Neon District: Redux

Part Three Chapter Seven: Identity

       Eri watched as her mother gently poured a spoonful of cooked peas onto her daughter's plate. This was the third time they had peas with dinner, but she didn't dare complain. It wouldn't have mattered anyway, considering her mother would soon leave the apartment and not return until morning with no recollection of the conversations that transpired the night before.

       "I want you to be on your best behavior while I'm away," her mother ordered softly, placing the glass bowl that held the cooked peas onto the rickety table, "no wandering off in the night."

       "Why do you do it then?" Eri piped up and stared into her mother's eyes alike to hers. Her mother stiffened in her tight, sparkling red dress and stared back. It was a question that Eri never dared asked until now.

       Her eyes seemed to soften as she spun herself around on her high heels and headed towards the door at the other end of the apartment. "Be sure to be in bed by nine," she ordered again, ignoring her daughter's question.

       "Wait, mom!" Eri called out to her and rushed to the door where her mother now stood with her hand stretched out to grab the doorknob. "Please stay. I want you to tuck me into bed for once."

       Her mother only turned her head around and peered down on her daughter's head with soft, kind eyes before promising her: "I'll tuck you in tomorrow night." Then she was gone.

       Eri slumped herself down on the floor with the television on to a new show that everyone at school had been talking about. At least, she thought they were talking about it- she hadn't been to school in a while. As she watched TV, she questioned what her mother did every night and why she had to leave her alone for hours on end.

       Her mother orders her to go to bed at nine but she was never here to see if her daughter would follow through with that order. Eri never did. She found it more of a request than an order.

       Her mother always left every night in the same sparkly red outfit and didn't return until the morning where her hair would be all matted and her makeup all smeared as if she were sleeping under a garbage bin. What also confused Eri was why her mother had new ID cards laid around the house. She would peer up on the kitchen counter to see one card with the first name "Sayaka" and a different card with the name "Rita." Both had a photo of her mother as the ID picture. She never did ask her mother about it, though.

       Eri didn't fall asleep until about midnight on the floor and by the time she woke up the sun was already shining through the still open window in the kitchen. She blinked at the too bright sun and glanced around the room to see that her mother still hadn't returned. She always was here for breakfast.

       "No wandering off at night," Eri echoed her mother's words as she slipped on her too small shoes and opened the door to the apartment. She stared off into the world that was born anew in the morning and sighed: "good thing it isn't night."

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       Eri spent the good part of her morning searching the area around the apartment building in any hopes of finding her mother laying around behind a garbage bin. Slowly, the diameter in which she conducted her search became wider as the day progressed. She checked in alleys, subway stations, some shops her mother usually took her to, and she even checked the underground road that connected Amery to the rest of the district.

       The sun began to set and she still had no luck finding her mother and her heart began to shatter and her mind began scrambling as to where she could possibly be. She had watched enough of those cop shows on the re-run channels on TV to know that her mother may be dead. It was so cliché actually; going off in the night and to never return.