The Red Flag

Part LXXVI - "Two halves. . ."

I stared back at my other personality in complete horror. I wanted to sink to the floor and roll under my bed. I wanted to lock the door and hide away from the world again.

Sensing my fear and revolution, Mia snapped her voice at me. Her words were laced with anger.

"You will not hide yourself away, anymore." Her eyes flared like two burning embers. "Don't you see that we have the advantage here?"

"What do you mean? What advantage?"

As far as I was aware, Elijah knew everything about me. Including the vital fact that I suffer from some kind of split personality disorder.

Mia looked down at herself before lifting her head to me. "Yes, Elijah knows about me. He knew about me long before he ever met you. He knew about Amelia's condition, but never came into contact with the both of us. Only me. That is until you began working for the man."

My breathing slowed. Everything around me, even the air, went still.

Why was she speaking my name out of tense? Why was she saying my name as if it didn't belong to me? He knew about Amelia's condition...Amelia....Amelia.

The name grew further and further from my mind. When did I become so separated from that name? Perhaps it was because without it I was nothing. So I clung to it like a lifeline, hoping that with it my life could become normal again. But there again, Mia had warned me all along. I was never able to have a normal life. Not like this.

"Poor, little girl," she surmised. "You've been so busy trying to pretend to be someone you're not, all the while you've been deceived by the Big Bad Wolf."

My shoulders slumped forward. I let myself sit on the edge of the mattress, knowing fully well my legs would no longer support me. I yanked my eyes from the mirror long enough to focus on something else. Anything else.

I hesitated to ask. "What do you mean, I've been trying to pretend to be someone else?"

"I can still remember the day you woke up in that hospital bed, alone. How lost and confused you felt. You can't deny that when you first opened your eyes you didn't feel a strange disconnection. A detachment from the world around you to the very body you've lived in for the past five years."

It was true. Ever since I woke up in that horrible, lonely room I felt out of place. Hell, at first I didn't even know my own name. When the doctor came in to review my files along with some follow up check ups, it was then I heard the name "Amelia".

It rolled off my tongue easy enough, I simply took it as my own. So, from there I assumed that's who I was. Who I was supposed to be.

Memories of relatives and friends came back over time. And unfortunately, so did the memories of my family. Each one caused me more grief than the one before.

But hearing this all now made me feel like my identity was being torn from the very seams of my mind. Was I not the real Amelia Peterson? Was I not the same girl who lost her family in a horrific plane crash all those years ago?

"I've been inside that head of ours long before the plane accident. I was nothing more than a mere suggestive conscious, wanting to give into our primal urges."

This explained why at times I never felt like I was in control of my body. This particular side possessed the ability to dictate my very actions as well as steal the words right out of my mouth and replace them with her own.

It made sense why she was given the name Mia. 'Mia' was meant for a girl who was considerably bitter and rebellious. Whenever she'd go trouble would not be far behind.

"You, on the other hand, are the voice of reason and control. Although you were never officially given a name, it doesn't take a genius to figure out who exactly was in control during a certain time."

I was not going to deny it. She was right. Our personalities were so different from each other that it's obvious to tell who was who. From what Aralyn would tell me, Mia was one to constantly have her shoulders squared with her hand resting on her hip. She would instantly own any room she was standing in. Whereas I would naturally keep my hands behind my back and my head tilted down.

Hell, you could have pieces together who was who simply by watching the way each of us walked. Mia would take long balanced strides while wearing four inch heels. And here I would practically trip over my own feet in a pair of sneakers. Clothing never mattered, granted our tastes were different, no doubt. Like Mia said, it didn't take a genius to recognize when she would make a brief appearance even if I was wearing baggy sweat pants at the time. Her physical disposition said it all.

"To simply put it, we are merely two halves of one whole."

If I wasn't brain dead before I certainly was now.

"Two halves of one whole. . ." I repeated like a sick mantra. If that was the case, then what happened to the real Amelia? "If what you're saying is true, then does that mean that Amelia, the real Amelia, is gone?"

Mia rolled her eyes degradingly. However she could see how lost I looked from her perspective. Like a lost puppy wandering through the park in search of its owner.

"She's not dead if that's what you're insinuating." She flicked her tongue. "More like stuck in her own mind. Sleeping in memories of the past."

"Is she ever aware of what was going on around her?" Was she like one of those coma patients who were able to hear and feel everything happening around them?

"Are you seriously concerned about that bitch when I just told you who you really are?" She scoffed, "Jesus Christ. It's amazing how you managed to graduate from college with a degree in psychology."

Two halves. . .