3. Confessions

"Don't ever call me that, you rascal." Melissa spat directly on my face, her saliva slimy running through my face. I couldn't explain what she meant by this, and the next minute I knew, four men strode into the room, standing in position to my limbs. "Get her up and place her on the surgical bed."

Her order was authoritative and the men obeyed, clutching to my four limbs and cruelly lifting me up, and putting me on the bed. They clasped my arms and legs to the bedside, tying it down with metal clamps.

"What is going on...?" I was lost for words, my head barely thinking straight again. The light switch was out, only then did I notice that my clothes were changed into a green nightgown. 

What were they planning?

Why had they brought me here?

I was soon about to speak my mind when Melissa interrupted my words again. As if in response to my unspoken questions, Melissa stepped into the harsh glare of the spotlight, her features twisted into a cruel smirk. 

"Well, well, Didn't everything go according to plan? Look who is finally awake from the drugged juice. You shouldn't really take drinks from strangers, Rachel, haven't you been warned?" 

I tried to speak, to demand for answers but my throat felt dry and constricted, the words catching in my mouth. Fear clawed in my insides as I strained against the rough clamp, desperate to break free. 

"What plan? What did you put in my drink to make me bleed?" I brought myself to ask. "Melissa, what are you up to? Stop all this if this is a prank!" 

"Something to make my work easy," She laughed crazily, dragging out a metal seat from nowhere and placed her right leg on it and leaned against it.

 "A little bird told me that it was an effective abortion pill, so I drugged your drink with it along with some sleeping drug to make you abort the child. I actually don't like that you are pregnant, I never did!"

"Why would you do that? I trusted you, Melissa! I trusted you!" I screamed, struggling and before I knew it a slap was thrown across my face. I gulped in, staring with anger at Melissa whose hands were raised in the air.

"Well, you shouldn't have…" She said, scoffing and wiping off her palms on a napkin. "I don't like touching used products."

My teeth gritted in anger as she tossed the napkin to my face and laughed. Amidst all the catastrophic drama, the man in white coat remained silent, his gaze fixed on me with unsettling intensity that sent shivers down my spines.

'Who was he and what role did he have to play in this twisted charade?'

"Let us get this over with. I am getting bored, my dear naive sister," Melissa mocked, her laughter cutting through the oppressive silence like a knife, her eyes gleaming with undisguised contempt. 

"How I longed to see you in a helpless situation! This is very satisfying to watch you beg me for help." She stepped forward with a sharpened blade in her hand, cleaning it on a white towel and placing it on my face.

"What are you going to do with that blade?" I shivered in trepidation, the cold metallic blade on my face sending shivers to my spine. 

"What father did to me in the last five years!" Melissa hollered, cleaning off the junk of makeup on her face. Slowly, she tore off every plastic plaster on her face until she arrived at the last layer; her real face. " Look at my face! Look at it! And guess what it is all because of you!"

She clenched to my jaw forcefully pulling it up to align with her face. I yelped in horror seeing a long hideous scar across that ran from her nose bridge to her jaw. 

"Father will never do that to you. He will never stop framing a dead person!" I didn't refuse to believe her crock and bull story just yet.

"As usual, you wouldn't believe that because he only recognises you as his child. Rachel, I am tired. I hate that only you get the benefit of life. I hate it when you are in the spotlight, I fucking hate you!" She hollered, holding the blade between her thumb and her index. "Go and fucking die!"

She screamed, pressing the blade on my flawless, white skin. I broke into tears, shaking in anxiety. She held my chin firmly, and pushed the blade into my skin, pain erupting from my cheeks.

I yelled, struggling but she continued to cut deeper into my skin with the blade. Blood spilled out, trailing down through my cheeks. I sobbed as she pulled the blade forcefully out from my flesh and threw it into the bin.

"Now you have the same scar as me. You are hideous! No man will ever love you!" She jeered, ignoring my tears. She ordered for a hot knife to be placed on the cut to smoothened the scar.

I screamed as the hot metal landed on my face, every part of my body quivering in pain. And just then she ordered them to stop.

