Hometorius : Coming Home

chapter 35 : The Real Identity

Anri POV

It's been about half an hour since Zarina and those girls left, so I decided to invite myself. I sat on the floor and waited patiently.

"Come on, Marylin. Wake up," I whispered softly after a few minutes of silence and touched her softly, as gently as I could, her icy forehead.

I know her skills very well and I know that I don't have them. There was not much I could do with this gesture. Nevertheless, after a few minutes I noticed something like a slight movement. I looked at her emaciated hand. I thought one of her bony fingers twitched. For a moment I waited for some part of her body to twitch again, but nothing happened.

So, I could look at her skinny face. I always could, I'm not saying Marylin was too ugly to look at. It was quite the opposite, and now no one could accuse me of staring at her like an idiot. There were no freckles, no pimples, no blemish on her face. You could say she had a noble complexion - pale, delicate, flawless. And a small mole above the left corner of her upper lip added to her charm. As well as a small earring in the right eyebrow, which somehow I never noticed before. She probably got it just recently. I had a similar one.

And as I studied her face, the corner of my right eye registered some movement again. This time for sure. I stared blankly at my pale hand again. I tried not to blink for most of the time as well. I didn't want even the slightest twitch to escape my eye. And with that, I noticed a twitch again, though strong enough to make me think it was intentional. This was too much.

"Marylin, get up," I grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her lightly.

I have never been gentle with anything, but when I saw all those protruding bones, I was deprived of the power to do anything more firmly. I just didn't have a heart to touch her any stronger. I admit, I'm a weakling, but I won't hurt a girl... a pretty girl.

Suddenly, Marylin took a sharp breath, almost choking on it. I let go of her and sat back down on the floor. She opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling blankly, blinking fast as if she really didn't see a thing. She didn't notice me. I sat as quiet as a mouse. Then, she put her finger to her open eye and seemed to be scratching it.

"What the hell are you doing?" I asked, terrified, I couldn't bear to watch this strange act in horror.

She almost stuck her finger in her eye because of me. She neither turned to me nor answered the question, just proceeded to dig into her eye. And I obediently sat quietly through that. After a while, she smiled, satisfied. I don't know what she was trying to do, but it looked like she succeeded.

Only then did she sit up and turn her head to me. I do admit, I was surprised to see two different irises, one of which was red.

"Are you sitting here long?" she asked and scratched her belly.

Her slender fingers found a deep wound. She rolled up her T-shirt and looked at the ugly stitching. In some spots, the skin was still not closed properly, which made it possible to look inside the wound.

"What happened to me?" she asked, surprised.

"You don't remember?" I didn't even expect Marylin to wake up, let alone ask questions I didn't even know the answer to.

Marylin noticed my puzzled look and smiled slightly under her breath. What a tease. She just wanted to throw me off track. And so she did.

"Where is everybody?" she asked and stood up, wanting to stretch her numb legs.

However, she had been dead for a little too long, and she staggered and would have fallen to the floor if not for my quick reaction.

"You better stay here and not move," I said in a dry voice and continued to answer her question. "I have no idea where everyone is. I don't even live here."

"Be happy that I haven't kicked you out yet," she grunted, fell back on the pillows and stared blankly at the ceiling. "What are you even doing here?"

"I was thinking of taking you to the ballet," I answered quietly and now I was the one smiling slightly, looking away at my wrist scars.

"Ballet?" she repeated in disbelief and looked at me again, this time suspiciously. "Joseph forbade me from doing ballet."

"There's something you don't know about him... didn't know."

"Make it make sense. Don't or didn't know?" she interrupted quickly, but I just waved my hand in response.

"Let me finish," I clicked my tongue and continued. "Victuvius hired Joseph to have someone close to you. He was ordered to lure you into the mirror first, to the magical world, because he couldn't enter the ordinary world. In a way, Katrine blocked him. This is the proof that she was stronger than Victuvius in terms of magic. He never managed to break this barrier."

I looked at her. She looked at me with big eyes, and her different irises made her look more dramatic. I smiled in triumph. I managed to scare her.

"Do you remember how he told you that you can get out of here only if you have a pure heart?" I asked, and when she nodded, I continued. "That was all bullshit. Everything was. He was supposed to pretend to be nice to gain your trust, and then kill one by one.

"But why?" she interjected softly, drawing her knees up to her chest, then added louder. "And why should I believe you?"

"You are a threat to him," I replied calmly, not hiding my admiration. "You are all young, you can learn a lot. Especially you, an explosive mix. I don't know if you realize, Marylin, but if you put Marylin Freeze and Victuvius McDevil, the result you get will be basically immortal. Literally.

"That's why I woke up..." she said and looked up at me, wrapping her knees tightly. "Anything else?"

"Victuvius killed him."

"What???" a few tears came to her eyes, but she pushed them away. "Why didn't he kill you, then?"

"Joseph broke more promises than I did," I explained and rested my head on the bed. "He promised him obedience unto death and made it clear that he would kill all of you."

"What did you promise? And what did he do to you?"

"Me?" I was silent for a moment, I wondered if I could trust her. Same as in the basement. "I just promised to put your guard down."

"What did he do to you?" she demanded angrily.

"He deprived me of the name he gave me and kicked me out of the company."

"What name, Anri? Victuvius Fortieth the Liar?" she asked sarcastically and tried to get up again.

"Anri," I whispered without looking at her.

"I know your name," she almost yelled at me, standing by the door.

"Well, it's just that you don't. Anri was the name he gave me," I explained, and then I got up and went to her, changing the subject. "Are we going to this ballet?"

She didn't answer, just walked quickly past me and left the room. Only then did she realize that she had never been in this room before. She didn't see much inside - the blinds were drawn, and the lights were off. She found herself in a dark corridor she had certainly never seen before.

"Where are we, Anri?" she stopped and looked around, eventually turning to look at me.

"My name is Agis," I said as if we were meeting for the first time. The only thing left to do was to reach out to her and squeeze her bony hand with a smile. What I even wanted to do for a while. "If you go further down this corridor, you will eventually reach the stairs. Then you go down, turn right twice on the middle floor and go down to the lower floor."

"The thing is, I don't see shit, Agis," she confessed, saying my new-found name with a smile. "Agis is a nice name..."

I approached her slowly, and when I was standing less than a meter in front of her, I held out my hand to her.

"Let me lead you, then" I gently grabbed her bony hand and dragged her down the hall with me.