We arrived at the manor, and Argus helped a wounded Aletris towards the kitchen. Not a word was uttered on the way back, Aletris seemed disappointed and distracted.
"Hey Atlas, can you bring me the first aid kit that's in the bathroom?" asked, Argus
"Yeah of course" I answered before I left the room. Argus asked Aletris to take off his shirt to clean his injuries, and it was then that I noticed a long scar on his back alongside some stitches. This alongated cicatrix had a slight resemblance to the stem of a flower ,I hurried to grab the kit and went back to the kitchen, and as I approached the room, I overheard Argus grilling Aletris.
" So, what were you doing back there?" inquired Argus
"I was just trying to get some 'poison'..."
"FROM A KID?" Argus raised his voice.
As he heard me approaching the door, he quickly regained his composure and went back to cleaning Aletris. I entered the room with the kit in hand,
"Here you go" Both of them were quiet as stone.
"Argus, may I ask about the scar on your back?" I asked to try and break the silence, and I was surprised by the look of mourning on Argus' face; filled with sadness yet framed by a smile.
"So you see, I'm not an only child or I guess I wasn't, I'm one of a pair. My twin sister Lophi." This had been a surprise for me, I wasn't able to recall even a mention of her.
"We'd do everything together, and she was the only person that knew me, the real me, and loved me for it. But then five years ago, she started acting strange, she left the manor repeatedly and never wanted to say where she went. It didn't take me long to find out what she was up to," He took a deep breath. "One day I decided to follow her tracks, which lead me to the slums, which was quite unlike her. When I finally saw her, she was with a damn penniless, I now knew why she wouldn't tell me, father would never approve of that," Confusion stroked my brain at this. If Zephyr wasn't fond of the idea of his daughter being with someone from the same place as me, why would he help me? Why would he embrace me? Why would he treat me as his son? But my questions would only be joined by others, as Aletris continued his tale.
"Two years after that, she ended up telling me, but she'd also made the great mistake of telling dad, and he exploded into rage. I had to take a side and my sister was always there for me, so it would only make sense for me to be there for her,"
His tone shifted slightly, as his eyes started to water, and his voice began to tense up.
"Out of the blue, after coming back from the academy, she goes up to me and says "I'm pregnant, I know it's a mistake and I know I shouldn't have done it but please I need you to help me" both my body and mind were in shock, as tears ran down her face I could only imagine what father would've done if he found out, I asked if she had something in mind the only thing she seemed viable was getting far away from dad with her boyfriend. It was a dark and stormy night, so I chose to drive Lophi to her destination, but somehow, to this day I still can't fathom how Zephyr found out. While I was driving her phone began to ring, thinking it was mom she picked up the phone, only to get father's voice instead, he started to lash out, cursing her name and her boyfriend, she was far too young to even consider having kids, Zephyr also didn't like the culprit's social status. While the back-and-fourth kept going my mind was under too much stress, making me lose control of the wheel." He paused , rolling down his cheeks were tears, and his throat had turned into a knotted mess.
"The storm and the anxiety blinded me, the incoming traffic was too close when my eyes were opened, all I could see was the lifeless face of my dear sister, I tried to reach out to her but my back had been shattered by the accident, at last I passed out, I woke up a month later, the doctors said it was a miracle I survived the crash, but that only made me more guilty for the death of my own kin, why me? Why? if only she was the one to survive ." Aletris couldn't hold back his sorrow, both his heart and soul wailed in unimaginable agony, while Argus did his best to console his dear friend.