BTW the title isn't a spelling mistake… it's me being punny. Don't forget to drop a review if you want to make me happy. When I'm happy I kill less characters. :)

Chapter 16

House of Kanda a Funny Story

The only one not in shock was Claudia, so it was acceptable for her to be the first to jump to the obvious conclusion nitwit one (me) and nitwit two (Colton) had missed. "Does no one else find it convenient that your mom's name is Sunny and the person who kidnapped you as babies was the sun goddess?"

No. Claudia wasn't implying that my mom was… was… Raet? I mean she could be mean at times but not kidnapping, murdering goddess evil! Yet how else could you explain away the name and the fact that Colton and I, though we never met before a few days ago, shared the same mother!

Colton clearly was struggling as much as I, "But Raet…Luce said Raet thought we were dead. If she raised us than obviously she knows we're not dead."

"And if she raised us than what's the master plan? Why kidnap us only to send us back to our parents now?" Despite our arguments, I could tell Colton knew the same thing I did. Raet was the woman who'd raised us.

It explained why I felt like she was only around half of the time. Actually, it even explained why my mom hadn't picked me up at kindergarten! She'd had to pick Colton up because he got in trouble and was in Baltimore with him instead of D.C. with me.

It was one thing to find out my mom wasn't my biological mother, but finding out that she never really loved me… that it was all a ruse… That hurt.

"I don't think we can trust Luce," Claudia finally whispered and I wanted to cry. Of course we couldn't trust Luce! I'd been saying that from the beginning, but here we were halfway through the Du'at with no way out and everything was falling into place. We'd been tricked by a goddess not once, but twice.

Standing, I offered my hand to my sister. "We have to keep going anyway. I don't know what is waiting for us when we reach the sarcophagus, or if the sarcophagus even exists, but I know we have nowhere else to go but down."

As if on cue, the floor opened beneath us and we found ourselves tumbling into the darkness again. Except this time something was different. Looking down I saw no floor appearing so when the ringed chains came into view I cried out on an instinct, "Grab one of the rings."

Pain shot up my arm as my body weight hung suspended on a single chain. Struggling, I swung back and forth until my hand could grab a second ring. "Everyone all right?" I heard Colton call from behind me.

"I'm good," I called, but panic fluttered within me as I realized Claudia had yet to respond. If something had happened to her…

"I'm fine," she finally huffed and I could just make her out a few rings in front of me. "It's this fog making it hard for me to hear anything."

I hadn't noticed the mist until she spoke, but quickly realized that I was entirely engulfed in a smoky layer of something, "This isn't fog."

"Let's not think about what it is or isn't," Colton, who didn't sound too good, called. "I'm guessing we just have to swing across. Should be easy though what this represents I don't know."

Claudia was coughing as she responded, so I begun moving. Whatever this smoke was it wasn't good for our lungs. "I think it represents our Ka. That's like your life essence. I guess we have to prove we're alive or something by not dying."

Okay. I had to admit this whole test was stupid (if difficult), but I'd realized that was the point. Raet had made these tests; I knew that for sure. Where or what we were heading towards didn't matter. What mattered was the fact that Raet, the woman I'd known as my mother, made these challenges.

What was even the purpose? We'd thought she was hiding a coffin, but now I doubted that. And these challenges… anyone could easy pass them. Raet wanted us to pass them. She wanted us to get to the end. But why?

Something told me it wasn't her wanting to see her beloved children united.

My life was a lie.

It didn't matter that in 16 years my mom had never told me that she loved me I just assumed she did. I'd accepted she wasn't a hands-on mom, but to find out that she was no kind of mom at all left me bereft. I took back what I'd said about master plans; if anyone was playing the world like a chessboard it was Raet. It was my mom.

My mom who despite everything I couldn't find it within myself to truly hate because how could I? How do you hate the only person in your life who though never was there had to acknowledge your existence? How do you hate the person who cooked you dinner as a kid and even taught you how to cook yourself when she got bored? How do you hate the woman you bought all those mother's day card for and who gave you beautiful presents whenever you asked for them? How do you hate someone you've spent your whole life learning to love?

Before I'd even realized it had begun, the challenge was over. The rings ended and with Claudia's help I safely jumped on a little platform that collapsed in on itself the minute Colton too finished the test. Nothing was said as we continued falling towards our final challenge; we had nothing left to say.