Chereads / Dance of the Gods / Chapter 97 - Pains of the Past

Chapter 97 - Pains of the Past

After that the divination ended, but Veronica didn't notice it. At some point she fell to the floor and with her hands covering her face, she balled her eyes out.

Michael was there in the next moment asking what was wrong, and what did she see, but she was too absorbed in her emotions to answer or even hear the questions.

That last picture of the letter kept playing in her mind, and the ending... She remembered writing it, just a day before the fire...

The memories were slow to return, but they were persistent... And painful...

"No... I don't want to remember... Please... It hurts so much..." She mumbled while crying.

Michael watched her for another second, before deciding to try and help. He slowly and gently touched Veronica's hands and moved them away from her face. She let him do so.

With red rimmed eyes Veronica stared at him. Her expression was pure pain and suffering, like she just got the worst news in her entire life. Her lips trembled and her voice was weak, but she spoke anyway.

"I remember... I remember everything... But I don't want to..." She whispered until her voice finally broke and she began sobbing again.

Michael made no sound. He just gently let go of her hand, then pulled her head onto his chest, letting her cry for as long as she needed.

The Theater was silent. The music fully gone. The atmosphere was grim. The only sound that echoed through the building was Veronica's cries.

Her heart grew heavy with pain and sadness, like the ones she never felt before. Michael heard her mutter words like... "I'm sorry" "Forgive me" "Brother"

He didn't quite understood what she meant by any of these, or how she suddenly remembered her past, since she didn't truly have a past here in this world. By his knowledge she arrived roughly a month ago, because of a strange ritual.

Michael wanted nothing more than to ask and figure out what was going on, but he didn't want to be rude... Also, Veronica wasn't really able to answer any questions.

So instead he waited. They stayed in that position, in the middle of the Theater for the next hour.

Michael made sure that they still had time, but dinner won't be for another hour or so.

Eventually Veronica's muffled sobs disappeared. Somehow the silence was even more heart-wrenching than the crying.

He made gentle strokes on her back. Her body still trembled, but it was slowly calming down as well.

When he was sure, that she finally calmed down, he gently pushed her away, so he could look at her face. Her eyes were puffy red and glossy, like she wasn't fully there.

"Are you okay?" He asked in the kindest voice possible. Veronica looked towards him, but her eyes weren't really focusing.

"No..." Was the only word she said, her voice barely louder than a whisper.

"What did you see?" He asked, while his heart was clenched in pain.

Seeing Veronica so depressed, so broken, so lost, was somehow making him feel guilt. He would've done anything to never see that expression on her face ever again...

"I saw exactly what I asked to see... I saw who Floyd really was..." She said while looking down at her hands.

When she closed her eyes the scene in the alley played out again and again...

"Who is he?" Asked Michael already expecting the answer.

 Veronica blinked and suddenly she was in that alley next to the burning Dancing Hall. She had Michael's gun in her hands. She saw Floyd nearly killing Michael and she pulled the trigger.

Her body suddenly jerked remembering that first shot. Everything slowed down after that. She saw Floyd stumble away, while looking at Veronica in surprise. He then glanced towards Michael, and in that moment some realization set inside him.

In the heat of the moment Veronica saw non of this, but with time slowed down, the memory became much clearer.

Veronica watched him fall to the ground. Then while staring straight at her, he tried to get up. Her hands trembled as she raised the gun again, and in his last moments Floyd wasn't angry, or even sad... He smiled...

The muzzle flashed again, and no matter how she tried there was no stopping. The bullet travelled with extremely slow speed, and just as it was about to hit his head, everything went black...

"My brother... I killed my brother..." She whispered, as a new tear exited her eye.

Michael didn't say anything, just stared at her for a few long seconds, then eventually asked... "How is that possible? You aren't even from this world, and you two look nothing alike!"

His voice was full of disbelief, not because he thought Veronica was a liar, but because nothing made sense about it.

Veronica's eyes slowly moved up from her hands, but they weren't looking at Michael, only at the Material Box behind him.

"I don't know... But I know how to find out!" With that she gently pushed Michael away, and he reluctantly let her.

She crawled to the box and took out a single item from its bottom. The other items were placed on top, like they were more important, but only now did Veronica realize the truly worthy item inside the box.

With trembling hands she took out a single item... A pink envelope...

She stood up without any words, and she began to do the Ritual Dance. From her closed eyes tears flew out and as she spun and moved, they flew away landing on the Theater's stage.

Michael stood by the side watching. He felt her pain, for him nothing would be worse than losing her sister, but killing her himself... He wouldn't be able to handle that pain.

Veronica moved and spun until she abruptly stopped. She uttered no question, while doing the Ritual Dance, somehow she knew where the divination would take her no matter what.

