In The Wildest Dimensions

10. Is It Really Her?

"S-Sophia?" Adam couldn't believe his eyes nor his memory.

The woman took a step back, shy and scared.

"Um... I'm not Sophia," her doe lips trembled. Her personality surely concluded that she wasn't the person whom the ex-detective had been acquainted with. However, her appearance couldn't fool him. "I... I was worried that you were, um, sleeping for too long. I'm happy to see that... you're... awake, sir."

Adam initialized his memories. With a head full of questions and unlimited answers, he had to tread lightly.

He approached the alive and breathing carbon-copy lookalike of the woman he had shed blood of. Who could this be? If not Sophia?

"Well, thanks for the hospitality," he raised his hands to show signs of surrendered, peaceful intentions. "I'm Adam, nice to meet you."

The woman was dressed in a pearl-white turtleneck sweater, bottomed and gift-wrapped by navy blue overalls. Her blonde hair was neatly organized in a pixie bun, with strands of her sideburns gracefully hanging from the tops of her temples. With her plush doe lips and inhumanly beautiful blues of her eyes, naturally lined by a royalty of eyelashes, she was a dreamgirl for every man who desired an innocent butterfly for a life partner. Someone to protect every day and cherish in every way.

"Um... Pleasure to meet you too... Mr... Adam," she replied, inconfident. "My name's Evelyn. You can call me Eve. I think... I think I know something that I shouldn't."

Adam's suspicions yelled "one" in Spanish to his table of a card game of a mental gallery of hints.

She was not Sophia, the woman he had murdered. Based on her reactions from encountering him, she was also unlike the other people he had been talking to. For starters, she wasn't aware of his identity. Whether she was truly the niece of a man named Michael, and the co-founder of a café, was about to be investigated.

"Hmm, I see. What's the knowledge that's troubling you, miss Eve?"

"Er... Something that would take some time to explain... But... You look like... Like..."

"Jack Jucas?"

"Mhmm," Evelyn nodded, closing the purse of her lips as if she was slightly flabbergasted by Adam's mind-reading response. "Are you... Jack?"

"No, I'm Adam. Adam Jucas."

"Nice to meet you, sir. I'm Evelyn. You can call me Eve."

The repetition triggered a different response in Adam's mind. 'Well, that was unexpected. Didn't she just introduce herself a while ago?'

Then it hit him.

Eve might have an affliction of anterograde amnesia.

"Hmm, okay Eve, is this your cabin?"

"Mhmm."

"I have some questions, if you'll please cooperate with me," Adam gestured a welcoming butler's hand towards the room. "It's a dangerous town, this Vicilia place."

An aroma of uncertainty clung to her like perfume. Adam's eyes were transfixed on hers. Hers on his. Finding a common ground of involuntary consent, Adam invited her inside.

A shuffling noise startled Adam.

Turning around, he found Eve hastily scribbling down notes into her journal.

***

"January 22," Adam flicked through the previous pages of Eve's journal. The owner of the notebook was dreamily undergoing rapid-eye movement, tucked in a comfortable bedroll on the floor like a sleepy kitten. He didn't want to breach her privacy, but it had to be done. He read. "I feel scared. I feel trapped. Oh dear God, please help me. If only someone else had escaped from the domestic dimension like me, maybe I could still have hope. I cannot do this anymore. Mentally drained as I am, I wonder for how long I can survive."