The Dead war.

Chapter Ten: New and old

I sat at my new desk in the base in the forest, my room was fairly big and my daughter had brought me pictures that she said I always kept near me. There were pictures of her playing in the sand and one picture was me holding her right after she was born and the third picture was my favorite it was me and and Oliver at our daughters first birthday she sat in my lap and Oliver was at my side and she was holding my face and kissing my forehead while I smiled a truly happy smile while Oliver leaned his head on mine and had his arms wrapped around me. It was truly a magical picture. Part of me regretted knowing my future, wondering if what I was doing now would hurt my daughter, wondering if the mistake I made today ruined my chances at keeping my daughter and saving my family and my kingdom. I was so deep in thought sitting at my desk with a pen and paper in my hand I hadn't noticed my mom walk in.

"Serena is everything alright?" She asked. "Serena?" she asked again.
"What, sorry." I said my mind snapped back into reality.
"What's wrong Serena, I may not have known you your entire life but as a mother I know when something is affecting my kids." She said sitting on my bed. I didn't look over at her, I just sat on my chair as my father used to say criss cross applesauce, I put my hands on my face and then ran them through my hair.
"I don't know, just knowing all this information is just really hitting me. I don't want to make any mistakes because I don't want to change the future but I also don't know what my decisions were, and will I make the right ones. I don't want to lose my daughter." Suddenly I stopped and thought about something. "Mom? Did I only have one kid?" I asked her.
"No." She replied. I looked at her confused and she sighed. "You had two kids a year after Merlia, twins."
She said with a slight smile on her lips. "The boy you named Liam, and the girl you named Isabella. Liam died three weeks after birth and Isabella lived a beautiful and happy life up until she was 16 she was killed in an accident. You were so depressed that you went into a kind of hiding for months. You could barely take care of Merlia. She had to take care of you at age 17. Eventually you came out of it but you were already 48, almost 50 years old. Life was happy after and then you died at 70 years old. At least that's the story Merlia told me." Melody said.

"So why no pictures?" I asked
"You couldn't bear to see reminders of them. We had pictures taken and you hid them away for years because you couldn't bear to see pictures of them. She pulled out the pictures under the bed and showed them to me. When I looked at the pictures I felt a pain that was undesirable to anyone, a pain that I had never felt before. It was like my body knew, my body remembered the pain that I had felt that day. I had never actually felt that pain before because it hadn't happened yet but I felt it like it just happened. I started to cry, my hand covering my mouth while my other hand held the picture. My mom walked over and put her arm around my shoulder and laid her head on mine. I laid my head on her chest while she held me and I sobbed. Terrence walked in and gave her a questioning glance and when she pointed to the picture he nodded and his expression softened. He had a pained smile on his face and he walked out of the room. I cried for what felt like hours staring at the picture of my beautiful twins. When I finally stopped I asked the question I had been dreading.

"What was Liam's cause of death?" I asked breathlessly.

"Strain, you were too stressed with your father and his threats and it caused your babies heart rate to spike, Isabella withstood the stress but little Liam who was smaller succumbed to the high stress and his heart gave out." She said with a tear rolling down her cheek. My heart stopped. I felt my breath lurch in my throat and I felt the air catch in my lungs. I was responsible for my son's death.
"And that's why you were so heartbroken you felt responsible for both twins' deaths. No matter how many times we told you Isabella's death wasn't your fault you always said it was." She said, I sighed and said I needed fresh air. She nodded and I got up and left the picture on the bed and walked out. Terrence walked back in to talk to melody while I stood outside just breathing.