Chapter 30 – The Re-Awakening

Nelle was sleeping soundly, dreaming once again about the aftermath of falling from the cliff, and learning from her "vampire" uncle, Stephen Clay (aka Caleb Morley) that Kiki was her half-sister. She dreamed about it regularly, so it was nothing new. At the time, she genuinely was hurt that Kiki, like everyone else in her family, wanted nothing to do with her, but had accepted this and no longer cared how they all felt. She had a new "family" now, and, despite her initial ulterior motives, had come to be very fond of Esme, who was more of a sister to her than any of her actual sisters.


FLASHBACK (August 28, 2020)

*Kiki wheels Nelle out of the morgue and down a narrow corridor at the mysterious clinic. She notices the cold stone walls illuminated by iron lamps that appear to have been converted from actual torches (not unlike those on the exterior walls at Wyndemere), and high above through round skylights, she could very faintly see the moonlight shining in, leading her to conclude that wherever they are is located deep underground. The whole time she is talking enthusiastically to an increasingly irritable Kiki.*

Nelle: It's so weird that our Uncle Caleb looks exactly like Dr. Finn! Apparently our dad looks like him too. I guess it's a good thing that we're not related to Finn though, as that would most likely mean that I'm related to Detective Chase too. But then again, Chase and Finn are half-brothers, so maybe you and I are related to Finn through his mother. He and Chase have the same father, but different mothers. You know Chase and I had a brief fling once. He's horrendous in bed by the way! *Laughs*

Kiki: Oh my god, will you shut up?!

Nelle: Kiki, is that any way to talk to your sister?

Kiki: How many times do I have to say it?! We are not sisters!

*They enter a room with a bed, nightstand, and armchair, as well as typical medical supplies albeit in antique cabinets. The medieval-looking door is made of thick wood, with iron hinges. On the wall next to the door is another torch-sconce, and in the center of the wall is an old, tarnished mirror. There's another, slightly larger round skylight many feet above, and she can see the moon through it. Kiki helps Nelle get out of the wheelchair and sit on the bed*

Nelle: So that Caleb Morley guy really is our uncle?

Kiki: If you want to have that creep as your uncle, and it wouldn't surprise me if you did, then that's your decision, but I want nothing to do with him! And his name is Stephen Clay.

Nelle: Oh yeah, duh! My new last name is Clayton, because I think Clay sounds weird. Wait a minute, I think I've heard of him before! He was a musician, right? He had a band called the Stephen Clay Experience!

Kiki: And he's also a serial killer who somehow has it in his head that he's a vampire, and if anything, working here has made him even more bloodthirsty than he already had been! They hired him to be a "coroner" based solely on the fact that he snuck out of Port Charles disguised as the local medical examiner, who was later found dead in the morgue at GH. He somehow is able to tell if a person is actually dead, but he's not a forensic pathologist despite claiming to be one. And he was the only person they could find who was interested in working at a place like this!

Nelle: So we're not at GH then?

Kiki: Does this place look ANYTHING like GH?!

Nelle: No it doesn't. It looks like some sort of medieval dungeon laboratory.

Kiki: Well, that's exactly what it is!

Nelle: And where are we located?

Kiki: Somewhere very far away from Port Charles. Now look, just because we're biologically related doesn't change how I feel about you. I'm here strictly as a nurse, and only because they won't let me leave! I want nothing to do with the woman who, on top of being an evil, murderous psychopath herself-

Nelle: Zachary Grant drowned! It was an accident!

Kiki: I don't believe that for a second as otherwise you wouldn't have "befriended" my would-be-killer Ryan Chamberlain when you were in Pentonville, or married Shiloh!

Nelle: And I also married your uncle Julian, so technically I'm your aunt as well, though thankfully only by marriage, and I don't love him. And Shiloh forced me into-

Kiki: NELLE, FOR THE LAST TIME, WILL YOU! SHUT! THE HELL! UP?!

Nelle: Okay, geez! You don't have to yell.

Kiki: *Sigh* I need to check your vitals.

Nelle: Of course, I'm not going to prevent you from doing your job.

*Kiki sighs again and checks Nelle's vitals. Nelle notices the stethoscope feels very cold, as if Kiki deliberately didn't warm it up prior to examining her, and while checking her pulse, she seems to grip Nelle's wrist, heavily bruised from when she landed in the water, unnecessarily hard.*

Nelle: Oww!

