The Different Ones

The Different Ones pt11

Garrett said nothing after that and kept driving home. He parked, quickly got out, and headed up to the apartment without saying a word.

"So?" Madeline asked

"Fine. I'll tell you." Garrett hesitated and let out a sigh, "When we were young our mom experimented on us, and when our dad took me away mom got really mad and lashed out at you. You uh-" Garrett stopped once more, "You used your powers and started a fire that burnt down our house."

"I did what!" Madeline boomed

"That's not all."

"I did more than burn our house down?! That house you took me too that was the one I burnt down?"

Garrett nodded and continued, "Only our mom came out, so I assumed you died in the fire. And at the time I was young so I took it pretty hard. We were really close given the fact that we were," He corrected himself, "We are different. I never stopped believing you were still alive until I was  17, so about two years after the fire, then when I turned 18 I got my first tattoo which is the one on my back, The lily."

"What about the tiger?" Madeline asked.

"That I got years after. I was always made fun of for the fact I had some girly flower tattooed on my back so I added the tiger."

"Did you at the time regret it?"

"Absolutely not. It was the one way I knew you were still with me." Garrett smiled

"I have another question. What kind of fire did I start?"

"Well at the time you were super young so you could only produce a grease fire."

"A what? Grease fire?"

"Yeah why?"

"The woman that adopted me....." Madeline froze.

"Madeline?" Garrett tilted his head

"Oh god." Madeline's eyes flashed white and she flashed back.

She looked down to see herself in a locked box. Oh no. "No, no, no."  She said as she hit the walls of the box, not even her ghostly self could get out. She frantically turned around to see herself sitting on a bed. Footsteps rang in the background sounding as if someone was walking through an empty house in heels. She again turned to see a woman sitting behind a huge crescent shaped electronic desk. Who is that, and what is she holding? Madeline thought. She could now remember where she was. The laboratory that she blew up before losing her memory, and the woman, whose face was still hazy, from her first memory. She looked back at the girl sitting on the bed and then heard a crack sound she looked up at the speakers as the woman read something out load.

"Friday, May 27th 2025,

Dear diary,

Today was hard, mother tells me that it will all be worth it one day but I don't see how things will get better," 

The words seemed familiar to her, She then watched everything unfold. Madeline's old self stood up off the bed in the enclosed box they were locked, and she begged the woman to stop. Madeline shifted her attention back to the woman.

", Can't she see that i'm hurting every day she makes me do these things, I've often thought of leaving this place one day, after all I am an adult now. Also I just turned 18, what a happy birthday to me right? I mean what other 18 year old wants to spend their life being experimented on...." She heard herself crying behind her but she continued to watch the woman

"Is this what you think of me!?" the woman behind the desk boomed as she stood up boomed

"Mother please..."

Mother? She's not my mom I was an orphan. Madeline thought. But if what Garrett told me is true could that mean I may have lost my memory back then. Just as she thought that, something new happened. Madeleine had a flashback again, cutting off the one she was having. It was her younger self sitting in the car with the woman from the past flash. And she listened to their conversation.

"So how did you end up in that orphanage Madeline?" asked the hazy faced woman.

"I don't remember."

So I was right! My powers must have caused me memory loss before. And in a split Madeline was back to the yelling woman.

"DO NOT! I have taken care of you your entire pathetic life! Don't you remember that?! Your own family didn't want you because your a freak!"

I can't believe I out up with that for this long. Madeline turned to herself as she spoke out.

" You think i'm a freak?" Madeline said as shivers shot down her spine. " you know what mom,"

"Stop calling me that i'm not your mother my child died grease in fire a long time ago, you are nothing to me!"

A what? Madeline processed her thoughts. "A grease fire!" Madeline yelled and turned back to the woman whose face she could now see clearly. Mom? Madeline's thoughts were tangled in a mess and she saw many photos flash in her head of her mother. Some from her childhood and some form when after she was adopted, but the last one she saw was the woman she bumped into on the street the day she got the pot brownies.

"Please call me Donna," she heard the woman speak as if it was someone was there, but she saw nobody. Why would she be in my memories? Wait. My mother's name, Madeline hesitated, Donna?

And with that last thought she was back to her confusing reality.