Triiffic-Soul: Can I Be In Control?-Chapter 184 – The Life, Long Since Lived

Chapter 184 – The Life, Long Since Lived

Without flair, the night passed smoothly, and the new day began.

After a long morning of preparing herself, she was ready to explore.

Lilly walked the streets that she once called home... Feelings that had been dormant sprang into life at the familiar sights. A decade wasn’t enough to change this city, the country. Though the people had certainly shifted.

A girl with brown hair and brown eyes, she was ordinary. This form bore a resemblance to her original life, but with enough changes that no one would confuse her. It was almost instinctual, an effort to return to a time long since passed. It took some effort to come out alone and change without being spotted.

She watched as the emotion was rife in the air. Far eclipsing the atmosphere it used to have, she wouldn’t say her previous view of the city was down or depressing. People were excited to learn and experiment with what they had, but now, there was a demand for truth beyond what was found through science.

People wanted to know about people, about families, about history.

She grabbed the newspaper that sat on the stand, paying a few coins for it, like how anyone else would on their weekly routine. Lilly rarely bought these; she never had the disposable income, so she settled for reading the covers or picking up discarded copies.

There were groups of teens and young adults in groups chatting away. It was the weekend, which meant many people weren’t working today. There were still jobs that worked today in Eletscoep, but their breaks were on other days, or they only worked during certain parts of the day. Compared to other countries, Eletscoep was more advanced in that its citizens were extremely self-sufficient and made enough goods to sustain its whole population. It was also a lot smaller than many nearby countries with equally smaller populations.

Lilly had always been proud of that fact. She had read about the state of other countries… though that was still met with its own bias that she never really existed. When it came to their work, it was always important to remove such bias from any part, as it could infect the outcome.

It wasn’t out of malicious intent. Remembering those lessons now, it was simply a matter of pride; people of Eletscoep believed their country to be superior, and in many areas it was. The trio could all admit that there were areas where it was simply better for a person’s life if they were born then elsewhere.

However, despite only being a small aspect, Lilly had seen more of the world and learned that other places had advances that made them shine, and more importantly, weren’t as bad as some of the teachings had indicated. She was a little embarrassed looking back, but a good kind, it was nice to see how far she had grown.

Wow…

Despite being in the city for the third day now, only by going on this walk by herself did she really digest everything she was seeing.

Her heart yearned for the past that has ceased to be. She loved the current her, but the memories of the past haunted her as loving spectres, meaning no harm but causing grief. The pains that life had caused her weren’t gone, but she learned to no longer look towards them; if Lilly ever did, she was ready to stand up to those bad memories.

It took a long rest, healing, and new realisations for Lilly to reach her current state.

She knew that, without all the support she received in those first nine years of her new life, when tragedy struck, she wouldn’t have survived.

The appreciation, gratitude, and love for George and Jen, who raised her with so much love, and for her Syrus and Luna… The two who had to, unfortunately, feel her pain constantly and still chose to drag her out of the pit she had been trapped in. There was no way of knowing it was possible for one of them to be kicked out or destroyed in the body, but Eva knew they would have never looked for such an option.

Lilly blinked to reset her thoughts.

As with their first trip around the city, there was a strangeness, the differences from what she remembered and how things were now. It was never a bad strangeness, but it did cause her heart to shake that so much could change. She wasn’t upset at being left out, but there was a feeling she couldn’t quite describe. So many hidden truths about her world were left hidden, kept away from her, that were now publicly displayed. The intensity in people's joy and anger was something she only saw rarely during a rare event or a bad fight.

The city had changed, and perhaps she would’ve preferred to have lived to see it.

Eventually, she walked past the building where she spent the second half of her schooling.

It was the same large building as it was before. The large building contained education facilities to teach people over multiple years and rooms for more practical lessons to take place.

In the corner of a window, teaching a class, was a man with a slight greyish tinge to his beard. It was hard to see due to the angle and glare of the light, but it appeared to be a blue-haired man who didn’t look particularly aged despite the colours of his beard.

