5 Chapter 4

Alice

I was ended, lost and confused.

For some strange reason, I had thrown ice and the worst of all was that I had harmed a girl. She had it well deserved, but I could not help feeling guilty for it. Despite all her hateful comments, she did not deserve to have been hurt in that way, much less if that would made me a monster and a threat to all.

What was I going to tell my mum when she arrived home? Would I lie about what had happened? If something was clear was that somebody would come looking for me, the director would not have stayed with his arms crossed, he would have called the authorities and I was not a fool... I knew they had been watching me. Every movement I made and every step I took was studied precisely. If I stayed in that place, I did not doubt that they would take me to a laboratory or to an asylum, where I could end up losing my mind definitely.

Tears fell down my cheeks without any control when I got home. My hands were shaking and in my eyes it could not be seen the pupil from the iris, they were completely cloudy and gray, as if they were dead instead of alive. But my feelings and my emotions could not be more alive, since the pain did not subside and was still present.

I had to try to escape from that town where I had spent my entire life, to take refuge somewhere with few people, a place where nobody knew me and where I could not do more harm. Or maybe I should go somewhere with a lot of people, to go unnoticed in the crowd. Either option was risky, but I could not spend what I had left of life being an experiment or a psychopath. I did not want to be investigated anymore, nor did I want to get high on the pills that would surely be prescribed if I went to a mental hospital.

It crossed my mind to wait for my mother to return, but I thought that she would never let me go if I explained what happened or if she could understand, she would feel responsible and come with me. I could not allow that, I did not want to hurt her in the same way I had to that girl.

I went to my room in a hurry, after closing the main door of the apartment. Then, I took a backpack that was on top of my desk chair and without slowing down my steps, I left the room looking for the kitchen to get some food. I was determined to leave, but when I opened the kitchen door, I bumped into my mother. What was she doing there? How could it be that it had given her time to return from work? They could not have warned her before about five minutes ago and her office was three-quarters of an hour away from home.

"We need to talk." she said looking me in the eye and I could see in them a strange brightness. It seemed that she had something very important to communicate and, at the same time, her face showed a feeling of missing something or someone.

"I'm going away." I answered without strength to look at her and in an authoritative tone that said in itself that there was no place for contemplation or objection.

"Yes, it's obvious that you cannot stay here after what happened. They would come looking for you and some would try to do experiments with your body... so you have no other choice, you go, but not where you have in mind." she snapped, despite my surprise.

I frowned, even I did not have a place in my mind. How was she going to have it?

I kept looking at the woman in front of me, so different from my mother. The expression on her face was firm and determined, she seemed not to be afraid, but in reality she was terrified.

Since I had no intention of doing anything other than looking at her with a strange look, she chose to continue: "Alice. I wanted to explain this to you for a long time, but I have never found the courage to tell you and I doubt you ever believed me. It is likely that at first you think it is a joke, something impossible, but you must listen carefully and believe each of the words I am going to tell you."

"What is it about?" I asked raising an eyebrow and very nervous, because time was running and if I did not hurry I could not leave town in time, before the police came or who was supposed to come in these paranormal cases.

"It's about you, about your true story." She said and I feared the worst.

"I do not understand you." I answered, even more confused than what I already was.

"You are not from this world." said my mother with a slow tone, but with complete naturalness, as if that was the most normal thing in the world.

I could not believe it. What was she saying? Had she lost his reason, like me? I did not believe in inhabited worlds, much less in aliens. I was sick, sometimes I thought maybe I was cursed. But coming from another world? I was not there for her to tell me stories, I needed to disapear as quickly as possible, before the authorities took down the door of the house.

"Have you gone crazy?" I asked her, upset for not taking seriously the situation that ran at that time.

"I know what you've done, Alice." she said and I opened my eyes "Do you think I do not know? She warned me about this and I knew what would happen to you before I even brought you to this place."

I felt a twinge in my chest tear me inside. I had always thought that my mum was the only person I could trust, because she was the only one who cared about me for real. And in that moment I discovered that she had been hiding me the truth all my life. And not only that... who was the person who had told her that this could happen?

"Accept it, you do not belong to this world." continued to insist and I could see her eyes watering with tears as she saw my perplexed expression.

It could not be, my mother could not be serious, however, her face said otherwise. At that moment, a bit of hope grew in me as I imagined that maybe I was not the only one who seemed to be sick.

"Are there... more like me?" I asked with hope, almost unable to take for good that remote possibility.

The question made her shudder and her face darkened completely. For a few seconds I thought she would not answer, but finally she spoke: "I'm not sure they're exactly like you. But I do know that they physically share the same qualities." That simple answer, even if it was something incoherent, filled an immense void within me. I was not alone. I could not help but smile and that did not please my mother at all.

"Come on, give me your hand, we have to leave before they come looking for you." she told me and I checked that she was wearing her protection gloves.

I was surprised to hear her saying that. Were we going to return to that world from which I supposedly came from? I could not believe it. How would she do it?

"Come on, give me your hand." she insisted and showed me a large and bulky ring with a green pearl in the center, as if that explained everything. "This ring is a portal between worlds, it will instantly transport us to the Origin world" explained me.

Then I directed a hand, in an insecure way, toward which my mother was impatiently stretching me. Then, a sigh came out of her mouth and instead of giving me more explanations, she took my hand and warned me very seriously: "Do not let me go or you could die. Understood? This is not a joke.

I nodded, somewhat annoyed, because if what she was telling me proved to be true, it would mean that she had lied to me all my life about who I was and where I came from. I would have lived deceived, believing that my coldness was the product of a strong disease without remedy and I was not sure if I wanted to accept that I had lived a lie.

The woman who at that moment was not sure if she was my real mother, squeezed my hand tightly as if trying to break the bones of my fingers. Then I saw her close her eyes and said a few words in a strange language.

Suddenly, just as I was already hearing the first knocks on the door, everything around me turned white and I felt the real speed against my face. It was a feeling similar to riding a roller coaster but a thousand times faster.

Then, I felt as falling on a hard surface and that I hit myself against something, maybe a rock, and then everything turned black.