CHAPTER 16: The Past
I woke up inside an infirmary, with Annika and Peater by my side.
"What happened?" I asked.
"You were . . . in a severe emotional state, Elyssia. Apparently, you fainted." Annika answered.
"Hey . . . why isn't Ash with me?" I asked curiously.
"I chased him out by firing some sun at him. Told him to go to hell if he'd get bestie's back up. What made you so mad at him?" Annika inquired.
"Well . . . I had a bad dream where Ash appeared to be nice to me at first, and then . . . some dangerous stinkbomb was dropped from one of the towers of the Old City Hall, and Ash didn't warn me about it. In any case, the thing released a bunch of noxious gas and I was suffocating. When I called for help, Ash didn't help; in fact, he was laughing like a madplant!" I explained.
"Well . . ." Annika, who apparently couldn't think of a comeback, walked out the door with a sigh.
"Let me know if you need something."
And with that, Peater and I were left alone.
"You know, I've never bothered asking you about yourself. So . . . would you be at liberty to tell me about your past?" he asked.
I gasped as those painful memories of my past came tumbling down from the top shelf of my mind and into my pool of thought. Tears sprang into my eyes as I remembered traumatizing episode after traumatizing episode. Images whirled through my mind, and I was on the verge of tears.
"Elyssia! Elyssia!" Peater shook me violently.
I looked into his green eyes and sighed. I could see that he could be trusted, because he did so much for me.
"Fine. Allow me to tell you my damned tale." I huffed. "First things first― the beginning.
"I was born in a hospital on April 5, 2001. I was shown no love by my mother, and I was put inside a pot in a greenhouse. I could feel my mother's aura of coldness because maybe, just maybe, I had inherited her sixth sense, and I had the capacity of using it when I wasn't even a year old. I didn't feel alone ― because as a sprout, I had no feelings ― I couldn't even see or hear for that matter! At any rate, I opened my eyes and saw my mother staring down at me. I smiled at the sight of her, because I was always excited to see new faces back in the day. Curious, I shot a pea at her face, and if I remembered correctly, she cursed. Having no knowledge of profane language, I laughed because I thought it was something to make me laugh. My mother just muttered something before leaving me. Like I said, I didn't know what being lonely actually was, so I fell asleep with a smile.
"I woke up, only to find myself sleeping in a rectangular flower pot. I felt an odd feeling that I was unloved, and the thought, as well as my own demeaning sickness, made me feel unwell. Next thing I knew, I was coughing like crazy, and I was sending icy jets flying around the room. My mother came into the room, and screeched something. Tears welled up in my eyes as my mother swept out the door. I felt even sicker, and I started crying. My father rushed into the room, and rushed to my side.
"Are you fine?" he asked.
I coughed in response. He checked my heartbeat, and I could tell that he was worried because he looked as if I was about to die. My mother came into the room and gasped.
"Is she fine?" she asked.
My father shook his head, and said, "She's gonna die soon . . ."
My mother tried to comfort me, but to no avail.
She said things like, "Sshh . . . I'm here . . . calm down . . .", but my cries didn't get any softer.
Because I don't remember what happened after that, I'll jump to the part when I was in the hospital, with at least ten doctors tending to me. I couldn't cry, because I was too weak to even kick or scream. I was dying, I say! Finally, a needle had been injected into my stem, and I submitted myself into oblivion.
"After about three hours of relentless operations ― or so I'm told― I woke up to the sound of my mother whispering, "Wake up!"
I opened my eyes, one at a time. My mother had tears of joy in her eyes.
"You're all right!" she gasped, making me giggle, because then again, I had absolutely no idea as to what that meant as a sprout.
Next thing I knew, my mother had said the first words of true love for me.
"I love you, Elyssia."
I grew and grew. I figured out a use for my powers, and for some reason, I was very enthusiastic about fighting the zombies. I became a very bright girl-plant.
"Now . . . onto the day when I was two, and there was a blunt knock at the door. My mother rushed over, and found a box with a note inside. My mother read it aloud.
"To the finder of this note: I don't want to take care of these twin daughters. Please treat them as well as you can. I don't care, but please make sure that you make them feel happy. To make it easier to tell them apart, I tattooed a
"1A" to Adria's right cheek, and a "2A" to Alana's left cheek. With all due respect, TSE."
Well, outta the goodness of our hearts, we got these two to come in.
I ran over to the door.
"Did we get a pet?" I asked.
"You got sisters!" my mother answered happily.
I gasped as I looked into the box. There were two twins, with the telltale tattoos on their cheeks.
