Beneath Your Lies

Chapter Three

The moment we enter, I realize I have never felt so excited in my life; it’s like going into a world you never knew about.

There was that one day when I was five years old, and I used to jump off our roof. It was only a one humble home, my home, but it was too late – I’d already hit the grass of our backyard and my knee got injured so badly that they had to rush me to the hospital. I didn’t cry; I just laughed because the pain was so exhilarating and reckless. I loved it but my mom didn’t; she broke into a panic attack and she was worried sick as they carried me down the hospital, as a rush of adrenaline built inside me and I realized what had just happened. I broke my knee but then I felt okay. I didn’t feel the pain, but it made the ones I love hurt, so I never did anything else to make them feel that way.

The lair looks damp and just dull, with so many books around each and every corner, so we get to work as we get the books out. We never stop searching, but then we hear a c***k as Derek pulls a book out, as if there is some kind of an earthquake about to take place. We move back slowly, but then the walls start to shake and the roof is crumbling.

‘‘Sophia, there’s another door. It’s beside you; open it now!’’ Derek shouts. I see the door; I try to open it, hoping it would actually welcome us in, but it didn’t budge, and I freak out.

 ‘’It’s not opening! What do I do?’’ Derek looks around for some kind of key that would open the door, and then he gazes down at the book in his hands. He opens the book to find a dark brown key, and he throws it to me quickly. I didn’t catch it at first but then I buckle down on my legs and grab it. I set the key inside the lock, making it open in a second, and the walls start to make noises as if humans are trapped inside them. There’s a scream that echoes through, but it isn’t from me; it sounds like a little girl. I call Derek out to go to the other door and run to the sound of the girl, but there is no time. The roof is already on the edge of breaking. I keep searching for the girl; I just couldn’t leave her here.

‘’Sophia, come back here right now!’’ Derek barks, but I pretend I don’t hear.

I don’t listen to him. I see her; she is so tiny, and I carry her on my shoulder and run to the door as the roof cracks open and the walls are collapsing down. We enter the other side of the layer, and it looks so bright. I set the girl down, and she seems no more than a six year old. She looks up at me like an innocent little baby and it overwhelms me because it retells me of my own childhood memories, when I used to be like her, and how I used to look up to my mom that way she’s looking up at me. I wonder if my mom ever took a look back at me or if she ever cared for me – did she hold me one last time before she was gone? My head swirls with what ifs. I just miss her every day, and did she forget me when I didn’t? Is she safe now? Is she with dad now in heaven? The girl holds my thumb comfortingly with her hand. I look down at her, feeling calm and just emotional.

‘‘Hey, little kiddo, what’s your name?’’ she smiles at me with her big brown guiltless eyes; she almost looks like an angel with her black hair.

‘’Mikala,’’ she whispers quietly, with a toothy smile.

‘’Well, my name is Sophia, little angel.’’ I smile back, feeling the need to protect her.

Derek stands in front of her and kneels down at eye-level with her; he reaches out and shakes her tiny hand.

‘’I’m Derek; I’m Sophia’s brother.’’ He smiles at her and she smiles back, introducing herself again.

‘’What happened? Where are your parents?’’ I can’t help but ask her. She seems nervous as she tries to remember her life.

‘’I don’t really know what happened, but mommy and daddy were taking me to the park and they just went poof, left me alone,’’ She tells us childishly. We just nod as she continues, ‘’then there were monsters with red eyes trying to catch me but I kept running until they caught me and trapped me.’’ She pouts at the memory and shrugs, not knowing what to say next, and her eyes show soreness and like she’s missing her parents so much.

I hug her tightly against me. ‘’You will see them again, sweetheart.’’ She nods and smiles widely, being the cheerful kid she is.

Taking a rest from all these events happening, Derek has this sad expression again, the one I call ‘Derek is a grumpy old man’ expression, like he was grieving for someone dead. Maybe he is thinking of dad, but who knows?