[Someone you recognise?] (Luna)

[...Possibly…] Eva didn’t continue from there.

She walked around the building, trying not to look suspicious as she examined the buildings through the windows. Only students and staff were allowed to enter without additional permission. Her memories compared the experience of her formal education to her time being taught by Jen.

There were certainly benefits to both approaches, and in a normal environment, Jen’s lessons would’ve been the standard parent teaching a child how the world works, while something like the schools Lilly went to would be the places where the major lessons were held. Though Jen was a big exception, a woman who knew so much and was all too willing to teach it all to a child who might not understand it all. Syrus was always ready to admit there was a lot that went over her head during those lessons. 𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖

In the end, it was impossible to deny which one was more fun, but Lilly’s eyes glazed over the building as she remembered her time there fondly… the good moments.

After more wandering down memory lane, she paused at the junction and chose to move in the opposite direction from where her parents once lived.

Eventually, they had reached the place where she used to live.

Her old home looked completely different. It had been bought by someone else, unsurprisingly, and perhaps had swapped hands numerous times. The windows were in the same location, but the curtains weren’t kept closed as they had been in the past. The building appeared to be someone’s normal house, with papers on a desk. They could be a researcher or student, but the key point for Lilly was that it was someone else's house now. Not a touch of her remained; every cupboard and table had been removed and replaced with something else.

[...] Lilly turned around and retraced her steps back to the place she spent the first half of her schooling. Unlike the other building, this one was much smaller, and Lilly herself didn’t hold many memories of this place, but she remembered something else.

She remembered the path she used to always walk when going to and from school every day; the stone had been replaced in some areas, and the muck had been washed in others. Her eyes seemed attracted to the ground as she walked.

Stumbling forward, Lilly’s eyes finally looked up to an old house near the middle of the street. It was nothing special compared to the houses next to it, but it looked to be a fine place to live.

Lilly stood off in the distance with no plans to move even a centimetre closer. How long was she planning on waiting? Honestly, she wasn’t even sure. Saying 'not all day' was true but felt like a cop-out, so she stayed silent.

However, eventually she did get her wish.

Two people walked out of the building. It was near lunchtime on the sixth day of the week, and they usually like to eat out on this day.

Leaving the door first were two aged individuals. The couple looked ordinary and perhaps only at most a decade older than Mary, but compared to the memories, they seemed to have aged twenty in ten years. The man’s hair had gone fully grey, but that was already close to happening by the time Eva left the house. The woman’s hair was still mostly brown, but it had lost its lustre.

[Do you want to interact with them?] (Syrus)

[No.] (Eva)

[You don’t need to lie.] (Luna)

[It is best that I do.] Lilly swallowed the emotions bubbling. [I don’t know if I could control myself otherwise.]

Lilly held everything back. What would she do if she came into contact with them… At best, the meeting would likely destroy so much they had built.

Following the two was a third. A small boy with brown hair and blue eyes appeared to be around at least ten years old based on the trio’s judgement. It was a silent acknowledgement between the three of them. There was enough resemblance between the two and the child that what happened while Eva was gone seemed indisputable. Eva noted the clothes the child wore for school; there was a ribbon for children above ten.

She knew it wasn’t a replacement, and based on the clues, it was likely he was being readied during her last year of life, which made Eva sad that she never even noticed her mother was pregnant, that she was going to have a sibling.

She wasn’t upset.

Not about that.

It was just…

[Ten years have really passed…] Lilly swallowed as she felt the years of the city rewind in front of her, and even as the hands turned to reach the past, she still wasn’t there. Only existing as a corpse on the other end of the city with no one around.

The loneliness never hurt so much before.

Lilly stumbled around and walked away, burying everything deep within.

…

Far from the house.

Lilly crouched on the ground as they sat in the clean alley.

[Are you okay, Lilly?] (Luna)

The words were stuck in her mouth for a moment, but Eva breathed in and replied, [As much as I can be… I…]

Luna and Syrus took a step back as they were ready to hear Eva speak, as they felt the mountain of her emotions wishing to speak.