Underneath The Hidden Stars

Chapter XXII

"... what?"

"It's your sister, is it not? Terra Fa-"

"Yes, Terra was my sister, but she's dead, she died in one of the accidents in-"

"Well, clearly she didn't. At least, not according to this video footage." The woman said and clicked play.

Mira watched the video, but started instinctively shaking her head, even though the fact was clear as day.

"No-" she kept shaking her head and took a few steps back. "It's not possible. She was on the casualties list! There was a funeral held for her! My father mourned her, and you're telling me she's alive? It's a fucking look alike, it's not her. I swear. It's. Not. Her." Mira spun on her heel and stormed out of the room, leaving the woman speechless.

As Mira walked through the building, she looked completely dazed - her eyes stared blankly in front of her, and her feet seemed to be moving at the slowest rate possible. People were walking past her, hitting her accidentally with their shoulders, shouting out her name, but all of the sounds around her seemed muted out, almost as if she had been stuck underwater. The only difference though, she didn't want to get out of the water. She didn't want anything. She had mourned her sister. Her father had done the same. He had buried her. Both of them have finally managed to deal with her absence in their own ways, but now she's supposedly alive? "Even if that's really her, why is a young girl like her placing bombs 5 levels above her home? How is she even-" Mira stopped. Everything had finally clicked together. Now the fact that her mother is in charge of the company made sense - when she planned the explosion on Level 4, she took Terra with her. That was her plan.

Mira turned to her desk and sat down. She took out the flash drive out of her pocket and inserted it into the computer. She opened the file with the names and watched the single vertical line at the end of the name she had entered before blink. She slowly lifted her hands up and placed them on the keyboard. Her hands, which were shaking, automatically typed in the two words that had never left her mind: Terra Fader.

After a few hours of investigating, no one gathered any new information. All they knew now, was that Mira's little sister somehow came back to life and is the one carrying the bomb inside, at least during the video, however, since she's considered dead, no one can actually attempt to prosecute her, as she doesn't exist in the current data. The head officer had tried contacting the lower levels, but alas, to no avail. Nothing seemed to be going right, and Mira realized that nothing will be done if she stays on the 9th Level. She picked up her stuff from the desk and quickly went to the apartment, where she picked up her leftover belongings. While dragging her suitcase behind her, she went back to the safety office and told her supervisor of her plan. He listened thoroughly, and although he didn't want her to go through all of the dangers that the plan involved, let her go, as it was for the greater good. They waved their last goodbyes, and Mira left for the station, leaving the life of temporary luxury behind.

As she walked out of the now rebuilt Level Hall on Level 8, Mira finally felt at ease. Level 9 was too foreign for her, although it wasn't as different from the level below it, for some reason, Level 8 actually felt like home. She headed straight home and removed everything from her suitcase and placed it on her bed for the meantime. Mira changed out of her clothes and put on the ones she had left behind before. She gussied up in front of the mirror and left for work without even taking a break.

She walked to the safety office and looked around, but no one was in. Confused, she walked through the whole building and even went to the other floors, but there was not single person in the entire building. She quietly tiptoed to her desk to see if anyone had touched anything, but it was exactly as she left it - not a single dust more. Suspicious, she went to put on her bulletproof vest and took a small handgun with her. After that, she put on her jacket, which neatly covered both, and left for the only place that seemed to make sense at that time - the library.