"What about my baby?"
She pressed both hands against her stomach again. "What happened to her? Did those things hurt her?"
She held herself tightly as if Aurora could still be inside her.
That was the cry of a mother who had lost her child. A mother who remembered exactly what it felt like to hold her baby for the first and the last time.
"Please..." Vivian buried her face in her hands. "Compass, I just want Aurora."
[Host, please calm down.]
"Calm down? You want me to calm down?!"
[There is no baby in the current timeline.]
Vivian froze. No baby. Of course. She was five years in the past. Aurora hadn’t even been conceived yet. She knew that. But knowing something and accepting it in your heart were two different things.
"I know..." she couldn’t stop the tears anyways. "I know she’s not here yet. I carried her for almost nine months. I held my baby."
The system remained silent.
Vivian wiped the tears from her face. She couldn’t fall apart. She had five months. Five months to change everything, to make sure Aurora would exist, and she would never have to hold her dying child in a room surrounded by monsters again.
"Vivian! Did you finish what I told you to do?!" A loud voice called out.
Vivian’s eyes widened. Her stepmother, Helen, was shouting from downstairs.
"Oh, shit," her head snapped turned towards the door. "I have to go."
She quickly wiped her cheeks and jumped up from the bed. Her eyes were still red and her face was stained with tears, but there was no time to fix any of it.
She knew exactly what happened whenever she failed to finish her chores. Helen never shouted in front of Vivian’s father. The woman was way too smart for that. Instead, she waited until he left for work.
Then, she would lock Vivian inside her room. No breakfast or dinner. Sometimes she wouldn’t get any food until she apologized and begged through the keyhole for whatever leftovers happened to remain.
She had been nineteen years old and treated like a slave in her own home.
Not anymore, she thought.
She grabbed her jacket and pulled it on, making sure the sleeve covered the Guide mark on her wrist. Then she hurried downstairs.
Ash had accumulated inside the chimney. Vivian stared at it.
"You’ve got to be kidding me," she grabbed the cleaning brush and knelt down. Five minutes later, she was coughing.
Ash filled the air. It stuck to her hair, her cheeks, and even her eyelashes. She sneezed, wiping her cheek with her sleeve. "Damn it."
She continued scrubbing. She had spent the last five years fighting for her life against monsters. She wasn’t going to lose a fight against a chimney.
Footstep approached her. Vivian didn’t look up, keeping her focus on the chimney.
Helen appeared in the doorway, crossing her arms. "There you are."
Vivian kept scrubbing. "Good morning, ma."
"Good morning?" Helen scoffed loudly. "You have the nerve to greet me after sleeping until noon?"
Vivian glanced toward the wall clock. It wasn’t even nine in the morning. She almost wanted to laugh at her dramatic stepmother. "I wasn’t sleeping."
"Don’t lie to me!" Helen stepped closer. "You’re nothing but useless filth."
Vivian’s hand tightened around the handle of the brush. The old Vivian would have lowered her head. She would have apologized, cried, and begged for forgiveness. This Vivian kept her eyes fixed on the chimney ignoring Helen’s words.
Helen continued her rant. "When your father comes home tonight, I’ll tell him how disrespectful you’ve become."
Vivian finally stopped brushing and looked directly at her. "Okay."
Helen blinked, caught off guard. "Okay?"
"Yes."
"What did you say to me?"
"I said okay," Vivian repeated, and turned back to the chimney. "You can tell him."
"You’ve become bold, Vivian."
"Nah. Just tired."
Helen laughed, pacing around Vivian. "Tired from what? Sleeping all day? Eating like a pig? You don’t help around this house, you don’t appreciate anything we do for you, and now you have the audacity to talk back. Do you know how much your father does for you? You’re lucky he even keeps you here."
Keep me here? This was her father’s house. Her mother’s house. Her childhood home.
She remembered every single time in her past life she had wondered why her father never defended her. Every time she had waited for him to notice the bruises from Helen hitting her. Every time she’d hoped he’d ask why she was crying or sleeping in the attic. He never did. Not once.
"Look at you," Helen sneered, looking at Vivian’s clothes. "Filthy as usual. Don’t think I’ll forget the dishes in the kitchen either."
Vivian looked toward the hallway. "I’ll wash them."
"You’d better," Helen said, turning around to leave. Then she stopped by the door. "And clean the garden."
Vivian’s eyes narrowed. "The garden?"
"The rain destroyed half of it yesterday. Your father’s favorite flowers are ruined."
Vivian stared at her stepmother’s back. That wasn’t her father’s garden. It was her mother’s. Her mother had planted every flower there before she passed away. Her father barely even looked at it. But Vivian remembered.
She remembered how her mother used to kneel in the dirt with her, teaching her the names of the flowers. That garden was one of the few pieces of her mother she still had left.
"I’ll do it," Vivian nodded.
"Of course you will, filth." She walked away.
Chloe appeared in the doorway. She had been hiding and listening the entire time. The moment their eyes met, Chloe stuck out her tongue. "Bleeeh." She blowed raspberry at her, twirling a strand of her hair. "Told you so."
Vivian just stared at her with cold eyes. Chloe giggled, walking away.
Brat!
Vivian exhaled, calming her breathing. "Right. Let’s get this over with."
By the time she finished cleaning the chimney, she looked like she’d crawled out of a coal mine. Her hair was covered in ash, and her clothes were filthy. She gathered the pile into a plastic bag, tying it tightly.
Then, she headed outside.
The garden was in worse shape than she remembered. The rainstorm had destroyed the flower beds. Mud covered the walkway, and broken stems were scattered everywhere.
Vivian crouched down in the dirt. Her fingers gently touched the soil. She could almost hear her mother’s soft voice in the wind. Be gentle, Vivi.
Her eyes softened. "I remember, Mom."
She carefully pulled the damaged plants from the mud. Then, she began replanting the stems that could still survive.
Hours passed. By the time she finished, her fingernails were filled with dirt, her clothes were soaked from the damp ground, and her back ached. But the garden finally looked alive again.
Vivian sat back on her heels, wiping her brow with her sleeve. She was proud of herself. "Mom would’ve liked this."
Suddenly, the sound of tires broke the quiet.
She looked up, peeping through the tiny garden gate.
A black vehicle stopped right in front of the house.
Two large men dressed entirely in fancy suits stepped out of the car. One had short, black hair, while the other had silver hair. They carried themselves like the military as they walked toward the front door.
Who are they?
Then, she caught a glance of the golden emblem on the back of the car, a sword crossed with a pair of glowing wings. She gasped. She knew that symbol all too well.
The National Guide and Sentinel Agency.
Vivian slowly stood up from the mud. "Why the hell are they here?"