Light on. Light off. Light on. Light off. Light on. A lingering echo of a click ricocheted around the office where a brown haired man was attempting to study something under a microscope but was being distracted by his adoptive daughter's fascination with the light switch of his room. He didn't know why she was pestering him in such a way, since she was already 15 and didn't need to annoy her father in childish ways, yet she did so anyway. "Alex?"
"Yes dad?"
"Could you come here for a minute?" Her father's calm words sent off alarms in her head. Either she was in trouble or he needed her help with whatever it is he was doing.
"Sure." As cautious as her acceptance, Alex left her post beside the switch and walked slowly over to her father, who had his hair spiked in its usual fashion but his shirt was slightly askew and two of its top buttons were undone to reveal his undershirt and chest slightly. "What do you want?"
Ben never lifted his gaze from his microscope and answered, "Well nothing actually. I was just wondering why you were fidgeting with the light switch. Care to explain?"
Alex's father stood up from his crouched position and stared at her calmly in the eye. Alex's fidgeted with her night singlet's ribbon, for it was 11 o'clock at night, and shuffled before she responded. "I was…never mind." Before she could fully turn her back on her dad, his hand gently grabbed her arm and spun her around to face him, a slight flash of worry creased his face.
"Alex, what's wrong?"
"I-it's just that…you've spent so much time with Doctor Burke and been busy with research and the Island…I was wondering if you still…"
A small amused smile played across Ben's mouth as he pulled his daughter forward into a hug and placed a hand on her head, stroking her long beautiful hair. "I still love you, Alex." He felt Alex slide her arms around his sides and press against his back, savoring his fatherly love. "You have to know that wherever I am, I'll always love you."
Blood, dirt and tears streaked Alex's face as she was shoved to the ground by her captor and stared at her father sadly who was half concealed by the drapes in his house. Her anger towards him disappeared as her legs crunched the earth below and his conversation revealed a glimmer of hope for her. Her hope quickly diminished when Keamy handed her his walkie talkie and told her to say goodbye to Ben.
Knowing what happened to her boyfriend and recently found mother, Alex didn't care how many tears she shed considering her situation, she was probably going to join them soon anyway. "Dad... They're serious. They killed Karl and my mother."
Ben's voice confidently crackled through the radio, reassuring her that everything was going to be ok. "Please, daddy! Just please, please." She didn't want him to get over-confident with Keamy and having her to pay the ultimate price for his stubbornness.
Keamy quickly grabbed the radio from Alex's fingers and began a countdown, pointing his 9mm to her head. From above, Alex heard Ben reveal what she thought was his true feelings for. "She's not my daughter. I stole her as a baby from an insane woman. She's a pawn, nothing more. She means nothing to me. I'm not coming out of this house. So if you want to kill her, go ahead and do it…"
Before Keamy pulled the trigger on his gun, a series of beautifully white and purple flashes burst in front of Alex's eyes as her life flickered before her. She suddenly remembered everyone second of every minute of her life spent with her father, Karl, Richard. She remembered memories that she thought she had long forgotten. She saw herself in a swing, being pushed by Ben; learning to walk with Ben and Richard, both of them laughing as she fell down on her bottom; walking along the beach with Karl. Each moment of her life was played extremely quickly, with only snippets of sound each sounding from each one.
The flashes only last throughout Ben's speech, but overlapping his voice and the voices inside her head, was another voice quoting something both backwards and forwards, overlapping each other. "I'll always love you. Uoy evol syawla ll'I."
White. Purple. Red. Black. Silence.
A pain in the back of her head made Alex reach her hand behind her skull to soothe her ache. As she retrieved her hand, Alex noticed that her hands her slightly longer and that she was dressed in a long white robe. "Dad?"
Suddenly, Alex clutched her throat in surprise. That wasn't her voice. It sounded like a woman's voice twice her age. Alex looked around to see if someone else had spoken, but all she could see was several white chairs and white marble walls. "Is anyone here?"
There it was again. Alex swore it was someone else's voice but when she noticed a mirror to the right of her, her thoughts of there being another woman were forgotten about. As she peered into the reflective surface, Alex noticed that her features had aged quite a bit and she looked like a prettier, younger version of her mother.
A small plaque suddenly shimmered into existence. Alex averted her eyes away from the mirror and read the golden plate aloud. "Alexandra Rousseau. Date of accidental death, twenty-seventh of December, two thousand and four. Date of organized death, fourth of September, two thousand and twenty."
Alex frowned deeply and stepped two paces back from the mirror. Wherever she was, it definitely wasn't the Island.
Will add more chapters if people review this story. Hope you flictoreaders liked it.
