closet. It was another "Fantastic Four" night, and the zebra twins seemed to be taking it seriously. The game plan consisted of nothing but games, movies, food, and staying up all night. The chances of us getting caught by one of the adults didn't seem to bother us one bit.
"Well, I'll forgive you since you brought food," Zuzy responded with her arms crossed, keeping her eyes on the bags in my hands and their contents; numerous varieties of chips, drinks, candy, and other sweets. As soon as I set the bags down, Georgie finally got his head out of the closet. "I found it!" He declared while holding up a movie disc, which was safely inside of its cover. "Dead Man's Wish?" I read off of the cover before turning my head to Zuzy once more. "Are you sure about this? You couldn't sleep for a week straight the last time we watched this."
I was almost hit with a pillow.
"Cindy! That was nearly five years ago!" Zuzy protested. I laughed at Zuzy's embarrassed expression before holding my hands up, not wanting to make our current "conflict" any worse. "Alright, alright, I'll back off," I informed through laughs while readjusting my shirt collar. I was only wearing an oversized T-shirt, shorts, and socks. After realizing that my shorter hair was a lot easier to maintain than my longer hair, I chose to cut it whenever it got long so that it was still just below my shoulders.
However, that wasn't the only thing that had changed.
I had finally gotten my first period a few years back, too, much to my relief. My body was finally starting to develop. I finally looked like the teenager I was supposed to be. With the help of Zizzy and Mimi, I was able to step through the doors and enter the world of womanhood. As I suspected, it was torture, but it was all for a good cause; maturity. Mom and Rose would always tell me that it was all a part of females growing up and truly becoming women.
In addition to reaching womanhood, my body had gone through other changes, as well. Before the sergeant, who told us to call him by Sergeant Monroe, dropped us off, he had a team of doctors inspect us. Turns out, I was a lot more injured than I had originally thought. It was a good thing they carried medical equipment with them. If they hadn't, I would've gotten a bunch if infections, and none of them involved the one that was causing the world to go down.
I no longer wore my eyepatch, but my eye had to be sewn shut in exchange. I was given the option between that or a prosthetic eye. In the end, I didn't want something that wasn't mine inside of my socket, so I told Sergeant Monroe that I wanted my eye sewn shut. There were a lot of stitches around other parts of my body, but they were mostly hidden away underneath my clothes. The swelling afterwards wasn't fun to deal with, but it was all gone now.
