TWENTY
674 Words
🕯️ Chapter 20 – Portraits of the Past
The Madrigal Mansion was quiet that night.
Nothing could be heard except for the ticking of the old clock in the hallway and the soft whisper of the wind brushing against the curtains.
Althea sat alone in the old library, holding a cup of tea and an aged wooden box she had found beneath Xavier’s desk.
On the cover, written in faded ink, were the words:
> “Project Eterna – Confidential.”
Her brows furrowed.
She carefully opened the box — and a few old photographs slipped out.
One of them caught her attention immediately:
a little girl with the same smile, the same eyes as hers.
On the back, a name was written:
> Lyka Montemayor, 6 years old.
“Lyka…” she whispered, the name leaving her lips like the echo of a ghost long forgotten.
As her gaze lingered on the photo, strange fragments of memory flickered in her mind — laughter, voices, the sound of a child crying in the dark.
She pressed a trembling hand to her temple as images that weren’t hers began to invade her consciousness.
“This… this can’t be,” she murmured weakly.
Before she could close the box, the door suddenly creaked open.
Xavier Madrigal stood there — his face unreadable, but his eyes betrayed a spark of alarm when he saw what she was holding.
> “Where did you get that, Althea?”
His voice was low, almost growling.
> “Under your desk,” Althea replied, her voice shaking. “You never told me you had a child who looks exactly like me. Who is she, Xavier? Is Lyka your daughter… with Clarisse Montemayor?”
Silence.
Xavier slowly approached and took the photo from her hands. His fingers trembled slightly, as if touching something from a life he could never escape.
His eyes drifted between past and present — caught in a memory he never wanted to relive.
> “There are things, Althea… things you were never meant to know.”
But Althea didn’t back down.
She stepped closer, eyes fixed on his.
> “I deserve to know. I have the right to understand why that girl in the photo looks exactly like me.”
The wind blew through the window, sending dust swirling between them.
In that fleeting silence, Xavier’s mind replayed a haunting image — two little girls inside a laboratory, both crying, both reaching out for comfort.
One of them was Lyka… and the other was Althea.
> “Lyka,” he finally said, his voice breaking, “was not my daughter… but a result.”
“A result of an experiment. Project Eterna — a program created by Clarisse to test if human consciousness could be replicated. They used the memory of Lea Sandoval…”
He stopped, his words cracking under the weight of guilt.
> “…and you, Althea, were one of the children I saved from that place.”
Althea froze.
> “You… saved me?”
> “Yes,” Xavier answered softly. “You are not my biological child. But I chose to bring you back — to give you a life free from the nightmare you were born into.”
Tears welled in her eyes — not from anger, but from confusion.
> “So that’s why… I’ve always felt like there’s a part of me I don’t understand. Like something’s missing.”
Xavier reached out to touch her shoulder, but she stepped back.
Her gaze carried both gratitude and heartbreak.
> “Didn’t you realize, Xavier? That by saving me, you also took away my right to know who I really am?”
Silence filled the room once again.
Only the ticking clock and the sigh of the wind could be heard.
The photograph of Lyka slipped from Xavier’s hand and landed on the marble floor.
Moonlight touched its surface — and for a brief moment, the shadows of two identical children seemed to move again in the pale light.
- Writer