‘’What’s wrong, Derek?’’ I feel worried for the first time about him, and that feeling of remorse is crushing me because I’d never been there for him, never told him he was annoying or so stupid, never played tag with me; Mikala notices the sadness around as she stares at Derek.

’Dad has never been proud of what I did. I was a mistake; I’ve always been a mistake. He told me that I deserved to be dead, because I didn’t work with him in the business. I’m not who he expected me to be, and I’ll never be. I’m born to battle, born with weapons on my skin. He gave me up and left me with no hope; he gave me nothing. I was on my own, always been on my own, walking on my two legs alone, wandering to people, asking them for shelter, but he never cared. He told me when I was two years old that I wasn’t his son, that my mom got pregnant accidently and that I shouldn’t have lived. He said my mom should have just aborted me, and all my life, I’ve been the one to be blamed for.’’

I swear I can see a tear roll down his cheek, and I want to cry with him, but I just come up to him and hug him in a tight embrace.

‘’I’m always here; you’re not alone anymore. The times you grieved for all that you’ve lost, the times where you’re happy, the times where you’re sad, the times where you felt pain in your life, I’ll always be here for you. Don’t cry, big brother, you deserve a good life.’’ He holds me tightly in a hug as if something will hurt me or break me down, but that’s just his way of saying that he’s grateful to God that he found me, and nothing will separate us because we’re born with the same blood.

Mikala joins the hug after a moment of hesitancy, and it is just too great to let go. I finally found someone who’s related to me and I’m proud of Derek, proud of what he had gone through, proud to call him my one and only brother.

We set off after we sleep in for the whole day, walking down the steep stairs that lead to the other room. All the walls are painted white and it’s like they’re listening to us; it’s creepy. I take Mikala’s hand, feeling like a mom who’s scared for her daughter. I look up at Derek, and he’s working out a way to find something. We witness something, all right, but not the thing we’ve been looking for: it’s the behemoths again. I hide Mikala as they approach us, and I find a strange closet nearby the next door of the lair and hide her there, but I keep the doors a bit open for her to breathe. I am instantly on my feet. Derek is doing a good job, dodging their faces as they want to bump it against his; he quickly snaps their hairy legs off and cracks their body; he takes out two creatures and now it’s my turn.

I cut a sharp log of wood out and beat their heads as they stumble with surprise. I am fast, and I jump and snap their heads. I take out two as well, and there are a lot of them but nothing can stop us.

‘‘Sophia, here, I have an idea,’’ he takes my hand and pushes me towards them as I land a double kick in both of their faces while he’s swinging me around. They are dead in a minute, and we feel proud to have each other’s backs.

‘’I can’t believe it; we did it Derek, together!’’ we laugh and hug and dance, but it’s not over; we know that we aren’t finished. We have a long way to go.

I grab Mikala and ask, ‘‘You okay, little angel?’’ she gives me a slight nod as I carry her on my arm again, and we walk and once more, into another door, anything’s expected in there, and I hope it’s not the behemoths again.

‘‘If the danger comes, you will hide Mikala and protect her, and I’ll handle it.’’ Derek declares with determination. I nod and we set a plan out, and he leads us inside after he opens the door. Here we go again.

The dark hallway looks like something we’d see in a petrifying movie on a Friday night. It looks so isolated from the world, almost like a chamber, and we walk, sticking to each other in case anything attacks us.

My dad used to take me to Halloween festivals where they’d put out chilling rooms full of fake snakes, tall mirrors, scary roller-coasters and spiders, and my dad would tell me, ‘‘don’t be scared; they’d never hurt you. It’s just tricks.’’ He’d talk to his friends in the festival while he gave me tickets to the rooms. I was nine years old at the time, and I went into the reflections room and got lost in it. I thought I saw something weird, but it was probably a clown who lost his or her wig. I walked through it but then I had a wrong guess and saw something huge, like a bear. I touched its fur and felt the smoothness of it against me and then suddenly a roar came out. I quickly broke into a run and got out of the room; I’d never been so terrified, and that’s the day when I decided no more Halloween festivals.

