Memories of the Past, Chapter ll

She saw him one last time, right after her womanhood had been filled with his seed, which might have left her pregnant, and the Mexican woman somewhere around her age had taken her, Ronnie Anne, and Roberto "Bobby" Santiago through a time-hopping portal; how hard the resemblance between the woman and Ronnie Anne was quite hard, not to be missed. There was a connection there, she had to be a relative of them. Definitely not a sister to them, but perhaps a cousin, Lori surmised. And hell, the gal was gorgeous up close, but seemed to be the opposite of upbeat and cheery; and Lord, it was that mood and aura the woman gave off that had put Lori off, but she dared not say anything, and she said nothing to herself mentally either, recognizing a distorting confusion by the work of a forbidden science at work.

And she had never seen Lincoln Loud after that.

Lori warmed herself up, but the campfire worked unevenly, only brushing a kiss of fiery passion against her knees first and foremost. Her face, cheeks, were next, but not picked to deserve the heat equally. But she dare not move, or try to fight for more of it. It would be unfair to put herself first when there were four others among the campfire, effortlessly trying to keep warm as they were, nearly immobile, silent and steady and calm, but deadened inside. They were just that, a small group of five souls turned away by God, so they had agreed upon; human dump felt and made unworthy to become pillars among society.

They had shared their own tragic, dark counts that led them down to this path, right down to this campfire. And they brooded and contemplated about the impossible, imaginable what-ifs and what came after those what-ifs.

Lori had pictured her fantasy far away from Michigan, settling down with her boyfriend-turned-husband either far west or far east. They'd have children, two or three at most, living in a big house with a sizable backyard for them to run around in and help make memories perfectly captured through video recordings and photographs. Lori had indeed felt she had a lot of love to give in a family, and would do her best to be a magnificent housewife and mother. But that's all it had been when the fire grew less hot after she pulled away; nothing but a fantasy too far to grasp at now.

She looked upon her step-brother's face and had her illusion killed further when she had remembered to know herself as a terrible sister in general, either had a raw, bitchy nature or had refused to partake in bonding with these, in her own words, "loser twerp kids" of her new stepdad. And also, she cursed him as well at times. She cursed them and absolutely refused all that for...

Oh yeah, Lori was just months away from graduating high school, and soon she'd be finally free from the nightmare her mom got them into, leaving her sisters to whatever God had in store for them. It seemed only hard when it came down to Leni, the one who truly needed guidance, and the one who had been instructed by Lori to follow after her. The rest could manage.

"Huh!" Lori had let out a hiccup of a gasp, breaking the cheaply affordable silence among her new peers, and now Lincoln had been looking at her, curiously but retaining a blank expression still. "Agh..."

"Tell me why," the young albino withdrew, bringing into question Lori's choice to run after him. "Why did you bother trying to find me?"

"Huh?" Lori relaxed herself, snapping Leni out of her mind. "Oh-"

"You didn't have to, you know..." came his morbid reply.

"I didn't," she agreed, "you're right, but I was the eldest-"

Lori hadn't ever answered that particular question, felt she didn't need to explain herself back then. He had been, before, well developed in maturity, and therefore might have known the answer himself. But whether he did or not was another thing to ponder. In the end, it had been but too late to go down into deeper territory with him. The sort of territory he completed despised himself, actually. I was the eldest, alright, and I had to set that example, was the line given, but not the whole truth; he ran first, and it was up to Big Sister to step in and find him, for it had been, she believed, what her mother wanted. Part of that talk the aging Rita Reagan, before marrying into the Loud clan, had with her girls. She needed to care, she needed to find a place to belong in their lives, to mean something to someone and keep that feeling, the trust and love of that person when-

Lori went quiet and looked away from Lincoln, sighing in front of the fire. With strong effort, she projected a false smile that revealed her two rows of perfect pearls, nodding. "That was the plan, but you led us both here, and it just... Made me think for once. Think..."

The portal behind her closed forever.

"...of how different and strange it was going to be from this point on. From the moment I entered Aunt Rinn's place with my sisters and your sisters, I don't- I mean, I didn't know how I was supposed to feel. The silence itself, the words on everyone's mind that they were too afraid to share- I-I couldn't stay there. I couldn't, and I knew they'd look to me to speak for them-"

Lincoln had begun to see a different side of Lori then, to understand her standing point in all this.

"I'm not so strong that I can lift us all up from this!"

At last, Lori shed a single tear; her greatest sin was running with her tail tucked between her legs and never having the courageous strength to return to the family, regardless if she managed to find and get her new brother back. And just like then, nothing mattered and it continued to not matter. She walked away yet again but had done so with a prize of her own. As to how she had won that particular jackpot, she'd never logically piece it together, but for all her suffering, maybe the devils at work had decided she had drained out the precise amount of her life for it. To rest up and escape the American Nightmare and finally be able to live in a hopefully prosperous manner with the man she had hoped to live this perfect dream of a life with, at long last.

But there was a seed inside her that had begun to take form, slowly and naturally yet unplanned. And months from now, two girls would come to be born to her and Ronnie Anne, two girls whose fates would be tied ultimately to Dylan Blood's tyrannical dream.