T.O.R.N.: There's Only Right Now

Epilogue Farrah & Soraya

The touch of eyelashes against her cheek was the first thing Asante felt as she slowly opened her eyes. Little high pitched giggles followed. She quickly shut her lids and laid as still as possible. Next, a small elbow pushed down into her chest and a knee felt like it was trying to escape through her back via her abdomen. She took a breath as she stilled her body, then before they could escape, she grabbed both of her girls and wrestled them underneath her so she could begin her form of revenge.

"You dare to wake the sleeping tickle monster, you will pay, you will pay now!" Asante yelled at the top of her lungs as she tickled Farrah and Soraya. Born a few moments apart nothing could separate the two. Sometimes they were able to trick her and Chelo as to their identities. Besides being the most identical set of twins that Asante had ever seen, they were so very much alike in energy, preferences, and personality. When they were born, they hugged each other in their crib constantly, if pulled apart for any reason, even to feed, they'd cry and wine until they were reunited. They spent every waking moment together of their four years alive.

All of the commotion on her side of the bed still didn't wake a sleeping Chelo who was buried under a pile of pillows and blankets.

After Asante's love attack on their little bodies, she put her finger over her mouth and whispered, "Let's get Daddy."

The girls loved this part of their morning ritual best. They snuck under the blankets and began to move toward Chelo's body like little moles moving through the ground.

Just as they reached his body for their own tickle attack, Asante pulled back the covers and yelled "Wonder Twins, go! Attack, attack!"

As the girls began to tickle their father with all their might, he swooped them up in his arms and began to kiss them all over.

"This never gets old, best way to wake up!" Chelo said as he smiled and looked into Asante's eyes.

"Who wants strawberry jacks?" Asante asked her family.

Soraya, Chelo, and Farrah raised their hands simultaneously as if they wanted to be called on first in class and shouted, "Me!" in unison.

Asante grabbed her robe and said lights as she entered the hallway outside her door. Little LED lights illuminated the ground as she took each step. She preferred this setting this early in the morning as the sky was still dark with hues of violet and purple rising from the horizon in the distance. She took the glass staircase to the second floor of their three-story apartment in Johannesburg's tallest sky rise. The second floor had a three-sixty view of the city because of its floor to ceiling windows that encompassed the living space. In the center of the space, an open all-white and copper kitchen greeted her. She was still amazed that she was able to keep it pristine every time she entered it. She made herself a matcha latte and began to make her favorite strawberry jacks.

Asante filled the last of the cups with freshly squeezed orange juice from the refrigerator dispenser and brought them to the table where her family sat. Soraya reached for a piece of pancake.

Asante said, "You know we give thanks first." They all took three clearing breaths, and Asante began, "In gratitude and love we enter in this moment, we nurture our form as we allow the formless to flow through. Ashe."

"Ashe," They all repeated. As the word left her lips, the blowing in Asante's ears began. She hadn't felt it since she met Rosalyn. The hairs on her arms stood up.

"What's wrong?" Chelo asked.

"I'm not sure."

She got up from the table and walked to one of the windows. Nothing. Clear.

She waited.

The blowing became a rushing wind in her ears. Still nothing. She turned back to walk toward the table where her family waited for her. She smiled at them, taking in each one of their beautiful faces. Chelo still took her breath away with his piercing eyes. Soraya and Farrah both had tight, dark-brown, curly hair whose ringlets were sun-kissed with auburn. Their caramel-olive skin framed their huge light brown eyes as if drawn to perfection. Five steps before she reached the table all the windows that encompassed the apartment shattered at once, shards of glass shot in every direction.

Asante threw up her arms creating a force field that shielded her and her family from the shards. A moment later she released the force field, the gushing wind that rushed through the apartment sent her tumbling into the table where she was able to grab Soraya just as she was being lifted out of her chair by the force of the wind. Chelo caught Farrah in the same manner.

Head toward the staircase, She heard Chelo's voice in her head.

Each step took every bit of her energy to accomplish. She reached into herself and pulled from the depths of her soul as she held her daughter as tight as she could. But it was as if the wind had a purpose, an intent, almost to separate her from her child. As she looked up, she could see that Chelo seemed to be having the same struggle, she heard him say in her head once more, I'm losing her, as the wind seemed to pry Farrah from his grasp.

Asante's heart dropped as she watched her baby fly from his hands into the wind and out of the apartment. Soraya looked up at her with fear and sadness. Asante had to hold on, she must, but the more she did the more aggressive the wind became. Chelo began to make his way through the force of the rushing wind toward them. Just a little longer, Asante thought. Then what seemed like an invisible hand of air snatched her remaining child from her hands. Soraya's screams rang in her head as the wind immediately stopped once her baby disappeared. Chelo was at her side as she moaned "NOOOOOOOOOO!"

* * *

The sound of her heels clicking against the marble floor as she approached her office always filled Emily Farraday with delight, but this morning she was especially pleased with herself. She took a moment and paused before she opened the door. Though they still weren't certain of the number of people associated with the rebellion, she could feel her control over the society she had meticulously created with such patience and discipline slipping from her grasp. She wasn't sure how but she knew Quantum had been compromised, she had been betrayed and at the heart of the betrayal was Asante.

But today all that would end. Today Asante would know the pain that only true loss provided, a feeling that Emily had known most of her life, a feeling she'd make sure Asante would know intimately for the rest of hers. She reveled in this thought a moment longer, then she finally opened the double doors, and looked around. Everything was in its place. Her steel desk and matching furniture gleamed in the mid-morning light.

"I know you're in here, where are you hiding?" She looked under the desk, nothing, opened her wardrobe closet, nothing. She then walked to the large potted Fern plant in the corner and pushed the leaves aside. "There you are!"

Crouched in the corner and hugging each other tightly with fear and tears in their eyes were two little girls. "I understand your names are Farrah and Soraya." They nodded their heads yes cautiously. "Nice to meet you," She held out her hands for the girls to shake them. "You can call me, Auntie Em."