I am TWO

Sixteen

TWO

I was holding the glass with water as my hand was still shaking, sitting on the couch and I don't know where I am. But the memories of what happened a while ago remained in me like it's still there. The taste of death made me realize what I become after if I die and how could I save my mother?

But I was saved by the man, and I freaked out on how he did it. Believing it was a dream but I was wrong, and the last thing I remembered before I lost consciousness was another woman who appeared. I woke up in a different place. How did it come about? My gaze remained in the cold glass. Am I in a dream?

"Gosh, it's not poison, drink it up, you need water to wake you up, you've been an i***t there before," said the woman with short jaw-length hair, colored red, and does look natural. She was sitting across from me, legs crossed and leaning against the back of the couch folding her arms. She was wearing short black jumper shorts with net stockings matching the black combat boots. Lips painted in black color even her eyes heavy with black eyeliner.

My head remained bowed. I am dreaming, I closed my eyes hard. Wake up, Two, wake up!

“Are you praying?” she said in sarcasm. “I am not going to kill you, for goodness sake. Damn it! I should not be here looking for you. Drink it up!” She demanded, irritation in her voice.

“Who are you? I am not dreaming right?” I asked and lifted my face.

One of her well-shaped eyebrows arched upward, and she hissed. “You are not dreaming. Who am I? What if I ask you that? Who are you and why does the leader of the Demise squad want to kill you?”

I held my hand tightly, a question I didn’t know, and how I was going to answer that. "I don't know her, and she thought I was that person but she's wrong."

She stared at me while thinking. “That’s weird, they won’t be wrong when something orders them. What have you done? You may have forgotten that over time.”

“As I forgot it when I was five years old I did something? How is that then possible?” philosophically I said as she laughed, and shook her head taking a packet of cigarettes from the pocket of the jumper shorts, and lit it up using her finger. My eyes widened at what she did, how is that possible? Did she trick me?

The woman looked at her finger with fire along with the exhalation of smoke from her mouth. "Is this amazement?"

"How did you do that?"

She blew it, and it was gone. Is her finger lighter? “Like this?” And she created a bubble of fire with her right hand which magnified especially my eye and at the same time amazed me.

“How — how did you do that?”

A big smile flashed on her lips including the irony in her expression. “My ability, fire. Humans like you are not capable of that, too bad.” The look of pity on those red eyes.

“In what are you saying you are not a human? So what kind of creature are you? Demon?” My face is serious. Who is this woman and how she has done something impossible to do? I feel like I’m on a CGI show, and what’s in front of me is a CGI screen.

She smoked, and the burning nicotine filled the area. Based on her appearance, she is older than me. Maybe it’s just a joke and I’m still asleep in the real world. I pinched my arms and bit my lip from the pain. Is it for real?

“I am not purely human, my parents live once in the other world, not here, more different and more advanced. Who knows what we were called, but human people distinguished us as special humans. How weird though the fact we are not human. Some say unspecified.” She fumed the cigarettes and puffed them. "What do you think?"

Special human? Unspecified? I want to laugh at what she says, of course, I won't believe it.

“Stop this nonsense, I think I am still in my dream. You are not existing,” I laughed as she stopped smoking and my face turned bad accompanied by her loud annoying laugh.

“Gosh! You are ignorant after all. Forsake! You are not dreaming. If you don't want to believe it, you'll take care of it, I won't be able to do that.” And she continued smoking.

I bit on my lower lip and looked around. It's an apartment. “I am in Manila?” I asked.

“Of course, where are you? In heaven?" The satire in her tone. I rolled my eyes.

"I know, I know." I stood up from the seat after landing the glass on the glass coffee table. "I need to go now."

"You can't leave."

I turned to her. "Why?" My brows furrowed.

"Because that's what was ordered to me," she replied and stood up from her seat. "I can't defy the order no matter what."

"Who ordered you?"

She looked at her nails, as if the answers were there, burned the cigarette butt with her alleged ability using the palm met my gaze, and grinned. "The son's chief commander, that's his order."

"The — the son's chief commander?" What is she saying? The chief commander of the army?

“You know nothing, it’s better like that. While we wait for him, aren't you hungry?”

I scoffed. "I can't wait here," I refused, I had to go home and maybe the news would come about my mommy. "I need to go home."

I walked to the entrance door, but before I could touch the doorknob the woman at my back was in front of me.

She glared sharply, and it seems she was not pleased with what I did. “You better stay here, you are not safe out there. Follow my words.”

“I am not safe? Look, it's all misunderstood, and that person wanted to kill me... she got the wrong person,” I explained and I have no time for this. What if the police have the news?

