Zodiac War

Painful Past

I let go of Hestia, but was alert to any sudden move.  Luckily, she stayed after having realized that charging after Edward and Talise wouldn’t be in our best interest.  She looked at me and I could tell that she was looking for me to lead us. I was the oldest after all. I put my arm around her shoulder and carefully led her pack to our car.  Once inside I said, “So first of all, you need to tell me who he was and what you know.” She seemed on the verge of crying and whined, “I don’t know anything. I thought I knew him, but now even that has turned out to be untrue.”  I thought about what we could possibly do to get Talise back. She was like a little sister to me and I felt like it was my responsibility to make sure nothing bad happened to her and Hestia. But it seemed like bad things always happened to the people I loved.  Luckily, Hestia dragged me out of my downward spiral of thoughts by saying, “We need to learn more about the EZT before we could storm in there to get her back. And I know just the way to get that information.” “How? Talise was the one spying on them and you thought you learned stuff from Edward.  But he was playing you all along. We need to do something else.” She looked at me sympathetically and I was starting to be afraid of what she was going to say next. “I know you won’t like this idea, but you need to tell about your past. You lived with a mark for such a long time, yet they weren’t able to find and kill you.  You must have learned quite a bit about the mark and them in that time,” she suggested. My mind flashed back to my adoptive brother drowning and I jumped out of the car and screamed, “NO!” I started to run off and keep the memories bottled up, but they couldn’t be stopped. I leaned against a tree and started bawling again. I felt Hestia put her arm around my shoulder and apologize.  I composed myself and turned towards her, “I can’t do that. So many people died. I don’t want to relive those times.” She replied, “And so many more people will keep on dying if you don’t relive it.” I knew she was right, but couldn’t bring myself to talk about it. She led me back to the car and said, “I’ll listen. Just tell me whenever you feel ready.” I knew it would be better if I didn’t keep putting this off, so I sat down and let my memories take over.

It was July 12, 1993 once again and I was in Chitose, Hokkaido, Japan at the US military base.  I saw a vague outline of my parents and twin brother. I was two years old again and playing with my toys with my brother when the ground started shaking.  I started crying and my mom pulled me close. The next thing I knew was that she had grabbed me and started running uphill. Little did I know that a tsunami warning had been issued.  I was looking over her shoulder and I saw the water rushing towards us. I started crying even harder. My mom looked back and tried running even faster, but it was no use. The water caught up to us and dragged her down.  She lost her grip on me and I was pulled away and thrown every which way by the sea. But it was the first time that I was at peace. The water seemed to be caressing me and holding me in its arms. I fell asleep rocked by the wild waters.  I woke up quite a while later to find that I had drifted out to see and that I was floating in the middle of nowhere. There was no land in sight and I started screaming for my mom. But it didn’t take long for me to be distracted by a group of dolphins playing in the water.  I laughed and started splashing at them. They came up right by me and I grabbed ahold of one. It started dragging me through the water and I was bubbling with excitement. After a while, I saw the shore, so I let go and let the waves bring me to shore. I just started playing in the sand and waited for my mom and brother to join me.  I kept looking out to sea as if the dolphins would bring them as well.

But after playing for most of the day, I got hungry and it started to get tired.  I started screaming and crying for my mom, but this was the one time that that didn’t make her appear.  But it did make a strange man appear. He started making strange sounds which didn’t sound at all like my parents or the other people I had heard.  I later found out that it had been Korean. I only knew English and Japanese. He brought me home and fed me. I liked this strange man who fed me, but I still wanted my mom.