"If you had just died in that plane crash five years ago, I wouldn't be doing what I am doing! Why does your existence cause me so much pain? Why can't you die! I wish you could just die!" She jeered, her voice laced with arrogance and a ting of bitter scorn. 

"Why are you doing all of this, Melissa? I trusted you. It hurts so much to see that it is you who wants me dead." I sobered, my voice a little loud.

"For how long did my foolish pretense keep you in the dark? I have always wanted you dead and if you had noticed, I never liked you at all. I did all those things to make you trust me!"

"I don't believe you. I felt true sister love from you. You can't tell me that was also a pretense." I shook my head disagreeing with her. I might not have observed that Melissa was evil, but I knew one thing- I felt it. She loved me back too.

"What is love I can't fake? Besides, you wouldn't understand fake love. Everyone loves you! Everyone, you are literally the belle of the school. Everyone wants to be associated with you. Anyone who approached me was because they wanted to link up with you and not be my friend!" Melissa voiced, her tone smoldering icy.

"I want everything you have. Your face, your popularity, your luck, everything! Do you think I want to be your look alike so badly? I hate being your twin sister! I hate it! When I look at myself in the mirror, I wish I had killed you in the womb!"

"Enough!" I shrieked in agony. I was tired of hearing the bitter truth. It hurts so badly. Whatever she wanted to do, I didn't care again! She should do whatever she wants! "Fine, do whatever you want! Kill me! Isn't that what will give you satisfaction since you hate me so much!" 

I bawled my fist, streams of tears falling on my cheeks. I never witnessed someone abhor so much hate towards me, more so, I never thought one day such a person would be my sister, the person who I looked up to!

"I can't just kill you yet and I also can't just let you go! I will make you suffer a little bit. If not, why would I be here doing this…?"

"Doing what?"

She stepped aside for the doctor to come into the spotlight. He raised my clothing to my stomach and rubbed a disinfectant on my body, up to my lower navel level. 

"Get your hands off me!" I felt a surge of anger and betrayal rise within me. How could she do this to me? I trusted her! Had our bond meant nothing to her, or had she deliberately harbored such darkness within her soul?

The man's cold, clinical voice addressed my sister. "Are you sure about this?" he asked, devoid of emotion. Melissa nodded, her expression steely and resolute. 

"Do it, take the baby away from her!"

My heart lurched in my chest as I realized what they were going to do- they were going to take my baby away, the innocent life growing within me sniffed out before it could be brought to the world.

"No!" I screamed, the words torn from my lips in a desperate plea for mercy. "Please don't do this Melissa. It hasn't gotten to this!" 

"I said take the baby away from her! Do it now!" Melissa firmly spoke, not going back on her words.

I pleaded and pleaded as I sobbed, but nobody listened. The man in the mask injected a drug into my vein, sending me into a drowsy state. He then made an incision on my belly, causing excruciating pain as I struggled against the four men restraining me.

"Melissa, please leave the child. Don't you want everything I ever wanted? I will give it to you. I will leave New York for you, I will do anything you say, just leave the child. I beg of you… It is innocent"

"There is nothing I want again! I have everything I want. I have the company, I have the mansion, I have your inheritance and most of all, Alex and I are getting married this weekend. I would have sent you an invitation card, but you wouldn't be alive to witness it so…."

She laughed, mocking me. I blinked my teary eyes, Alex's precious message coming back to my memory. 

'They were getting married?'

'No wonder Alex avoided me! No wonder he wanted to throw me in a foreign country!'

'I couldn't believe this! They both used me beneath my very own eyes!'

'Jeraldine was right, she was right about everything!' I wailed, recalling some months ago when Jeraldine sent me a text message warning me about Melissa's plan. 

I was so gullible to tag her as a traitor when the real traitor was my twin! The person I shared the same placenta with in the womb!

"You are regretting not listening to Jeraldine right? Well guess what? I fulfilled your wish. You wanted her dead, and I made sure she died in the most painful manner anyone could think. Then guess what again…"

"What?" I balled my fist, unable to take in such a ruthless confession.

"I framed you up for her death!"