Harm and Harmony

-Chapter 88-

Day: 120

Days Left: 5360

Lives Saved: 0

Returning back to Rin, Corinna stood motionless, her breathing short and staggered.

"Did you get the nails?" asked Rin, her mask still on, the black words growing and shrinking as they swirled around.

Corinna snapped herself out of her trance and handed Rin the nails, then went back to being consumed by her own thoughts.

That woman had lost all of her memories... because of her.

It was all her fault.

Corinna remembered how the now named 'Jessica' had looked at her. She was a complete stranger to her. She didn't recognise her killer.

'Killer...'

That was the right word for it. Corinna had erased all of Jessica's memories. All that was left was the shell of a body and an empty mind void of identity and self. That was how Harmony had made it seem.

Harmony...

Would she have forgiven the person that had stolen her memories from her?

No.

Of course not.

Who would?

Would she have wanted to know what she had been like before? About her past?

Or would it just make everything more painful?

Something inside of Corinna's stomach twisted and knotted itself together. Every time she thought about Jessica and Harmony, and their loss of memories, it grew tighter. She then thought about her own memories, how she had managed to record most of them in her notebook. Neither Jessica nor Harmony had that. They had nothing from their past, apart from Harmony's goal of regicide.

The knot inside her stomach had doubled in size, the pain branching up to her heart. Corinna knew the only way for it to become untied was to confess. Though Corinna had little she could tell Jessica of her past, at the very least she should know who was to blame.

"Everything alright, Corinna?" asked Rin, looking back at the young woman that had been frozen still in thought for quite some time.

"I just need to go somewhere quickly," responded Corinna, Rin's words bringing her back to reality and out of her trance. Sucking in a quick breath, the young woman rushed back to the shop section, weaving in and out of the shelves, searching for Jessica.

"Need help finding 'Somin'?" Sumit appeared, leaning against a bookcase with a smug grin. "Get it? 'Soomin'... 'Something'... 'Sumit'?" When he saw Corinna's perplexed expression, the young man gave up. "That joke has never worked on anyone-"

"Where's that woman from earlier?"

"You mean Jessica? Oh, she's left. Not too long ago though so she should still be nearby-"

"Thank you!" Corinna darted out of the trading post, swiping up her spear as she left. She heard Ivette and Sumit calling out her name in confusion, but Corinna continued running towards the small figure on the horizon.

As she got closer, the terrain became more difficult, the land now scattered in hills and slopes, the grass damp and wet from the marshes. Corinna's feet slipped and slid as she rushed up the slopes, almost losing her balance if she hadn't used her spear for support.

Jessica was now within earshot. The woman span around, hearing the frantic footsteps and staggered breathing of Corinna. Clutching onto a spiked baseball bat, seemingly her only weapon, Jessica called out to the exhausted blonde woman, "you alright?"