2022-10-04: Parallels
- Log: 2022-10-04: Parallels
- Cast: Sophia Mayhew Castellan
- Where: ???
- Date: U.C. 0096 10 04
- Summary: A pattern, repeated.
The halls of the Castellan estate were clean, colorful, and artful, with the occasional tapestry or portrait from the family's long history placed on display. As she often did, Sophia found herself staring at the painted portrait of her own family: Mother, and Father, and herself, dressed in their finest, out in the gardens. She remembers the spot, with the little table.
She remembers the other girl who was there that day. The alteration to the picture was well done. If you hadn't seen the original, didn't know in your bones where she had stood, you might never notice the faint irregularities in the strokes. They had tried to get her to sit for a new one - pave over their history completely. That was when she got good at sabotaging their efforts.
"That's not me."
The voice came from her side, a young woman just blooming into adulthood. Thirteen, maybe? Fiery red hair, like hers, and bright blue eyes, like hers. Wide, thick glasses, the main difference between them. She points at the portrait.
"I know," Sophia said. "It's me."
"No. You're you. That's someone else."
"I guess that's true, too." She hadn't been the girl in the painting in a long, long time...She still smiled, then. Didn't feel the twisting knife in her guts all the time.
"Papa says knives go in the knife block," the little girl said, in answer to her thoughts. "I think it'd be bad if they were in your tummy."
"Yeah," Sophia agreed, automatically, and felt her stomach turn. "It's very bad. Come, let's go to the gardens. You like it there, don't you?" The child loved the gardens, Sophia knew. There weren't so many servants there to rattle around in the girl's head.
But when Sophia reached for her hand, the girl didn't reach back.
"I can't go that way," the girl said. "I have to go this way."
Sophia didn't know why she felt panic engulf her. "Which way?"
And then the girl exploded into light.
It's 0230 when she startles awake, hand to her chest. It feels like her heart is trying to rattle her skeleton apart. She struggles to get control of her breathing in the dark.
She swallows a lump in her throat. "Another," Sophia croaks between ragged breaths.