The street lamp seemed brighter with her standing underneath. She looked at me and everything stood still, but not still at the same time. They were shaking slightly in the same place, as if they were never really there in the first place. As if they were fabrications or empty shells, suffering at one single point for eternity.
Only the two of us weren't in the same strange haze as everyone else.
We locked eyes and she smirked. Mema smirked after seeing the hostility in my empty brown eyes, which once held the liveliness of a thousand loving souls before my own sought comfort in isolation.
She smirked and the blurry silhouettes faded away, only to be replaced by nothing.
And it would have only been us two sisters, alone and hidden from peering eyes. It would have been if I hadn't run away.
***
I clumsily fell on my bed as I tried to gather my bearings, not that I had many. Most of it had disappeared and had been replaced with the what little sanity I now had. I hurriedly gathered what little things I had with me and stuffed them all into the same black and white striped duffel bag I had carried with me these last few months. It was big enough to carry all the things I needed on me at the moment. The other stuff I had, like the rest of my clothes, I could be replaced. The most important thing at that moment, was to get away safely with the book they were after. If they ever got their hands on it, then my parent's deaths would have been futile along with mine, which was inevitable and seemed to be soon.
I had known that they would find me soon, especially since my sister had joined them. I wasn't sure if she had been tricked or controlled, or if their money and power was just enough to convince my sister to take the path of betrayal by throwing away everything we had been taught our whole lives.
But at least she wasn't alone with no job, qualifications, degrees or whatever you needed where I was going. We earned money by working in the small family shop we had inherited after our parents death. And now all that was left of it was ashes from the blaze that had destroyed everything I ever knew. But at least my sister had a job and was getting paid. It might have been destroying everything my family had stood for and bringing me to my death, but it was still a job and she was still probably being compensated in a way.
Unlike me, who had never been able to get very far in life on my own.
I could never stand on my own two feet, but now I had no other choice. No-one else would ever be there for me and even if they did, I would have to leave eventually. I could no longer trust anyone or get close to anyone, for my own sake and theirs. The only people I knew I could trust were far away and, but even they could double cross me just as quickly and easily as my sister had.
This left me with pretty much no one. No one to go to, no one to confide in, no one to do anything with. Maybe I could get used it, maybe I couldn't, most likely the latter. I had no idea how I would survive by my own, but I had no other choice.
I disregarded all thoughts as I left the house and made my way to the airport.
***
I sat down on one of hard metal chairs in the departure lounge when curiousity overcame me. I took out the old book and traced the swirly pattern, which had been carved on it's spine. I glanced around, only to find everyone fully engaged in newspapers, trying to control wayward children or phone calls to loved ones.
I opened it only to see that every single page was completely blank apart from two sentences on the last page.
'Bonis nocet quisquis malis perpercit.
Whoever spares the bad injures the good.'