‘‘Watch out! There are a group of eagles coming towards us.’’ I get out of my imagination at Derek’s alarmed voice. I am still carrying Mikala as we all run into a safe dorm we could hide in, but there are none, so we decide to head towards it and go through it. The eagles have this aggravating sound, and it makes my ears hurt, so I quickly continue to run to the end of the room with Derek and Mikala, who is squirming in my arms. The eagles keep on following us, and Derek takes his sword out. I really like my brother’s chivalry; he’d do anything to protect me, and sometimes I wonder what it would be like to be so courageous like my brother. I apparently have no time to think about that, so we continue walking in peace, passing through a jungle of plants. What is that place? We only went there to find the killer, not a zoo.

I used to love the sound of the waves when I was twelve years old, and my dad used to always tell me that the waves had these stories to tell, for us to take ideas on, and I’ve always thrown bottles to the waves so it could tell me something. But it didn’t happen like it should’ve been, and I miss all this. I miss the way I used to feel the air against my skin, the breeze that follows after the wave crushing on the shore like the way I’m longing for my mother.

 I snap out of it again as I run with Mikala to a safe place.

‘‘Derek, where are you?’’ I can’t see my brother, but then I find him far away from me, taking out the eagles, and after seconds he runs up to us. ‘’Go now!’’ We still run like a bunch of losers being late to school. I feel so tired and hungry, I haven’t eaten anything for a whole day. We eventually lose sight of them but there’s more to come. I’m used to the events happening now and then, and I see something moving along the woods. I can’t see it that well, but I see it.

 ‘‘I think we’re not alone.’’ I prepare myself emotionally and physically; I am still tired but I have to fight. We get ready and we chase after it, leaving an exhausted Mikala sitting on a branch with leaves surrounding her. She definitely will have a story to tell when she grows up, that’s for sure.

We continue looking out for ourselves, but we catch him.

‘’I don’t think that’s a behemoth,’’ Derek looks at me with a relieved look on his face. I gaze down, and a face of a teenager appears to be looking back at me. I get down and eye him, doing my so-called ‘mysterious tracker’ part.

‘‘Why are you following us?’’ he gives me that look of fear and innocence, but I don’t buy this act of his, although he does seem vulnerable.

‘’I came here seeking for a home, and I don’t know where I am.’’ He has brown eyes and blonde hair coming out in different ways, and his clothes are a mess, but I come to a realization that he is the same age as me, as he looks like it.

‘‘What do you mean by that?’’ I speak confidently, but it’s funny how in my school, I barely look or even make conversations with guys and now, look at me, talking all funny to a guy who’s my age.

‘’I was on my way to a friend’s house and someone or something took me by the neck and led me here. It was so strange to me, but then I saw this man with large shoulders and a body so gigantic.’’

Derek stifles a laugh, but then he knows this is a serious matter.

‘’Okay, who are you?’’

“My name is Daniel, and you both are?’’ He answers with full-on confidence, as if he’s running for male model 2016.

 ‘‘I am Sophia, and this is my brother, Derek.’’ Derek’s gaze towards him shows obvious distrust and uncertainty; kind of like how I am when I am talking to somebody I don’t feel comfortable with.

“Well, I’m off now,’’ Daniel stands up, leaving his backpack. I take it for him but my eye catches something sparkly inside. I take it out just because I get curious and it struck me how beautiful it is, a diamond necklace.

‘‘Don’t touch this; it’s from my mom.’’ I feel embarrassed as I give it to him.

‘’Sorry.’’ He stares into my eyes like he’s searching for something inside them; he has this charismatic look and it astonishes me how I never knew he had such blue eyes.

As he plans to go off, Daniel stumbles on something; both Derek and me jog and cut off the moving grass that is capturing Daniel’s legs. We finally cut them off quickly and he manages to stand up like he knows what to do. We give him a sarcastic look, and he shrugs it off.

“I think it’s a good idea if you stay with us.”

He smiles back nervously. ‘‘Sure thing – after this happened, I might not be brave but I’m scared now.’’ It is then I realize Mikala isn’t where she is supposed to be, so I sprint off quickly.

