The Stronghold

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"They're lying," I said the next morning, wandering through the door connecting our two rooms.

Tom raised his head off the pillow and groaned at me, slumping back down and pulling the duvet over his head. In the glimpse that I got I saw that he had a white T-Shirt and very, very messy hair.

"Who's lying?" his muffled voice said eventually.

"The couple from yesterday," I replied, sitting down on the end of his bed and slowly dragging the covers from his face.

"Mr and Mrs Gorman, you mean."

"Them."

"How are they lying?" Tom yanked the blue duvet out of my hand and sat up, wrapping his arms and the sheets around his knees.

"They said my dad's name but called the tower the Stronghold," I explained. "I started to call the tower the Stronghold when I was eight years old."

"Didn't S say that Albin ordered my release, or was a word to get me released?" Tom said thoughtfully.

"Yes..."

"And you say that Albin's your dad's name?"

"Yes..."

"So we can therefore conclude that Albin was at Thunder and is some kind of leader there. Or prisoner, though I doubt he'd be wearing something as awesome as my army uniform."

"If he was at Thunder then he'd be alive," I said, my voice barely above a whisper. "Why... why hasn't he contacted me? Why did he lie all these years?"

"Pepper, he probably did it for your own good," Tom said gently. "I hate to be cliché but he did do it for your own good."

"How?" I cried, standing up and pacing the room anxiously. "How is separating two twins, forcing them to live different lives, one with no freaking parents and both having to work at a young age, how is that 'for my own good'?!"

"You get more common sense, you do better in later life-"

"Thomas, stop making things up, Goddammit!" I yelled, thumping the wall with my fist. "None of that was any good! It destroyed my childhood! My adult life!"

"Hey, I had no childhood, so you can't exactly complain," Tom snapped.

"That's because you're part of my imagination!"

"Not imagination," Tom shouted, scrambling towards me and sitting on the end of his bed, "part of your conscious mind. I was a drifting spirit and there was a space in your head so I took it."

"Taking up the place where my memories of my brother and my best friend should be," I said bitterly, feeling tears form in my eyes. "And being here, helping you escape and then staying, it's too much for me. I've got to go. Got to get back to my normal life. I need to go back to them."

I turned to leave but found the doorway blocked by a sheet of one foot thick ice. The window and main door were the same but then I couldn't move. My socks were frozen to the floor and I could slowly feel the circulation being cut off to my lower legs.

"Tom!" I yelled. "Let me go, now!"

"Only if you stay," he growled, folding his arms. "You're not allowed to run off. We need to help the Gormans."

"We can't help liars! They're dangerous, Tom, and I think they might be hunting us." My legs had gone cold and I started to shiver all over as my circulation slowly stopped, my heart feeling the strain.

"And let me go before I die again," I said weakly. "I don't want another you running around the place."

Tom's eyes widened as he realised what I was on about. The ice melted but not quick enough. For the second time my heart stopped and I died.