Chapter 284: Echoes Beneath the Snowline

At the Same Time

Sophia didn’t trust that the woman wouldn’t attack her anymore. She didn’t trust that one mistake she made wouldn’t make the woman annoyed.

"Oh." The woman said, her voice soft all of a sudden. "Sophia..."

She looked around the room.

Like she was seeing everything for the first time.

"What... what have I done?" she asked herself, her voice cracking around the edges as tears filled her eyes. But if the tears were fake or not, Sophia didn’t know.

The woman rushed forward, kneeling in front of Sophia, who flinched, shielding herself as she shook uncontrollably. Everything she did filled her with pain. Even crying was painful. Her cheeks hurt, her chest hurt, her legs hurt, even her eyes hurt from her trying to keep them open.

"Oh my baby," the woman whispered desperately. "My sweet baby girl, I’m so sorry. I don’t know what came over me."

Sophia shrank into herself, curling into the corner of the bed.

The woman reached for her.

Sophia flinched violently.

"I didn’t mean to hurt you," she pleaded. "Please forgive me. I wasn’t myself. I love you, okay... and today was a bad day for me and I took it out on you. I wasn’t supposed to do that. I’m so sorry, love. I’m very, very sorry for doing this to you."

Sophia didn’t answer.

She just cried.

The woman turned away, moving around the room, touching things, adjusting the covers, straightening the table.

"Let me clean everything up, okay?" the woman told Sophia.

She continued moving around the room, cleaning everything, making sure it was all spotless. Then, when she was done, she moved to Sophia again, and even if Sophia flinched and tried to hide away from the woman, the woman dragged her closer.

"You know I love you, right?" she asked Sophia.

Sophia only gave her an unsure nod. The woman’s perfume was suffocating. She just wanted space. Space to breathe. Space to be away from the woman. Why wasn’t the man here? If he was here, then this woman wouldn’t be here. She never would have come if he had stayed with her.

Was she not important after all? Did she not deserve being stayed with? Was that it? she asked herself.

"You know I love you, baby girl," the woman spoke up, snapping Sophia out of her thoughts. "I love you so much and I’m so sorry for treating you like this. You don’t deserve it. I’m so sorry I took my anger out on you. See... I’ll hit myself too..."

The woman said as she released Sophia and hit herself, but Sophia took the woman’s cold hands in her small, shaking ones and said softly,

"It’s okay, it’s... it’s my fault for being sick after all. I shouldn’t have gotten sick... and you were sad too... I... I know you love me... I love you too." She told the woman.

The woman hugged Sophia again. "Oh, my sweet child, what am I going to do without you? You are so understanding and unique. I love you so much."

"I... I... I love you too," Sophia muttered to the woman.

At this point, she wasn’t sure if the words were true or if she was just saying it because she didn’t want the woman to be mad at her.

"Don’t worry," the woman said to Sophia as she released her. "I’ll get you some healers. They will do miraculous work, okay? You’ll be as good as new in a few days."

Sophia could only nod. She didn’t even finish the action before the woman turned and walked out of the room.

Sophia had no idea how long she sat where she was. She had no idea how long everything was, how long she waited for the woman before she showed up. And a part of her didn’t care. She stared outside at the window and at how bright the sun was.

"I want to see the snow again," she muttered to herself.

She frowned then. She had no idea where the thought had come from. Snow didn’t fall here at all. The sky was always bright with only a few occasional rainfalls—nothing else.

But there was this longing in her chest to see the snow blanketing the land. To see everything coated in white.

Just as she had the thought, she dismissed it immediately. She should not be hoping for snow. She tried to make herself presentable before the woman came, but she couldn’t move her body at all.

She decided to just lie down and sleep. There was this tiredness deep in her bones that called to her. She could see her old nurse calling to her, along with some of her friends—the ones she had been training with under the rain before she got sick—telling her to come to her, and Sophia wanted to. She wanted to move to the woman with a calm voice, but then the new nurse entered, and she realized that this new nurse looked familiar.

Not from the fact that she had treated her before, but from the fact that she had seen her... at a festival? Sophia tried to remember the woman’s name but gave up after she failed to do so.

She started moving back to her old nurse when she had a sudden thought with just one name: Orion.

She frowned. She had no idea who the name belonged to. Who was Orion? Was he someone the woman had hired?

Just as she was about to go again, the man came into the room. He looked sad, and this time his face was no longer blurry. She could see everything about him. He wore a cloak with snow dusting it a bit. He looked tired and worried—extremely so.

Sophia remembered him now. She knew who he was.

She turned to her old nurse.

"I’m sorry, I have to go back," she told the woman.

The woman smiled at her.

"I know. You’ve finally found your place. A place that accepts you for who you are. Don’t let anything destroy your peace, not even your mother," the woman said softly.

"Sophia!" her friends called to her. "We’ll wait for you until you’re ready. Remember... it’s not your fault you got sick. It’s not your fault any of this happened."

Sophia nodded softly, tears gathering in her eyes.

She remembered who the mysterious woman was now.

She was her mother... her birth mother.

"...whatever you’re seeing right now... it’s not real. It’s not fucking real. Don’t believe it. Don’t follow it..."

Sophia paused, the voice sounded familiar. The voice sounded like it was hurt, like he could not imagine what pain he was going through.

"...don’t you dare think of leaving me... because I will find you. Wherever you go, I’ll follow you there just to annoy you all over again, so don’t even try it, shorty... please..." 𝕗𝐫𝐞𝕖𝕨𝐞𝗯𝚗𝕠𝘃𝐞𝚕.𝐜𝗼𝚖

"...not yet..."

Orion.

The voice belonged to Orion, she was sure of it.

And with that thought, she opened her eyes and stared directly into brownish hazel ones with flecks of gold in them, a worried line on his face as he held onto her hand.

"Who wants your annoying ass to follow them into the afterlife?" She asked him softly.