‘’Where are you?’’ I still keep on screaming her name, but I can’t find her, and I feel so stiff and empty without her. What if something happened to her and I wasn’t there to save her? I really couldn’t live with the guilt.

I even my search plan and it isn’t working; I dart my eyes everywhere I can and I dig through the bushes and I still can’t see her. I am frustrated, both about the situation and about finding her alive, and wariness takes its toll on me.

‘‘I think I have something here; come and check this out.’’ I gaze in Derek’s direction and witness what is in his hands. It is Mikala’s piece of cloth.

‘’I hope she’s all right.’’ Derek leads me to where Daniel stands and we walk towards the evidence. How could I’ve been so stupid not to look out for her, I chastise myself as I began slowing my pace because my knee stings. I try to keep an open mind about Mikala, but it’s not succeeding anymore. I sigh as I walk faster.

‘‘Sophia, don’t worry, I’m sure she’s someplace safe.’’

I scoff. ‘’Yeah, with these stinky behemoths.’’

‘‘Just don’t stress about it; we’ll find her, and besides, they need her to track us so they won’t kill her.’’

‘’Gee, that’s comforting.’’ I roll my eyes at Derek, but he only gives me a stern look.

 He does have a good point; I let out a breath as I realized that I’d kept it in.

A set of ropes appear in front of us, disturbing our way, and they are dripping with something I can’t figure out. Poison? Sweat? Something clear but noticeable. We inspect it for a little while.

 “Guys, don’t touch it.’’ Too late, as Daniel touches it and his hand trembles, and he looks so terrified as his body shakes.

‘’What is happening to me?’’ he has this look on his face, like he’s scared of what’s going to happen next, and he is right. A bunch of wild apes leap out of nowhere like they want to kill us at this exact moment and take us from the face of the earth. Derek looks hopeless, but he keeps his head up as the apes accept the challenge and charge us. I get a huge piece of wood and a cluster of poison ivy, and I lift them towards the apes. They stumble but then overcome it, and one ape tries to get me but I get the poison ivy and place it on his eyes. He gives out a surrender groan and collapses, dead.

‘’Wow,’’ I look at my hands in surprise, ‘’how did I do that?’’ I breathe out to Derek but he’s far away, taking out the apes from me in order to give me time to help him. Once I finish mine, I’ll have to ask him about this power I had inside me, because it feels like a rush of adrenaline, and it’s amazing.

Derek has been fighting so hard, and I am really uneasy because Daniel couldn’t fight due to his wounded hand and it was just me and Derek fighting against eight apes. It felt like this beauty pageant I once participated in but it didn’t win, but still, I wouldn’t let this one out of my hands. I run with so much willpower and jump over an ape’s back, surprising it with a heavy bang of a really enormous branch, and it falls and gives up. Derek takes out two of the apes by his own power.

 ’Guys! I healed myself.’’ we both look at Daniel’s no longer injured hand and we give out a gasp as the apes we are fighting against grab us by our shoulders. I kick and struggle as I beat behind the ape again and throw another log at it. Derek gets the other one too, and we are the perfect team, as we always are.

Daniel gets up and is ready to battle with us, but to his luck, he didn’t have to because we took out almost every ape.

“You’re really strong,’’ Daniel says to me when we walk on to our adventure, and I smile. It is the most amazing compliment I’ve ever heard, and it almost proves every other guy who told me I am a wimpy girl wrong.

‘‘Thank you for the support you have given to me.’’

 ‘’Can you teach me some moves?’’

 ‘‘I will teach you later, when I can set my thinking straight.’’

 He grins, and his eyes are gleaming a bit. ‘’Sure, yeah.’’

 Derek comes up to us, ‘’you guys finished mingling?’’

I push him playfully, ‘‘hey!’’ I whisper, ‘’you’re embarrassing me.’’ Both my brother and Daniel laugh, and I feel a blush creeps into my cheeks, goddammit.

Where are you Mikala? I wish I knew.