Page 125 of Semblance

“Daddy’s death deserved to be gruesome. It deserved to be horrific in every sense. After all, he was an asshole. After I was finished with dad, it didn’t take long for mom to enter the study to investigate what my crying was all about. She screamed like a banshee when she saw dad lying in a pool of blood. She completely ignored me—as she always did—and ran to dad, cradling him in his arms.

“I surprised her with the blade from behind, giving her the same treatment I had given dad.

“When the deed was done, I hid the box cutter along with my blood-stained clothes in the large stuffed bear our grandma had given me on my fifth birthday. I hated that bear, by the way. It always reminded me that while you got the shiny new bike, I got that furry oversized piece of shit—though it did come in handy in disposing the evidence.

I cleaned myself up along with any evidence that I had been in that study that night, and then I went to bed and slept peacefully for the first time in a long while.

“The next morning, you found their bodies. I thought it was ironic, yet sweet how you were trying to protect me from seeing the crime scene, despite the image already engraved in my photographic memory. I created the masterpiece after all.”

“My God,” Lincoln whispered out loud.

Shadow said nothing and continued watching the monitor.

Calisto sighed. “After killing our parents, I thought it was the end of my blood lust. I had tried my hand at murder once and once was enough for me. Soon it became a fond memory, one I occasionally would replay in my mind and smile. I’m sure you know what I’m talking about, all those times you caught me in a daydream smiling and I told you that I was thinking about some cute guy I had met off the streets. Well that was a lie Shadow. In reality, I was thinking of mom and dad’s blood-soaked corpses.

“So while I moved on from that night, you were possessed by the incident. I have to admit, I didn’t think it would haunt you as much as it did, but at the time I was young and I didn’t understand the concept of emotions as much as I should have, and I underestimated just how much like our father you truly were. Whereas father obsessed over Julia’s death, you obsessed over father’s demise. It was very poetic.

“To this day, I sometimes find it hard to understand the emotions of others. I guess that makes me a sociopath doesn’t it?” she paused. “So this is the part where my confession gets a little sappy. Believe it or not, I care about you Shadow, and I never wanted to hurt you—physically that is. While mom and dad treated me like I was some bastard worth forgetting, you treated me like family. The only reason I discovered love was because of you. Yes—though you may not believe me after all that has happened—I love you Shadow. You are my twin after all and we share a bond that only other twins can understand.

“I’m still smarter than you, apply myself much better than you—but I’ll never hate you because of your stupidity or naivety. You’re probably wondering why I decided to do all of these things to you if I loved you so much.

“It’s because I wanted to recreate you; give you a new life. Let’s face it, the murder of our parents turned you into an empty shell—and I seriously felt guilty about it. I couldn’t just sit here idly and watch you waste your life away, trying to bring their killer—me—to justice.

“A few years ago I read how the Incata, an aboriginal tribe living in the remote rainforests of South America, believed that the sins an individual committed over their lifetime possessed your spirit and your body, transforming a person into a walking monster. The only way to be cleansed was to be stripped of everything you owned and take a pilgrimage deep into the center of the rainforest where a certain purple plant grew. This plant acted as both a powerful hallucinogen and a strong poison with its beauty being its defense mechanism.

“The sinners were to pick this plant and bring it back to their village as the first part of their absolution. Many of them ended up dying in the jungle from starvation, dehydration, or killed by the wildlife inside. Only a few returned back to the village, where the final step of the cleansing involved ingesting the plant and dying for a brief period of time. During the transition between life and death, the village elders resurrected the sinners by some voodoo magic, which suspiciously looked like CPR to me. If a person survived, only then were they were deemed fully cleansed and alive again.

“Shadow, this is what I have done for you. In order for you to be born again, I needed to strip everything away from you, which I have done. The leadership of the Midnight Society has been destroyed and all its past members now belong to me. It wasn’t difficult convincing them that under your leadership, the Midnight Society was going to crumble. After all, you broke a sacred tradition and allowed a common whore—Ms. Aria Valencia into our organization.

“I anticipated you choosing her far in advance. How? Well for the past year, I’ve been fucking with your mind. Before you went to sleep at night, I drugged you and with a little help of some subliminal cognitive hypnotherapy, Iwas able to mold the ideal woman in your mind—every single detail including her height, her weight, her characteristics, her interests. I even went down to the finest details such as her speech and her mannerisms. For the past year, I’ve been constructing your dream girl, and that girl was Ms. Aria Valencia. She was someone I chose at random while enjoying a free piano concert at the University one evening. I admit, I will miss her lovely music.

“Oh yes brother, your love for Aria was programmed into your little walnut brain. Naturally when I brought Aria Valencia to your birthday party and had her play the piano for you, you immediately gravitated towards her. The desire for the Golden Virgin was too strong to resist. So when it came time to choose your life partner, you defied all logic and reason and you chose Aria. It was an artificial true love at first sight, and it pissed the hell out of everyone.

“If there’s one thing the mindless sheep in the Midnight Society respect, it’s tradition. They’re afraid of anything new and revolutionary. Your decision to have a commoner join the ranks of our prestigious organization was a massive slap in the face. Everyone was already unimpressed by your utter disregard for the responsibilities of being the Midnight Society’s leader, spending every waking second trying to solve the mystery of mom and dad’s gruesome murder.

“But don’t worry Shadow, with the way things turned out, you’re no longer burdened with the responsibility of leading a powerful secret society. I am.

“I know, you’re probably thinking that I must be the greatest sister in the world for taking on this heavy burden of leading all these idiots and assholes, but don’t worry. I’ll do it for your benefit. As of this moment the Midnight Society ceases to exist, and instead is replaced by the Order of the Revenant—named after that beautiful flower I was talking about.

“Presently the first step of your cleansing should be complete. Everything you own has been stripped away from you. The estate and all your money now belong to me. Your best friend Lincoln—who mistakes my vagina for a heart—should be dead; though I’m sure he’ll surprise me and find a way to survive. It’s the nature of a cockroach.

“By now, you would have also killed your new love, Aria, and chose to save your loving sister from having her throat slit by…your loving sister. It’s irony at its finest isn’t it?

“You have nothing left Shadow, nothing. You are now ready to go out into the harsh nature of the jungle alone, to be hunted by the predators. Every single cop in the country will be coming after your ass. After all, you just killed a prominent senator, along with a wealthy Japanese businessman and a devoted black Christian as well—well the prints on the gun from my rigged game said you did. Oh yes Shadow, the game was rigged. There was no way for you to lose, especially since pistols given to Brevin and James were tampered with.

“Welcome to the beginning of your rebirth Shadow. I anticipate you’ll be searching for the Revenants, and more specifically, me. I can’t wait to see you again brother, however don’t be sad if I have to kill you, because only then can you truly be reborn.”

I watched in confusion as tears began to stream down Calisto’s face. She truly was a psychopath.

“Goodbye Shadow, with all my love.”

The video ended and we stood on the helipad in complete silence, bathed by the morning sun. I could only imagine what was going through Shadow’s head, and what bleak emotions he was feeling.

As for me, my heart was breaking into a thousand pieces at the revelation that Shadow’s love for me was engineered by Calisto for her twisted little game.

We were not meant to be; the video made that abundantly clear. My life had been manipulated by Calisto for her personal game and if it weren’t for her brainwashing of Shadow, he would have never given me a second glance.

“So what now?” Lincoln asked; his voice cracking.

---