Chapter 3: Who Is Rin
Warona worked as MIT at one of her mother's hotels. Her parents were business people with numerous opportunities, so as a college graduate, it wasn't really an issue for her to know where to go.
It had been barely a week since that talk with her mother and next thing she knew, there was another envelope in her car.
The picture was another family photo of Hans, Riegel, and the twins. Just looking at it felt like poking a wound.
'Just kids we met in the boat'?
Yeah, just kids you met in the boat, Mom. Kids you met in the boat and they looked exactly like you. Anyone could tell it was a lie and that's what hurt Warona most.
Why would her mother lie? They never had family secrets before. All this was so bizarre.
Her parents had always been her closest friends, people she shared the most confidential of information. They never kept anything from each other, it was one of the reasons that kept them together.
Warona couldn't stop staring at the photos. Days turned to nights and her mind couldn't stop conjuring up random stories that made the hair at the back of her neck stand.
In a certain sense, she hoped maybe if she thought hard enough, the answers would come running to her.
______________________________________
"Dude, you okay? You've been spending a lot of time in your head lately", Celine elbowed Warona.
It had been a week and a half since Warona found the photo in her car and she couldn't stop thinking about it. She had now become more sensitive of her parents' affection, pestering if she really was their daughter or if she had any secret siblings for that matter. She needed to talk it out to someone but even Celine didn't look like that person this time. Heck, she needed therapy.
"I'm okay", she lied.
"I'm always here, don't forget that", Celine took Warona's hand, squeezing it.
Warona nodded, fake smiling. They were binging on some movies but all Warona could see was two girls with her parents in another life and it fit so perfectly she wanted to cry.
Just when she thought she was going to go crazy, there was another envelope in her car. There was no photo this time but instead, there was a pink notebook and a note with an address.
' AGGREY STREET.
Bay road.
Plot 02.
Second Row, third. '
She opened the notebook and the owner's name was displayed in such an artistic way someone could think it was printed— ' RIN '.
Warona tried to remember if she knew anyone with that name but there wasn't.
She flipped the pages and realized it was a diary. The handwriting, unfamiliar.
She drove back home faster than she ever did, greeted her parents quickly, and spent her night reading and re-reading the diary until she fell asleep at dawn. It had nothing useful. From the first page to the last, Rin had written about the things she did with her twin sister 'Ren'. It made Warona confused as to why the sender even sent it.
It didn't make sense.
She was late for work the next morning, but that was the last thing in her head as she changed course and followed the address on the note. It was a cemetery. She checked the street names over and over again to confirm she wasn't at the wrong place.
She wasn't. She re-read the note for the nineteenth time and stepped out of the car.
The street was deserted and so silent she could hear her calm footsteps through the pavements.
"Second row ...", she finally understood when she saw the perfectly lined up gravestones.
Why was she being led to a cemetery? She halted, her question being answered as she stood before the third grave on the second row.
'Rin Hans Sylvester' it read, making her breath hitch.
"No ... ", her eyes stang as she stared at the engravings. "She can't be dead"
'Born : June 28, 1995
Died: September 14, 2021'
A deceased sister was the last thing she expected.
Was she too late? Was there something she didn't do? A code she misinterpreted? A paragraph she skipped? Something else to read? There had to be a mistake, and Warona couldn't take the fact that Rin was dead. It didn't sum up.
What happened? What about Ren?
A part of the story was missing and she wasn't taking nothing for an answer.
She traced her fingers over the gravestone and wished she had brought flowers with her.
Whatever it was, a part of her didn't believe the girl was dead. Something inside her just told her otherwise. Like there was a far cry she was yet to answer to. A secret to reveal.
Where was Ren? What really happened to Rin? She needed answers. It wasn't until she sat back in her car did she realize that she was crying.
And here she was hoping she didn't care.
She drove off.
There was another envelope on her office desk when she got hack. When she asked who brought it, they all shook their heads.
There was a note inside.
'REN NEEDS US. NOW.
Dourm Town
Dourm District, Lake Street,
Block E, Apartment No. 319. '
Her breath hitched when she found a plane ticket along with it. No way.
She wasn't up for a flight. She was going nowhere.
"This is just a joke, someone's playing games on me", she muttered. "Ren doesn't need my help because Ren doesn't exist, neither does her twin sister, Rin. I'd be crazy to believe anonymous messages, right?"
Warona concluded that she had better things to do than travel to another region for someone she has never even met, worse yet, someone who probably didn't exist. She put everything back in the envelope and pushed it in the lowest drawer.
She had loving parents, a best friend, a job yet to come, and a life to live. She wasn't going around solving mysteries for the dead or seeing someone she didn't know.
The plane was tomorrow at 8am.
"If you think I'd travel all the way to Dourm Town for that, you're whipped", she forced herself to get back to work. "Never gonna happen."
She deemed whoever the sender was as stupid. If he needed Warona's help so desperately he could show up. She was sure she wouldn't mind giving them a handsome sum of money to solve the case. If there was a case, that is.
Whoever Rin or Ren were, she didn't want to know. Whether they were alive or dead, she tried not to care. Their identities? She didn't want to mess with.