“I don’t care what you want, Emma. You’ve already taken something import…ant…” She suddenly stopped and left her speech unfinished, froze and quickly shifted her eyes to the floor, then back to me, and back to the floor. She was silent for a few seconds, which felt like minutes, as if she has just said something she has been keeping back for many years now. I started yelling at her and her eyes met mine. All I could see was how hurt she was and how deep inside, she was just like me – allowed to take in an amount of mental damage and pain at a time, before falling apart.
She started tearing up like I never seen before and she just fell to the ground. She always acted so tough and this was probably the first time I seen her tear up ever since her husband got involved with a plane accident. Ever since, we never found or heard about dad’s body and it’s really sad because I never got to see his face again. We never even had a family photo because mum was always busy with her work and dad was always travelling. That night, I sat on my bed, replaying what mum has said – you’ve already taken something important. Have I?
I don’t remember taking something important from her and whatever I supposedly took from her, must have hurt her real bad. It was late when I decided to get something to eat. It was around 1:18am but I couldn’t sleep, probably just because I was thinking too much. I was walking really slowly out of my bedroom, so I wouldn’t wake mum up, when I heard a knock, coming from the front door. I walked towards the door and before I could peek outside the house, the door opened and slammed me so hard in the face, I blacked out. When I woke, I was on my mum’s bed and there was mum, standing, with her back towards me.
When she heard me groan, she rapidly turned to face me and there were scratches all over her face. I started to panic but she stood there calmly, as if she hasn’t seen the scratches covering her face. It wasn’t cuts that you get when you fall over, it was different, it was deep and for once, I actually feared she wouldn’t make it through today. She told me not to worry but I was so frightened she wouldn’t be there for my graduation in another two weeks that I called triple zero. After I knew that she was safe, under special care, I headed back to the house to clean up.
It was around 4:28am when I headed back to the house and saw a dark figure watching over me as I cleaned up the mess. I wasn’t sure if I was imagining it but I felt my hair on the back of my neck standing up. I shut my eyes tight and took a deep breath, then opened them again and the dark figure disappeared, so I must have been visualizing it. That evening, I heard something scattering upstairs but the thing was that I was in the house, alone. I walked towards the stairs and I froze before I was on the first step, as if I was waiting for someone or something to happen.
Then, a note came falling from nowhere, into my hands. It was written in mum’s blood from her scratches in her room and it read, “Airport – 0000h. ” At first I didn’t understand it but eventually, I realised that whoever wrote this note wanted to meet at the airport when midnight strikes. To be honest, I was a bit freaked out but hey, if they wanted me dead, they would’ve done so. I rode to the airport at 11:00pm and I was there a bit earlier than expected. It was 11:58pm when I last checked the time and the mystery somebody didn’t tell me where to meet, so I just stood outside the entrance of the airport.
It was packed full of people so it was hard to move around but for some reason everyone made way for me as I walked passed them. Eventually, it led me to the exact seat I sat on when I saw my father last. It was pretty empty there and when it was 12:00am, I got a phone call saying, NO CALLER ID. I picked up anyway and I heard a voice that sounded exactly like my dad. It wasn’t clear what he said but it was something along the lines of the tunnel and love you, baby. When the person hung up, I knew it was my dad because of all the clues he left behind – the airport, the seat and what he said; love you, baby.
No one ever says that to me except my dad. After everything sunk in, I sat their crying, saying things aloud, in hope that he could hear me and slowly, everything went pitch black. I woke up approximately eight hours after midnight and decided it was time to go home. Not long after I got home, a policeman showed up at my doorstep and told me that my mother had passed away due to the injuries. I mourned her and it was like my life was torn into pieces. I carved the date that mum passed away on a tree dad, mum and I planted in our backyard; under the carved date dad went missing.
As I stood there carving ‘11th of July,’ I realised that my birthday was the next day. It was official that it was going to be the worst birthday of my life and decided that there was nothing better to do other than cleaning out mum’s belongings. Happy Birthday to me! I was cleaning out mum’s belongings for a few hours when something caught my eye. It was an ultrasound…of twins. I thought back to my past life and never saw a pair of twins in my life. Neither mum, nor dad ever talked about me having twin cousins. I was starting to think that mum just kept this ultrasound because she felt like it but something else caught my eye.
The date on the bottom right hand corner stated that the ultrasound was taken on the 2nd of July 1998. Later on, I found a note that read, “Ultrasound of Georgia and Emma ?. ” It was only then that I realized what mum meant the other day about me taking something important away from her but it wasn’t my fault. I didn’t kill my twin sister. I slowly sat on mum’s bed and imagined what life would be like right now if I had a twin sister. Did I kill my twin sister before we were born? A few minutes later, I heard mum’s voice – the tunnel, Emma. I didn’t even know what that meant.
I did everything to try understanding what they meant by ‘the tunnel’ but it was no good so I decided it was time to go to bed since it was a lot for me to take in and if I stayed up trying to discover new things, my head might explode. I woke up the next morning with a jump. Something made me jump and I wasn’t completely sure what. I couldn’t go back to sleep so I continued to clean out mum’s belongings. As I did, I found a diary. It looked old so I assumed it didn’t belong to my parents and decided that there might be things in there to help me understand more about the tunnel.
I wasn’t bothered reading today so I left it on mum’s bed. It was around 6:02pm and I was getting hungry so I decided it would be nice to start making dinner; just to get my mind off things. After dinner, there was a loud bang coming from upstairs. I slowly crept up the staircase and went towards the noise. To my surprise, the diary was opened to a page with ‘the tunnel’ written as it’s heading. I read it and from what I’ve read, the tunnel is where all the deceased belongings are placed so the next day, I placed all mum’s belongings in the tunnel and there were all my dad’s belongings too, and my ancestor’s belongings were even there.
Now, I visit that tunnel at least twice a week when I’m feeling lonely, emotional, depressed or frightened because there’s something magical about that place. It has been two months ever since mum passed away and I got very emotional during my graduation – as no family members of mine were there to see me graduate but I know they were there in spirit. Also, a girl showed up at my doorstep and claims to be Georgia – my long lost twin sister. Is it really her?
