OUTCAST (PUBLISHED)

29: NAKAMURA

Antoinette Yvonne Nakamura
December 2, 1976

As the only daughter of Agatha Nakamura, the heirloom was passed down to me. And within my blood, the awakening project resides; the study that the Nakamura Clan has been conducting for hundreds of years, and because of that, our family nurtures each generation with a family tradition. And it is to preserve the beauty and health of each oldest or the only woman in the family.

During my childhood, they’ve been telling and treating me how special I am. And whatever I asked them, they will immediately provide it. I never tore or cried. I can’t feel sad nor angry because it was the rule my father and mother made, or else my beauty might fade.

“Who is she, Mom?”

“The symbolism of eternity, our equinox.”

I’ve been exposed to the Awakening Project since I was a child. And as someone naïve at a young age, I thought having a dead woman beneath our house was normal.

“D—dad, why— Dad, why are you doing this?”

All the delightfulness disappeared in a blink when I reached my legal age. My father began to act strange as if he was being possessed or what. And all I know is that I’ve been held captive in my own house, my mom would scream and plead for my father to stop what is he doing, but he wasn’t stop.

“She must be reborn!”

He keeps repeating it every time he will inject me the blood of the dead woman beneath our house. I felt hatred. I felt angry towards my father, my mother, to the dead woman. I loathed my entire clan for doing this to me.

“No… You’re not the one…”

My father became mentally ill as I watch him grieve in front of the dead woman while I was left tortured and wasted. And even though I still don’t get what is happening… I can’t help but be curious about that woman.

She was dead for hundreds of years, but her beauty was preserve. She’s lying in a cold, marble stone with her hair lying down along with a glass cube protecting her. She still possesses her beauty and the face of an eighteen years old woman. She doesn’t look dead at all because whenever I take a glimpse of her, she just looks like a beautiful woman who was peacefully sleeping.

“It is not Antoinette. How can we be reborn, how can we—”

“Calm down.”

“How can I calm down, Agatha? It was not her! Alejandra is rejecting her!”

“Then, let’s wait for her daughter.”

Years passed, but I can’t still forget what happened. And things got much worse when I got married, my husband learned the wicked tradition that my family was hiding, and because he doesn’t want to happen anything that happened to me with my daughter, we didn’t wish for a girl.

But, destiny doesn’t seem to be in favor of us. Soon after, I gave birth to a twin, two beautiful girls. We named them Alyxandria and Alleona Nakamura. Alyxandria was the timid type, while Alleona possesses a strong character, which is why my parents took a liking to her.

I did my best to protect my lovely daughters, but just like what happened to my father, the husband who solely promised to protect my daughters and me somehow became part of the wicked tradition of our family.

“Alyxandria… Alleona…”

It was not also them.