...

In an endless void stood two person...

On of them a man, about 24 years old. He had light blue eyes and black hair. His handsome face stared at the other person proudly. His mouth was twisted in a goofy smirk, which always irritated Veronica as a child.

She stood a few meters in front of him. Her arms were at her side, shaking. She looked her brother up and down a few times, but when she tried to move towards him, her body wouldn't obey.

"It's nice to see you again... Little sister!" He tried his hardest to sound happy, but seeing her broken state a tear escaped his eye.

"Why?... Why..." She tried to say more, but nothing came out. She began sobbing yet again.

The darkness moved around them, like it was alive. Veronica stared at it with confusion, but her brother only had eyes for her.

"I had to... Believe me I wanted to do it another way, but it was impossible... I had to die, and by your hand..." He said in a firm voice, like he always spoke to her when she didn't understand something.

"But why?" She asked, her voice desperate. She wanted to know, needed to know what could've caused such actions from her amazing big brother.

"Because of revenge! What happened to you, to our parents wasn't an accident... I don't know how much do you remember, but they were murdered..." His voice sounded so angry and full of pain. She had never heard her brother speak that way.

Veronica slowly recalled that night. The small one room house they lived inside had very few furniture.

There was a larger bed where her parents slept, a smaller bed, where she and her brother slept together. A dining table, with four different kinds of chairs. A tiny kitchen area, with a window to the outside. There was also a bucket in one corner that could be curtained off. The sink had running water, but only cold.

They had one soap that the whole family used. Next to the door was a coatrack, which held all of their jackets and other similar clothes. There was one lone dresser, which leaned to the side. They kept all their underwear, socks, pants, shirts and dresses in there.

These were all their possessions. They were still better off than a lot of other people in the Dirt District, but it was clear that they were poor too.

That night Veronica couldn't sleep, like most nights when her brother was away. She stared out the kitchen window, watching the clear night sky. She imagined what her life would be if they weren't poor.

She was just like every little girl, she imagined what it was like to be a princess and live a life of luxury.

Eventually she yawned and began to move towards her bed, but in that moment the area where her parents where sleeping soundly became a fiery mess.

Veronica wanted to scream, but she only stared to cough from the smoke. Near the fire a dark figure stood and He began walking towards her.

The fire illuminated Him from the back, so Veronica couldn't make out anything about Him. It also didn't help that the smoke started to irritate her eyes.

The figure raised one hand and touched Veronica's forehead. She instantly passed out.

After that she woke up in a hospital bed, her memories had been mostly wiped about her family background.

With nothing else to do, she had been placed up for adoption and a wealthy married couple adopted her. She then lived her life as a lady for the next 8 years, until one time she was walking home from the Harbor, where she liked to watch the waves.

On her way home she wanted to take a shortcut through an alley. She had no idea why she wanted to, but for some reason it seemed irresistible.

This was the alley where she woke up after that ritual. There was a lot she didn't quite remember, like what exactly happened in that alley, and why did her appearance change.

"What happened in the alley?" She asked after staying silent for a few minutes. Her brother waited patiently all this time and hearing her question he laughed.

"Straight to the end then... In that alley you were born, or more like you reclaimed a previous part of yourself..." Veronica looked at him with pure confusion, which caused him to giggle again, probably remembering some sweet memory.

"Even I don't fully understand the ritual, but you played a really important part in it... Your soul was brought here by an Unknown being, but what He didn't expect was that you didn't transmigrate or reincarnate, but instead it was a strange mix between the two..."

"Most of your soul reincarnated as my little sister, while the important part, the one that had the Theater got separated. It took Him 21 years to both find you and make the ritual happen!"

"But what happened to me during the ritual?" She asked not noticing the pained expression on her brother's face.

"For Him to be able to acquire the Theater, He needed your soul to be whole. The ritual made that happen, that's why you have the appearance of both lives you lived, the one on this planet, and the one you lived on Earth. You have your first body, with the combination of your previous eyes."

Finally she saw it. His eyes weren't meeting hers, like he was ashamed.

"What's wrong?" She asked with a small and warm tone. Her brother sighed and slowly met her eyes, he was crying for some reason.

"It's all my fault... Without me you wouldn't have suffered, you wouldn't have been placed on this path, you would live a normal and happy life... It's my fault..." He muttered, while Veronica just looked at him with confusion and fear.

"What's your fault?"

"It was me... In the alley... Part of the ritual was to transfer some Ethereal Property from the most dominant path of the sacrifice... He didn't tell me any of this... He just ordered me to stab some random woman in the chest..." Veronica stared at him with the sadness and shock.

He just sobbed as he said...

"I killed you... I killed you, my little sister... My only family... That's why I had to die!"