For the first time in exactly four years, she was heading back to Heidelberg. After five months in Dr. Reichwein's house, recovering, it was time to leave. Five months filled with therapy, meaningless chores, and stability that finally helped her to be, or think she was, the same girl she had once been. She would be forever grateful for all the help they offered.
Today, it was her birthday, Nina's and her real one. Now she remembered.
It was curious, her age had never changed. The Fortners never knew her real name, at least that the previous one was Anna, but they knew that today was her birthday. It seemed Johan had been sincere on that.
So today, the day she turned 24, was the day she left that shelter. But first, she had to face her worst nightmare.
Johan.
They had been in the same city since the moment he had been shot, him in one hospital or another and her in her psychiatrist's home. Just a few kilometers away, for months.
She had been able to feel his proximity, threatening, comforting, real.
And after seeing him, talking to him, a peace she thought it was impossible to feel again.
Now she was sitting on the train, looking at the German countryside on that rainy day and smiling, knowing she had made great progress facing him.
He was no longer a ghost, omnipotent, just a delicate, weakened body lying on a bed. Something she could visit whenever she wanted.
So pathetically human.
It had been almost six hours on a train and now she was walking out of the station, after twilight. She was excited, nervous, terrified and extremely happy about going back home. She wanted to see her bedroom again, lie on her bed, face her new reality in a safe, familiar environment.
Also, go back to school. She had already enrolled in that semester and, even if she hadn't attended classes, as she still lived in Munich, she was going to try and pass those exams, the same she was studying before the Fortners were murdered.
She really was that girl from Heidelberg, in Heidelberg, again.
She paid the taxi that brought her back to Neckastraße and only when the vehicle had left, she turned around, to look at that familiar façade. Her heart was racing, feeling...
What was she feeling?
The house was exactly as she remembered it, and she was so different.
So different.
Nina walked towards the main entrance, feeling her legs trembling as she carried her suitcase.
She took a deep breath, then another, and she opened the door, turning on all the lights as she couldn't stand that dark corridor anymore.
The living room looked exactly the same as she remembered. There were no corpses there.
A part of her had been expecting them.
Same with the kitchen. The suitcase ended up forgotten in there and she headed upstairs, to her bedroom.
Why was she that scared?
The pink carpet was there, the computer, the teddy bear.
Oh, what were these papers on the desktop?
Right, her notes of Constitutional law, from back then. She liked to use some colors on her notes, make them easier to check. She had already written some more, so similar since she was going to face that same exam in a few weeks.
Four years later.
"Los, Nina!" There were a little smiley face and that stupid motivational message for herself. She had been pretty scared of that exam and its professor.
Such a stupid fear, considering what she had faced later.
Her tired body dragged her to the bed. She wanted so badly to lie down for a while. So, she got rid of her shoes and lied there, in an almost fetal position, looking at her desktop and her notes.
Focusing on that silence.
She had no family anymore, no one will be cooking in the kitchen or watching TV as she stayed in her bedroom. That silence was going to accompany her always.
That void.
She was alone, as alone as someone could be.
It didn't matter how hard she fought, nothing was going to be as it was. There was no family to support her, no friends to cheer her up, not even a therapist.
It wasn't loneliness really, but isolation. The feeling that there was an abyss between her and the rest of the world, and insuperable distance. It didn't matter how many new relations she made, no one would reach her, what she had been through, what she had been forced to do.
What she had become.
Even Dr. Tenma had finally abandoned her.
No one was going to understand her, ever.
And all because of Johan.
The image of that pale, serene face came back to her mind, but this time, instead of that vague familiarity she felt anger.
That man was the sole cause of her isolation. Her anger. Her sadness.
And then all she could feel was an immense regret, for not aiming to kill, for not pulling the trigger.
Because in moments like that, all she wanted was to be a killer.
YOU ARE READING
Nina came first...
Fanfiction"What's left of us? Us as twins?" A sad smile, that was all.