"Very well. We'll take them in." my father whispered.
Adria and Alana looked the same, but they were different. For one thing, Adria looked like a Flaming Pea, but she shot poisonous peas (her species was unknown). Her fraternal twin counterpart Alana, on the other hand, looked and acted like a Flaming Pea. Adria was very sociable, while Alana was quiet. The list of their differences could go to the moon and back, but they had similarities. For one thing, they had the same birthday, they had a pallet for plant food mixed with soup (much to my chagrin!), they had crushes on the same boys at school, they excelled and struggled in the same subjects . . . Again, the list of their similarities could go on and on, but it definitely is not as long as the list of their differences. In any case, I lost them on the day of April 19, 2013; I like to refer to it as "That Fateful Day". We were strolling aroundwhat remained of Weston. We oohed and aahed at all of the sights that the long road had to offer ― from shops and dealerships to libraries and statues.
"Look at Weston Library's tower!" I exclaimed.
"Wow! This is . . . amazing!" Adria exclaimed.
Alana, being her usual, quiet self, just happily pointed out an interesting opening in one of the walls.
"Oh! Let's see where it leads!" I squealed as I ran over to the entrance.
"Touch a crack and break your back!" Alana whispered.
"That's an expression for humans, Alana!" Adria giggled.
"But wait ― look up!" I looked up, and I could see a rotting corpse with an evil grin on his face.
"Jump in ― quick!" I hissed as I made to jump into the entrance.
My twin siblings, meanwhile, had tripped, just as the zombie had thrown his ammunition onto the ground. The ammo had exploded in a myriad of greyish-green gas as soon as it had made contact with the ground. I could hear my siblings cough and scream as they inhaled the gas. Then there was silence, and I knew that they were dead. Feeling a surge of anger and hurt go through me, I charged inside the building, only to find the exact same zombie who threw the ammo grinning at me with a knife in his rotting hand.
"Oh, you son of a bastard!" I growled as I punched the undead murderer's head right off. I then stomped right on the head, crushing it, and ran all the way home, not knowing how I'd tell my parents the bad news.
"Did this become a chronological jumble? Yes. So now we rewind to 2007, when I started school. I was getting ready for the first day of school. My mother had tied pretty blue ribbons into my crystals, making me clap my leaves with joy.
"Mom, look! I look like a princess now!" I exclaimed happily.
"So you do, little one." my mother laughed.
"How do we get to school?" I asked. "We'll take the subway, that's how!" my mother answered.
"How do we take a sandwich to school?" I asked.
"A subway means two things, Elyssia. It can mean a sandwich, and it can mean an underground train." my mother responded.
"Elyssia, now you'll be at school with us!" Adria practically skipped into the living room, tugging Alana with her.
"Now we have another friend!" Alana whispered, and soon, the three of us were engaged in dancing around the room.
"Girls, now we have to get to school!" my mother reminded us.
"'bye, Dad!" I called out.
"See you soon, Elyssia." my father replied from inside his office.
"Does the train go on those tracks?" I asked, pointing at the yawning pit in front of me, which had gleaming rods of metal inside.
"Yes ― and look! Here it comes!" Adria answered.
Surely enough, a train came, its whistle screaming a song into the air.
"Choo-choo!" I crowed in synchronization with the whistle.
My mother laughed as she led me and my siblings onto the train that was Scarborough-bound.
When I got to school, my mother just chatted a little with the principal before leaving. I began to cry when my siblings held my leaves.
"It's fine ― you'll have fun here!" Alana whispered.
But I had anything but fun. I had been teased by Ellen, Alduin, Carol, Albert and Brian, and only my twin siblings stuck up for me.
"Then, there came my first pit of trouble. Ellen had teased me mercilessly all day, when finally, I had let out my anger in the form of an icy jet that had given her a black eye. I got suspended for a day the next day. I basically got into more and more trouble after that. After Adria and Alana died and were buried in Humber Summit, nobody stuck up for me, and I ended up killing Alduin and Ellen in the graveyard a few days ago. I had stabbed Alduin with a knife, and I had created a jet of ice that had cut Ellen's stem open. I tore her heart out and stamped on it. It took a while for me to regain control, and realize what I had actually done. My parents got boiling mad at me, and I was spanked. Finally, I had had enough. I snuck over here in the dead of the night, not just to escape, but to be with the most important plant in my life.
". . . and I think you know who that is, don't you?" I asked after I had finished my tale.
Peater was not satisfied. "There has to be more! Is there more?"
I shook my head, although I was being less than entirely truthful. Was there more to me? Yes. But now wasn't the time to tell him.