"Yeah, sure if that's what you believe." She grabbed both my shoulders, pushing me to the living room. “But I said, you can’t. Don't be hard-headed. I'm easy to talk to but terrible when I'm mad.”

Then she gave me that creepy smile that I swallowed hard. My hand fisted, and I wanted to howl but I just didn't. I went back to sitting. I was sitting for almost a minute, and the woman was in the back, pacing, chewing gum, popping it.

When I remember my phone in the pocket of my skirt. I touched it, and there it was. I quickly picked it up and texted Nacelyn about mom’s progress in her case. Then, I texted Shackie to locate me using my phone GPS.

A reply from Shackie telling me where I am? And why would she do that? Unless I am in danger.

I sent another message that I am in danger, and as for Nacelyn, she had no reply and it's been two minutes.

“Texting messages? Location here is undetected,” said the woman behind me, prompting her arms on the couch, towering, eyes on my phone.

Biting my lower lip not to scream. "Are you sure?" challenging, I asked her.

She blows her gum until it pops. “Yes, I am definitely sure. Are you not hungry? Cause, I am.”

"I am not," I stubbornly refused.

“Your loss,” she said and smirked. I watched her saunter in the doorway and close it.

My loss? It's not my loss. I gritted my teeth and got a reply from Shackie.

‘I can’t find your location. Where are you? Who kidn*pped you?’

‘I don’t know, when I woke up I was somewhere else. Can you do something?’

‘Can you look out the window?’

I got up from sitting and opened the window but I could see nothing. I tried to open it but it couldn't. I opened a window and so on. Where am I?

I walked to the door and pulled it but it was locked. How is it possible? Did the woman lock it? Then, I went back to sitting. What will I do?

‘I can’t open the window, it’s glass but I can't see the outside.’

‘I will ask Hajin for help, wait there, Two. Be right back.’

The door opened, it looked like a kitchen area and out there the woman smiling looked at me. She was holding half the contents of a bottled orange juice.

“Where am I?” my opening question to her.

She yawned and lazily stared at me. She lay down on the other couch, and she rolled her head at me. “Why did he take so long,” she lazily muttered.

"I'm asking you, where did you take me?" My voice raised in octaves.

“Here, a secret place no one knew, no human people could enter nor have been here. You know I'm sleepy, food makes me sleepy, why is that?” Her head dropped, touching her side of the face with her eyes closed.

I stumbled upon what she did. And she snored. Maybe she had the keys. I approached her and shook her, but she was like a fat sleeper, digging into the pocket of her shorts but there was no key in there. Maybe she just hid here, but nothing really.

I inhaled deeply, and blew it harshly, I stood up in a nod. What will I do? I looked around until my gaze stopped at a door. Maybe he left it there.

I walked fast, I opened it and a nice kitchen opened before my eyes. It's made of tiles, an expensive one, color gray on the counter, and the wallings were painted in white. There’s an oven on the other side, a high-tech double door refrigerator that is now a common thing bought by rich people. Three drawers above, four below. I saw no key. I opened the drawer to find some knives, only a spoon.

Is this true? I opened the oven with only whole roasted chicken, when I inhaled its delicious smell my stomach suddenly swelled. I closed it, and I walked back. I swallowed, imagining what it tasted like.

There's nothing wrong with me just taking a little to satisfy my taste? Isn't it? I went back and opened it, took a little, and ate it. The taste burst in my buds, and it is so good. I get the thigh part and eat it. I sat at the counter as I enjoyed the delicious food.

I took another foot and was enjoying it but I was stopped when the door opened and almost lost color in my face when someone saw me commit a horrible act of eating someone's food.

"When you're done eating, I'm just outside waiting," said the man, that one guy who had freaking magic who saved me from falling, and the one who I thought would end his life.

He is not wearing a school uniform, only a white polo long sleeve, and black pants matched by derby shoes. He does not look like a grade-schooler but a college one.

He was about to close the door, I left the counter, returned what I had taken out of the oven, and licked my fingers. "I am done!" chasing, I told him.

He opened the door and walked away. I closed it. I was about to take a step when he approached me, throwing a pack of napkins at me.

"You have dirt on your face," he said.

I opened it and rubbed the side of my mouth until I could get nothing more. "Thank you," I told him.

"Can we talk?"

I nodded. I looked at the couch but the woman was no longer there. Where did she go?

I sat on the other couch, and this one on the other side, across from me.

“Where am I?” My first question.

“Place you did not know. Leave it like that. As I went to the bounty head system, your head had the highest price.”

“A — what? Bounty head system?”

He folded his hand. Those emotionless attractive blue eyes stared at me. "Your head is worth 9.9 billion gold coins."