"Ok daddy, when was your saddest memory?" She noticed her father's face looked like he had just been slapped. "Everything ok daddy?"
"My saddest memory…it was the day I lost Maya."
"Mystic Maya? The acolyte?"
"That's her…" Phoenix stopped, taking a deep breath and wiping his eye. "She just…turned away from me, didn't even look back once until she was on the train home."
"…daddy…"
"I was in love with her Trucy. I was I love with her and I never told her." He whispered. "I found myself chasing the train, across the platform. When the train got too far I just fell…my life fell with me. It sounds so pathetic huh?"
"No daddy. No it doesn't."
"You always were a good girl Trucy." He smiled softly. "Anyway, it was a few days after she left, she was supposed to contact me…no contact came…2 days turned into almost two weeks…" He opened the draw of the desk he was facing. "Then this was on the front of the paper…"
The paper was old and was creased deeply from where it had been folded and unfolded so many times.
"The train had crashed. The driver was drunk. He hit an oncoming train." He choked on a sob. "He'd forgotten to switch tracks."
"Did she…die?"
"No…she was one of three survivors; her cousin luckily had already gone home, caught a different train. She didn't die, she got amnesia." He held back another cry. "She'd hit her head with enough force to shatter her skull, she forgot everything about herself. 7 years later, she only recognises her family and her skill…not me…she has no idea of me. The girl I love…"
"It's ok daddy, it's ok…everything will be fine."
"When was your saddest or most painful memory?" Apollo felt tears in his eyes already.
"I'd say…I'd say when my mother left me."
"I thought you were still a baby…"
"Just because I was still a baby Trucy doesn't mean I wasn't old enough to realise my mother was never going to come back." Apollo didn't mean to snap, it had just slipped from his lips. "I-I'm sorry…"
"I know what it's like to lose a mommy too."
"I know you do but you've had Phoenix and your real father to care for you, I had nobody."
"Then tell me, what do you remember?"
"I was almost…two…I just remember that it was a cold day in February. It was a week before my birthday and I thought my mom was taking me into town to get me some toys and things." Apollo closed his eyes. "I'll never forget her sad eyes, my father had just died though and the courts were hunting my mother. They told her to rid herself of me."
"She did that!?"
"Next thing I knew, I was on the doorstep to an orphanage, mom told me I was going to stay there for a few hours while she went shopping…" Apollo squeezed his eyes shut as he tried to compose himself. "Anyway, she never came back that evening, or the following morning or the next week…then someone had to break that news to me…" Apollo tried to force the last words from his lips. "Even now I feel it, it's like a lump of lead in my heart everyday it grows heavier."
"What's your saddest memory Klavier?"
"When I saw mien bruder in jail."
"You went to see Mr Gavin in jail?" Trucy was wide eyed.
"That wasn't mien bruder in that cell. It was a dämon, the way it stared at me with bloodthirsty blue eyes…"
"A dämon?"
"A demon."
"Oh…"
"He didn't treat me the way he normally did, he didn't even say hi. He didn't look at me, he either looked at his book or the guard outside."
"Why would he do that?"
"It made me feel like I wasn't alive. He was the only thing that was important to me. I wanted to make him proud." Klavier glanced to the floor. "In that moment though, it was like only he was in that room. It was like he was looking in a mirror and expecting me to be the same as him." Klavier turned back to her. "Mien Bruder, why did you do this…why did you make me feel I had no reason to live?"
"When was your saddest memory?"
"When I watched my mother die because of my father's stupidity." Ema replied. "I was still quite young, Lana was eighteen so I was about five I think."
"That's quite a controversial view Ema." Trucy commented.
"I hate drunks, that was all my father ever was. Anyway, he went out one night, took my mom with him, off they went – driving for a night on the town while me and Lana stayed home. Anyway, my sister was just tucking me into bed, wishing me goodnight before the phone rang."
"Was it from the hospital?"
"Yeah. My sister bought the phone back into the room…"
"I still remember the conversation, she thought it was mom and dad so she put it on speaker and beside me." Ema spoke in a harsh tone. "The person asked if that was Miss Lana or Ema Skye but preferably Lana." Ema glanced to the floor. "He asked us if he knew where our parents were…I thought it was a stupid question to ask but we told him they had gone into town."
"Then…"
"Then the man announced he was from the police force, they had been chasing a red car suspected to be driven by a drunk, he gave us the number plate and we said that was our car…I thought they were calling just to say my dad had been picked up…" Ema looked Trucy square in the eye. "I couldn't be more wrong, the car had crashed, my drunken father had died upon impact, my mother was forced to lay in a mangled heap on a hospital bed for three days before she died right in front of me and my sister…"
Hooray an update! Sorry it took so long :D Thanks to Extremebean00 for the question too!