Kiki: Stop being so dramatic!

*Kiki finishes the exam. Nelle massages her wrist*

Nelle: We really are sisters though?

Kiki: Errgh!

*She rolls her eyes, then takes a crumpled-up ball of paper out of her pocket and throws it at Nelle, who smooths it out to see two documents which appear to be authentic DNA test results, listing Kiki and Stephen as sharing the percentages of DNA with Nelle to be her half-sister and uncle respectively. On the back of the page with Stephen's test result is a hastily-written family tree in the typical untidy scrawl of a medical professional, despite Stephen's lack of any sort of medical degree.*

Nelle: So he wasn't kidding.

Kiki: If there's one thing that this place actually does properly it's that they are very thorough with their DNA testing and go to great lengths to make sure the results aren't tampered with. They analyze every detail, including stuff that most people typically don't care about unless they need to do things like tell identical twins apart, or if there are any confusing results due to the rare occasion when a person has multiple sets of DNA in their body, and other stuff. Unfortunately, they do it because they need accurate results for the extremely messed up "research" they conduct here.

Nelle: What research is that?

Kiki: Attempting to re-awaken the dead.

Nelle: You mean saving lives?

Kiki: If they truly cared about saving lives, we'd be at an actual hospital, not at a place like this. They take people who have officially been pronounced dead and attempt to "revive" them, but there have only been a small number of people whose lives actually were saved by this research, me unfortunately being one of them.

Nelle: Isn't that a good thing?

Kiki: Not when it's done without any sort of consent, be it from the person themself through their advance directive, or from their family, none of whom are notified that their loved one has been "saved" and are led to believe they died. Getting the news that a loved-one has died is extremely painful, and leading them to believe they're dead when they aren't is cruel, not that you'd have any sort of understanding of what cruelty is as otherwise you wouldn't have done everything that you did! The reason why they brought me here is because Ryan was, very briefly, involved with the initial research. The guy who started it all was a doctor from Pine Valley named David Hayward, and he initially began the project with Ryan and *sigh* our father, Silas Clay, before Dr. Hayward fired both of them for reasons that I don't want to think about. I'm pretty sure that's the reason why they brought you here as well, though from what I saw a little while ago in the morgue, it seems as if you just were unconscious from exhaustion and hypothermia. Falling from that high up and swimming through cold, rough water normally would kill a person unless they're a very good swimmer, which is why none of us are convinced that your fiancé's death was an accident.

Nelle: That's my story, and I'm sticking to it. It's up to you whether you believe me or not.

Kiki: Well, I don't believe you, and I don't want to talk about it anymore. Those test results might show that we share some DNA, but I will never see you as my sister, and once they release you from here, which should be in a couple of days, I want nothing to do with you! Now if you'll excuse me, I need to get back to work!

*Kiki walks out of the room and shuts the thick, heavy door, and Nelle hears a key locking it. She runs to the door and yells through it, despite knowing that Kiki can't hear her*

Nelle: Fine, if that's the way you want it! But once I get out of here, I swear I will make your life SO miserable that you'll wish Ryan had ended it after all!

*She gets a glimpse of her heavily-bruised body in the old mirror before collapsing painfully back down on the bed, where she looks at the family tree that Stephen hastily scribbled down. She notices a message at the bottom of the paper below the tree, which reads "Congratulations, you have a twin! Lucky girl!" With a brief glimmer of hope, she looks at the tree, where she sees another familiar name next to hers, Willow Tait, with their parents listed as Silas and Nina. She notices that Willow's date of birth is the same as hers, June 15, 1992. She then breaks down sobbing, devastated to learn that Willow, a woman she resented due to her adopting Wiley, and whom she thought had a sickeningly-sweet personality, was not only her sister, but also her twin*

Nelle: *Sniff* Am I really not meant to have a good relationship with any of my sisters?!

*She pounds the pillow, causing a sharp pain to shoot through her bruised arm*


PRESENT DAY

Nelle suddenly sat up in bed, breathing heavily, her heart pounding. Her nightgown was stuck to her skin from the cold sweat on her body and face. She couldn't shake the feeling that something was very wrong!