• Chapter 3


    Glimpses


    I look in the mirror and see your face,
    If I look deep enough,
    So many things inside that just like you,
    Are taking over.

    -Taking Over Me by Evanescence


    “So, Violet.” My mother starts as I drag myself into the kitchen. I grab a piece of cold bacon and then force my feet to move back out to the living room. “Your brother tells me that a friend walked you home last night?”

    I freeze in mid-bite and turn to the little devil himself, now fully awake. His eyes widen and he starts to run into his room. Dropping the bacon, I stand up and chase him upstairs. Right when he’s closing the door, I wedge my foot in and then force it open.

    He yelps as I drag him by the hair back downstairs and into the living room. My mom raises here eyes as she wipes her hands on her apron. “Do you really like him that much?”

    “I don’t like him, Mom. I barely even know him.” I reply, getting really annoyed.

    “Didn’t seem that way when he touched your face.” I turn once again to my evil little brother and raise my hand to smack him across the face.

    “He what!?” My mom asks, shocked. “He touched your face!?”

    “Mom, it wasn’t-

    “This boy is obviously into you, honey, and I don’t want you to get carried away.”

    Carried away? Into me? None of that was true!! But, of course, I couldn’t tell them about how he was proving the point that I was scared of him.

    Scared…yet safe.

    Today was a Saturday, and Katherine and Janet were coming over to hang out. I sat on the window sill in my room/attic. Yes, I live in the attic. I could’ve chosen to share with my brother--but who the HELL would want THAT!?

    Sighing, I turn the bracelet I got for my first birthday over in my hands. Not when I turned 1--but when I turned 7. Yes, confusing, I know. But that’s when my memories started.

    When I was 7 I was adopted. I don’t remember anything before that point, in the orphanage. Sometimes I get glimpses of the past, sometimes I hear voices, smell fragrances, feel textures. But I can never fully remember it all.

    Apparently, my parents died in a car crash and I got amnesia. But don’t the memories eventually come back? They told me that means they’re gone forever, but about a month after Katherine got amnesia from crashing her bike into a tree while going downhill when we were 12, she got her memories back. So I’ve been wondering about these things ever since…

    And since Claude came to town, the glimpses last longer, the voices are clearer, the fragrances are stronger, the textures are easier to feel….I don’t get this at all, and I hate it.

    I run my fingers over the little marking of an eye with a little ruby in the center as the color of the eye. Suddenly, a voice in my head speaks, “We are the saviors, It is our job to protect the rest of our kind from theirs, so we aren’t torn apart and destroyed.” It starts to fade in and out and stutter like a broken record and it hurries to continue, getting louder. “We need to show them that we’re not going down without a fight, that we’re not just simply a meal, a toy.“ Noises like glass breaking, things flying, people shouting, cries of torture, shouts of terror, begging, begging to stop, begging for help threaten to drown it out but it refuses to be taken down. “He will return to you someday to help you accomplish this task, but for now, you must forget….” I start to see glimpses of the scene, smell things, feel things. I see the voice of the woman talking to me and I instantly know it’s my mother. My true mother. Something grabs at her and she tries to stay with me as she cries, “Forget….forget….forget!”

    It slips away from me and I fall onto the cold, hard ground of my attic bedroom floor, gasping for breath. I try to pull myself up by grabbing the window sill, but my hands are sweating so badly I can’t hold onto anything, and the sweaty palms make contacts with the ground once again and try to support me. My arms are shaking tremendously and I find myself looking into a single mirror, laying on the floor, just below my face.

    The right part of my face fades away and I see Claude’s slightly fade in and out, and I realize there’s some connection with him and my past…the past trying to take over….trying so hard to take over….just like he is.

    I’m pulled out of my daze as the doorbell rings and I look up towards the window. My two best friends stand there, waiting, in the mist of a spring morning. Before I get up to go downstairs, I look down into the mirror one more time, but Claude is gone.

    “Come in, girls, come in.” I hear my mom invite them inside as I make my way down the stairs. Dylan’s walking up towards his room at the time, and I shove him into the railing. He starts to cry and Mom runs up the stairs as I beckon for the girls to follow me out into the backyard.

    “So, what happened to you last night?” Janet asks as I wander out into the many acres of land we have, and Katherine shuts the back door behind her. The two of them walk forward to join me and I sigh as I put my hands into the pocket of my leather jacket (and yes, I am still wearing my pajamas.)

    I push the whole situation with my flashback and the mirror and Claude and everything else out of my head for the moment and force myself to say, “Well, you guys know Chase, right?”

    “Chase the chess geek or Chase the hot quarterback?” Katherine asks.

    “Quarterback.” I reply without looking at either of them.

    “Yeah, why would a chess junkie go to a party?”

    “I dunno, maybe he wanted to stalk his popular crush.”

    I look behind my shoulder to see Katherine shrug her shoulders and then Janet turn back to me, and then repeat, “But seriously, what happened?”

    “Well, he wanted me to have a drink..”

    “And knowing Vi, she said no.” Katherine adds in. Janet turns and hisses ‘SHH’ at her and then gestures for me to continue.

    “Yes, and after I said no, he got mad and held a knife to my throat.”

    “AND THEN MONSTER BOY SHOWS UP AND SAVES THE DAY!!!” Katherine does a superhero pose and Janet smacks the back of her head.

    “Actually…yeah, that’s pretty much it.”

    Both their eyes widen and Katherine starts singing, “I knew it, I knew it, I knew it!!”

    “Knew what?” My eyes narrow as I ask this question.

    “That you two would fall in love.”

    “Why does everybody keep thinking that!? Well, I bet Janet doesn’t think that, right?” No reply. “Janet???”

    “Well..”

    “Oh my God, you think so too!”

    “Oh come on, Violet! Ever since he got here the guy couldn’t take his eyes off of you. Then he jumps in and save you from a crazy drunk pop trying to kill you.” Pop is the word we use for popular.

    “But….” I sigh, and more glimpses of my past life flash before my eyes.

    “But…?” Both girls prompt together.

    “I honestly don’t know. There’s something about him that’s very unsettling…..but welcoming. And I feel like I know him from somewhere.”

    Not just feel, but know. I know I know him from somewhere. From my past.

    But what was he doing there?