Assassin's Creed: Phoenix

VIII. then and now

"I know it sounds lunatic, believe me. But she actually showed me a glimpse of a memory... A memory of my mom."

"That's news." Izar was the skeptical man he had always been - though he managed to stay calm, William knew him well enough to tell if he was hiding his true emotions. "Define 'showing a memory'."

  "I can't."

  Izar's smile seemed ironic, he couldn't help but notice something was quite different about William, though he couldn't figure out what it was just yet. "What's that supposed to mean?"

  "It means I don't have the words for it."  William stared blankly, as if he was forcing himself to remember. "She held my hand for a second and I have no idea how I saw my mother."

  "She held your hand and you don't have the words to explain?" He started smirking as he pulled up a chair for both of them. "That's the kind of stuff I haven't heard from you for a long while."

"Only to shake hands, you know, like normal people do?" William explained, nodding his head, he couldn't believe how Izar never skipped the chance to make a joke. "Do you know if mom was keeping any secrets from me?"

"Why don't you sit?"  He suddenly sounded odd.

William sighed and sat down to the chair right in front of him, placing his walking stick on the wooden table. Izar didn't hesitate to grab it, his skillful engineer fingers quickly started tapping some kind of a password to its stiff grip. He had a shimmer in his eyes, one that always appeared whenever he found the chance to take himself back to his old engineering days. In no time, a small, very mechanical-looking lid opened, revealing a shiny piece of hologram which showed some very complex animated data. "It seems to be in good shape... Better than I expected, to be honest."

"This one is. The brown one, though, could use some of your attention."  William spoke fast, he wasn't going to let Izar change the topic. "About my question?"

Izar gently pushed the lid and closed it as the walking stick vibrated, sometimes even William forgot how smart Izar programmed that thing. "What kind of a secret are we talking about?" He still avoided making eye contact, which was more than suspicious.

"'Félicité de Grandpré."

  "Oh boy." Izar's lips parted in silent surprise. "What exactly did she show you?" He started blinking rapidly - suddenly his voice wasn't hiding the shock he felt.

  William watched his sudden change of emotions. "My mother seemed... so young, and quite frightened. Then I heard this man's voice, adressing her as Félicité de Grandpré. I couldn't tell who it was, though, it was an unfamiliar-"

"Hold on." Izar stopped him, grabbing a notebook and a pen from the drawer in rush. "Tell me the whole thing. From the start, please, don't skip any details about that night."
 

Jennifer felt like her whole life was slowly crumbling into pieces, yet nothing she could do was going to stop it from happening.

Deep inside, she could feel her sanity slipping through her fingers - as she remembered the hologram-like face of the angelic woman, the heaviness of the tears in her eyes became more unbearable. Her mind was telling her to run back home and tell her dad about the hallucinations, even though he would have a hard time understanding them, yet her knees were to weak to carry her - as if she were a screw compressed on the chair.

The laughing, crying and the shouting sounds of the crowd were filling her ears like a hum, everything felt gray as all she could think about was the words of the hologram. I can feel you cipher, feel but hardly touch. She couldn't help but remember the magician guy, William, and how his face suddenly changed after shaking her hand. Do you remember him? You have already met. She pushed herself to remember anything about him, but nothing seemed familiar in her memories, she had never seen him before. Not a single thing made sense. The only thing she was certain of was the fact that she needed some professional help, her whole body started shivering when she thought about the hologram again. You remember.