BEYOND INFERNAL: The Divine Soldiers of The Living and The Dead

19 - Flaming Red Hair

“Thea? Thea!”, somebody was holding me - I knew that voice and I knew it very well.

I opened my eyes and saw Carlo frantically shaking me to wake me up. How did he know who I was? I was erased from their memory, from everyone’s memory – I’m sure I’m just dreaming again. I closed my eyes because I wanted to stay in the dark for longer when I was shaken hardly.

I forced myself to open my eyes and see what was happening to me. I was in our attic but how could that be? I didn’t know what I should do, if I close my eyes I knew that I’d be dreaming of something bizarre and I’m so tired to dream of it, but if I open it – I’ll have to face the reality of Elena and George’s death.

“Thea are you stoned?”

I wrinkled my eyebrows because I was confused, why do I hear Carlo calling me? Was he calling me or there’s somebody else that was Thea?

“Hey pig! Are you stoned???”, he said as he pushed my shoulder.

“Why do you know me?”, I didn’t know how that came out of my mouth, I was supposed to just asked that on my mind.

“Uhh. Why won’t I know you? Where have you been? You’ve been gone for half a year. You didn’t even call, you didn’t even---“

“What do you mean I was gone for half a year?”, I was still confused by what he was saying.

“Thea, you told us that you’d spend your weekend with Kasey and Ram, and the weekend passed by and you didn’t come home. That’s when mama and papa learned that you weren’t with Kasey that weekend. We thought you eloped with that douche bag. We tried to search for you but it has been months and we couldn’t find any information of your whereabouts.”

I thought Michael already took care of this? I thought they erased me from their memory so they will be spared from the misery that I was missing or worse – was dead. They really fooled me, making me believe that they took care of everything I left behind. Maybe that’s also the reason why they died, because they weren’t really watching over them. How could they be this cruel?

“Mama and papa…”, I whispered hoping that they weren’t dead and I knew I was just fooling myself trying to hope for that, my tears started to run down my cheeks.

“The police said there was a foul play, but I think it was suicide.”, he said as he tried to suppress his tears.

“Suicide?”, no Carlo it wasn’t suicide, someone killed them – but that was someone the police won’t be able to arrest.

“They were depressed Thea, really depressed – especially papa George. He was the one who couldn’t take your sudden leaving, he didn’t eat, he didn’t sleep and he drowned himself with alcohol every night. I hate seeing them that way, but whatever I did and whatever I said meant nothing to them.  I hated you for doing that to them, I still hate you now! Where have you been!?”, he asked.

I tried to think of an acceptable alibi but there was nothing I could think of that would ease my brother’s anger but one…

“Ram, locked me somewhere far.” I said. It was true, half truth. Somehow, I felt that the seven archangels truly locked me up like a prisoner - with no privilege and freedom and I thought there’s no harm on what they did to me, until Elena and George died.

“I told you he was up to no good!”, he yelled at me.

“I know.”, and tears started to rush down my eyes again as I remembered how Ram aimed his sword at me and tried to kill me.

Carlo hugged me as he tried to make me stop crying. I tried to make it stop, I shouldn’t be crying about him anymore – it wasn’t worth the waste of tears.