Hidden Shadows Chap. 9 Vengence

“Mmmm… Wha- where am I?!” a girl yells, feeling water run past her. “Am… I in a river…? What’s going on?” the girl sits up in the freezing waters, feeling them run though her legs. Her legs are broken in the femur section, and it was hard for her to stand up. Gradually, she toughs out the pain, and realizes that they weren’t broken at all… did it heal unnaturally…? “I should be heading home…. But…. Why am I here?” 

Wading in the deep river, stepping into thick mud and getting stuck, the girl reaches a bridge, where she notices something on the road. Part of her necklace was lying on the road, the gemstone broken in half. She looks down at her necklace, feeling the fine line of the gem, where it broke.

“Hey miss! You need a ride?!” a stranger asks, waving his hand out of the driver side window.

“Um… I guess I can hop in.” The girl gets into the car’s backseat, leaning back, to where she slouched.

“What’s your name, little miss?” the man asks, not even looking at her.

“…Veronica Cage. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

Hours later after a long drive, Veronica finally arrives home, feeling exhausted and tired. Running to her doorstep, she knocks on the door eagerly, waiting to see her parents again. Once the door opened, her parents, instead of looking shocked, looked troubled.

“Mom, dad… it’s me, your daughter, Veronica! Aren’t you even going to say hello?!” Veronica shouted, feeling like if she was forgotten. Her parents were in tears now, just seeing their daughter home again, but how is she alive, they must be thinking.

“Sorry, dear! We were shocked at first, and had no words to say! Let's get you cleaned up, then we'll eat out, spend time, and--"

"Don't act all kind-hearted! Your faces didn't show any sympathy to me! I'll be in my room if you want to bother me!

Up in Veronica's room, the girl is all up in tears, weeping as she knows her family may not love her anymore… their actions proved it, and it was like if they wanted her gone… As she falls asleep, she hears a familiar voice… or voices. They were the same voices that are constantly making her insane.

"Tell me… what is Rosalia…? I need to know what it is, please." Veronica spoke up in a quaky voice. As she swallows down her tears, she suddenly gets a hallucination, where she sees a ton of symptoms involving the virus she now is a survivor of. She notices aggression coming from various people, blood loss, the abnormal bruising, and other things that involved it.

After seeing the results, Veronica walks across the hall and heads into the bathroom. Pulling on the short sleeve of her shirt, she notices the strange, black marking on her shoulder. Understanding what Rosalia was, which is a virus, it was responsible for her death, actions, and aggression. Now the truth's shining down on her… she must tell her parents. As she walks back to her room, she closes her door, seeing the scratches that now mark her wooden door. Dried blood also marks its territory, showing the pain she must have felt in her last moments. The mirror shards from her now broken mirror are in one corner of her room, her earring now sitting among the shards. She feels her ear, and winces at a small amount of pain; her ear has torn, perhaps after she died, her earring was ripped off her ear as she was being traveled out. 

"Something must be done to my parents… they must die for leaving their child in Death's arms." Veronica tells herself. Picking up the largest mirror shard she could take out of the pile, she leaves her room and quietly walks downstairs, where she sees her parents in the living room. 

"I know she died a few days ago… how can she just come back from the dead so suddenly?" Alice Cage said, turning her coffee cup in her hands.

"I am just as confused as you are, Alice. We have to get rid of Veronica somehow. She can't stay here any more… not after what she did."

"But we can't just kill her again. We can send her to an orphanage… or let her move out. I mean, she's 23! She can take care of herself."

At that moment, time froze for the parents as they fall to the ground, their eyes blank and empty. The back of their chests start to bleed out in a steady stream of crimson liquid. Veronica looks around outside, checking to see if anyone noticed.

"Coast is clear." Veronica sighed, closing the front door.